Forecasting in organizations

What long-range forecasts can be used for?

Long-range forecasting can be used in the following three scenarios:

  1. It can provide us an opportunity to make accurate predictions as we get to account for significantly longer time and many perspectives.
  2. Long term forecasting can help in systematic research of the future trends.
  3. Long term forecasting is economically feasible as we can predict the behavior of our competitors and can prepare for it.

Three major types of forecasts that organizations use in planning future operations.

Following are the three types of forecasting that organizations can use to plan future operations:

  1. Demand forecast: This forecast is important to predict the demand for the products or services that the organization is offering.
  2. Technological forecast: These forecast are used to predict the advancement in the technologies related to an organization. Organizations may use these forecast to plan to upgrade its present technologies.
  3. Economic forecast: This type of forecast is used to study the market trends related to the business cycles of an organization. It is mostly related to financial aspects of an organization.