The video above will demonstrate how to make a Sales Forecast for an existing product and a new product, as well as the complementary production decisions for both.
Just a note that for our example in calculating the Planned Production units for our existing product, you will see that we have Closing Inventory. However, if you have no units of Closing Inventory, you do no need to subtract any units from your Sales Forecast to calculate your Planned Production.
We have provided you with the script for the video below to read through:
“In MikesBikes Advanced you will be required to enter a Planned Production decision for each of your products. Your Planned Production will be your Sales Forecast minus any existing stock.
Planned Production = Sales Forecast – Existing Stock
How do I conduct a Sales Forecast?
A Sales Forecast is a prediction of the number of units we believe we can sell in the year ahead. This is calculated by predicting our market share for the year ahead; being the percentage of the total market we believe we can secure.
Estimated Market Size Next Year x Percentage Market Share
What is our market share?
So what we need to do first is to identify our current market share through the Market Summary report. We can see that for our RC Rockhopper product, we had a market share of 49.8% of the total unit sales last year.
What is the estimated market size next year?
We then need to find out what the total market size will be for the year ahead. If we look at the Market Information report, we can see the forecast demand for the year ahead is 45,000 units.
Calculating our Sales Forecast
Therefore, in this example our Sales Forecast would be 49.8% of 45,000 units. Being 22,410 units.
Note that if you believe that based on your decisions for the year ahead you can increase your market share from last year, you would adjust this figure.
For this example, we believe our market share will remain constant therefore Sales Forecast will be 22,410 units.
Calculating our Planned Production
Now that we have a Sales Forecast we can calculate our Planned Production.
We can see on the Product Summary report that we have 1,698 units of Closing Inventory.
Therefore, our Planned Production is 22,410 minus 1,698 units. Being 20,712 units.
This is entered this into the Products screen under “Pricing”.
How do I conduct a Sales Forecast for a New Product?
For a new product, the challenge is we do not have any existing sales to calculate a Sales Forecast from.
Therefore, a Sales Forecast for a new product can only be based on the Forecast Total Market Size.
In this example, we are wanting to launch into the Leisure market.
The Market Information report tells us that for the year ahead, the Forecast Demand for the year ahead is 26,000 units.
If we then look at the Market Summary report we can see that there were no competitor products in this market last year. However, given the opportunity an empty market creates, we should assume that at least one other competitor will also launch into this market.
Considering this Single-Player scenario only has one other competitor we can aim to produce 50% of the Leisure market’s total size which is 13,000 units. Click Apply”
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