Patent ID: 6804657
Filing Date: 2004-10-12
Classification: G06Q,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer-implemented method of generating a real time global sales forecast for a multi-national company, comprising the steps of:defining an hierarchical structure for a sales force of the company, the hierarchical structure being a global sales hierarchical structure that includes a national hierarchical sales structure for each country where the company maintains a sales force; defining a place within the hierarchical structure for each member of the sales force; accepting original pipeline sales information remotely entered by members of the sales force over a computer network, the original pipeline sales information is accepted in a plurality of national currencies; storing the original pipeline sales information in a database, the stored original pipeline sales information being tagged to that member of the sales force having entered the original pipeline sales information; selectively modifying pipeline sales information included in the stored original pipeline sales information to generate forecast sales information while maintaining the stored original pipeline sales information unchanged; storing the forecast sales information in the database and tagging the stored forecast sales information to that member of the sales force having modified the pipeline sales information; and selectively aggregating the stored sales forecast information according to a hierarchy indicated by the hierarchical structure to generate, upon request, a real time global sales forecast over a selected time period, by selectively aggregating the stored sales forecast information of each national hierarchical sales structure in at least one of the plurality of national currencies, converting a currency of each aggregated stored sales forecast information into the at least one of the plurality of national currencies, and aggregating each of the currency-converted and aggregated stored sales forecast information to generate the real time global sales forecast.