Breaking News: ToolsGroup acquires Mi9 Retail Demand Management Business creating a prowerful production-to-purchase planning solution.
Get Accurate, Demand-Driven Forecasts with Mi9 Demand Forecasting
Mi9 Demand Forecasting automates the production of your forecasts incorporating predictive analytics, non-linear regression, pattern matching, and autonomous machine learning – accommodating everything from erratic products to seasonal variations and trends. With smarter forecasts that represent true demand, you’ll avoid poor forecasting outcomes like overstocks, product obsolescence, and lost sales.
Watch the Demand Forecasting Video
Watch this short video to learn about the key features and benefits of Mi9 Demand Forecasting and see it in action.
Forecast Tournament
Mi9 Demand Forecasting uses sophisticated and proprietary modeling algorithms to generate a forecast that’s based on true demand history. You don’t have to decide which forecasting algorithm will be the most accurate – Mi9 Retail does that for you by automatically running a Tournament of Best Fit.
In the tournament, 14 world-class forecasting methods compete against each other to determine which method should be used for a particular product. Each model is back-casted and compared against actual demand, which is computed by the Forecast Method Fit – a measure of forecast accuracy using Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE). The model with the best method fit wins and is used to forecast.
Trend & Seasonality
Mi9 Demand Forecasting keeps up with trends and seasonality by running the same powerful forecasting methods used by world’s biggest brands. Seasonality captures the year-over-year recurring pattern that’s typically visible in either weekly or monthly periods. Trends are calculated by removing recurrent and periodic variations. This way, you won’t misinterpret seasonal variations as growth or decay.
Lost Sales
For the most effective demand forecasting, you need true demand history, not just sales history. Mi9 Retail provides this critical piece by identifying periods of insufficient stock, which are then used to calculate lost sales. You’ll get the full picture of what sales might have been, had there been enough of the products in stock that your customers wanted.
Supersessions
When you launch a new product, supersessions are an important tool enabling you to carry the right amount of product in your stores or warehouses. They help generate a forecast for an item that would otherwise have no sales history. All you have to do is link new products to the sales history of similar existing products. Supersessions improve accuracy in your forecasts and can even capture seasonality for an item that has insufficient sales history.
Promotions
Promotion planning is quick and simple in Mi9 Demand Forecasting. Once you create a promotion type and link it to an item, it’s a simple matter of flagging those historical periods where the promotion occurred. The solution then captures the promotional lift impact and automatically adjusts the forecast for those future periods where you plan to run the promotion again.
Manual Adjustments
The science of demand forecasting isn’t all-knowing. Sometimes you have “insider” knowledge the system doesn’t, such as an upcoming price change, a past one-time promotion, or a future business expansion. Mi9 Retail lets you make manual history and forecast adjustments for situations like this. You can also override information, even to follow a hunch. After all, you’re the industry expert.
