Scribd
Upload
33 views

Assignment 4 - Forecasting (Due Date: May 20, 2021, 16:00 Hours)

This document outlines an assignment for a marketing manager to forecast food retail sales for the year 2014 in France. The manager is provided with sales data from the past 10 years categorized into supermarket, drink, and other specialized food sales. The assignment involves graphing and analyzing the total sales data using linear regression and multiplicative models, calculating forecast accuracy, selecting the best model to forecast year 2014 sales, and investigating whether individual category forecasts combined provide better results than using total sales data. The analysis is to be conducted in Excel and summarized in a 6-page maximum Word report with tables, graphs, and addressing all questions and subquestions.

Uploaded by

Ali Moazzam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
33 views

Assignment 4 - Forecasting (Due Date: May 20, 2021, 16:00 Hours)

This document outlines an assignment for a marketing manager to forecast food retail sales for the year 2014 in France. The manager is provided with sales data from the past 10 years categorized into supermarket, drink, and other specialized food sales. The assignment involves graphing and analyzing the total sales data using linear regression and multiplicative models, calculating forecast accuracy, selecting the best model to forecast year 2014 sales, and investigating whether individual category forecasts combined provide better results than using total sales data. The analysis is to be conducted in Excel and summarized in a 6-page maximum Word report with tables, graphs, and addressing all questions and subquestions.

Uploaded by

Ali Moazzam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Assignment 4 – Forecasting (Due Date: May 20, 2021, 16:00 hours)

Assume that this is the beginning of year 2014 and you have joined a retail giant in
France, a few days ago, as a marketing manager. You have been tasked with forecasting
the sales for year 2014. Just to make yourself aware of the past sales figures, you request
your secretary to provide you with the sales figures for the past ten years. She complies
with your request and provides data in an excel sheet. While looking at the sheet, you
notice that food sales are categorized into 1) Super market and grocery stores, 2) Drink
sales, and 3) Other specialized food retailing items. Each of the above-mentioned data is
given in a separate column (i.e., columns C-E). The last column contains the total of the
three categories.

Your manager has specifically requested to provide a report that contains all important
observations, your analysis, decisions made along with justifications, forecasts, and
interpretations.

Part A: You decide to use data in column F only (i.e., Total food retailing sales) and to
split your data into two groups. First 80% of observations will be used to construct different
models. Remaining 20% of data will be used to calculate forecast accuracies of models.
Best model will then be used to make forecasts for next 12 months (year 2014).

a) Graph the data and identify its components (5% marks)


b) Based on the data, use linear regression to obtain a model of the trend component.
Describe and interpret the resulting model in your report. (5% of marks)
c) Assuming a multiplicative model, construct two different models. In first model,
estimate trend component by using LSR and in second model using MA. Construct
seasonal index for both models, de-seasonalize data, and make estimates for both
models. (30% of marks).
d) Calculate forecast accuracies of both models by using last two years data. (5% of
marks)
e) Pick the best model and make forecast for year 11. (5% of marks)
Part B: After following above-mentioned steps, you were very happy with your progress
and decided to write a report and present it to your boss. One of your friends came to visit
you while you were writing your report. He asked a very interesting question that made
you think to do further investigation. His asked, “Is it necessary to estimate year 11 values
by using the “Total Food retailing” data? Why can’t you forecast the values for each of the
categories individually and then add them together to come up with final forecasts?” You
ponder upon his question and then decide to make forecast for each of the categories
and then combine forecasts. That means that now,
a) for each of the categories of retails sales (supermarket, drink and specialized
categories), you need to split data and follow the steps (a, c, d).
b) pick the best models, combine their forecasts for year 9 & 10, and
c) compare it with the best model that you obtained in Part A.
You should finally provide in your analysis which method is a good one i.e., using “Total
food retailing” data or “Combining individual forecasts of each category”. (50% of marks)

Presentation and submission details:


a) Conduct all parts of the analysis using Microsoft Excel.
b) Summarize your work in the form of a managerial report written in Microsoft Word. The
report should discuss the findings of your analysis and present key results using tables or
graphs. All tables and graphs should be fully labelled, numbered and referred to in the full
text of your report.
c) Make sure to address all of the questions in your report (including sub-questions where
you are asked to motivate, comment, explain, etc.), but be concise: overall, your report
should use NO MORE than SIX sides of A4. Use a minimum font size of Arial 10 point.
d) Technical details / workings for individual questions should not be included in the report
(unless indicated otherwise for specific sub-questions), but they need to be available (and
clearly identifiable) in the accompanying Microsoft Excel workbook.
e) You will be marked on the correctness of your answers, your use of Excel and your
presentation (e.g., layout, font size, keeping to the page limit, spelling, grammar, use of
tables and charts, consistent number of decimal places).
f) You MUST submit your report and excel workbook through email and Slate by 16:00 hours
on Saturday the 20th May 2021.
g) You MUST work on your own, any evidence of plagiarism will result in a mark of zero.
h) Only group leader has to upload assignments (Excel + word file) on Slate and send email
to module leader.

You might also like