How to make a "Fast Forecast"

Complete explanation of "Fast Forecast", from the choice of products to plan to the quantity to order from suppliers

1. Choose my products to plan

By clicking on the "Potential" page, you will be presented with a list of all products created in your PLM (or ERP depending on the brand). 

By default the list is loaded with the last season created (here for example "2023E")

You can search for your product directly by entering the reference name or the reference code in the search field. 

You can also open the filters by pressing the "Filters" field in the banner above the listing. You can then filter on another season, a family, a sub-family, a color or a fashion level. 

You can also open the filters by pressing the "Filters" field in the banner above the listing. You can then filter on another season, a family, a sub-family, a color or a fashion level. 

When you choose only one product, you will have the possibility to make a detailed forecast, when you choose several products, you will have the possibility to make a fast forecast. 

(NOTE: Here we will focus on Fast Forecast. To know how to make a detailed forecast, please refer to the article "How to make a detailed forecast?" ici)

 

2. Enter the parameters for the selected products

To make a sales forecast, the algorithms need some parameters:

• The sales dates (a forecast is only valid for given dates)
• The stores where the products will be sold
• The product size grids
• The objectives of the sales rate
• The growth on the product typology
• Expected product performance

Expected product performance: 

Here, to make a forecast, there is no need to choose a little brother product. It will be enough to project the new products in one of the five groups created by our algorithms:

• 1 star (SLOWEST SELLERS): the 10% of the products in the family that sell the least (with the lowest ROS)
• 2 stars (SLOW SELLERS): the next 20% of the products in the family in terms of ROS. These are products that sell quite low on average compared to the family.
• 3 stars (AVERAGE SELLERS): the 40% of the products of the family that are in the average in terms of ROS.
• 4 stars (FAST SELLERS): the next 20% of the products in the family in terms of ROS. These are products that sell better than the family average.  
• 5 stars (TOP SELLERS): the 10% of the products in the family that have the highest ROS. 

Choosing a performance level for your product means estimating the ability of this product to sell, compared to the family average. 

 

3. View results and save scenarios

When you go to the next step, the algorithms give a sales forecast, in quantity and average scroll rate, as well as the quantities to buy. 

You can then go back to the parameter step if you want to change one or more parameters, or then change the status of the scenario.

By default, the created scenarios are in "created", but you can directly change them to "validated" to find them again in the scheduling part or in the follow-up during the season. To do so, just click on the button and choose "validated".

You can also delete a scenario if you wish. It will then not be saved.

As soon as you are satisfied with your forecasting session, you can validate. A window will then open to offer you a shortcut to 3 actions you might want to do. 

 

NOTE: How many products can I launch in Fast Forecast? 

It is possible to launch many products at the same time, but the initialization of the scenarios can take some time, because we bring back all the necessary data and launch all the automatic analyses on the products.

Therefore, it is recommended not to launch more than 20 products at the same time.