CMAF FFT: Forecasting Software Trends for the Next Decade
Channel: Lancaster CMAF
Date: 17/05/2021

This is the fifteenth webinar in the series of "Friday Forecasting Talks", hosted by Centre for Marketing Analytics and Forecasting of Lancaster University, UK.
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lancastercmaf/
on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LancasterCMAF​​​
CMAF webinars: https://cmaf-fft.lp151.com/​​​
Slides from CMAF FFT webinars: https://github.com/lancastercmaf/FFT​

-- Contents of this video --------------------------
00:00​​​ - Introduction
02:10 - Start of the presentation
05:55 - IT driven trends
09:28 - Analytical engines
12:48 - Progressive Web Applications
15:34 - Process-driven trends
21:41 - Consumption of analytics
25:32 - Algorithms-driven trends: Machine Learning
31:58 - COVID effects on forecasting software
35:15 - Comments from Oliver Schaer
44:44 - Q&A. Security of cloud services
46:03 - How to design software for safe use of ML
47:47 - How to convince practitioners that forecasting is important

The abstract: A well-designed forecasting support system, in the form of a commercial package or based on open source, is essential to enable analysts to generate reliable and robust forecasts in a production environment. In recent years, the availability of options for forecasting support systems has been steadily growing and expanding. There are two main drivers of this growth: the evolution of technology common to much of the software industry, and the evolution of algorithms and methodologies specific to forecasting. This talk explores these two elements of change and tries to extrapolate some common trends that will drive innovation and growth in forecasting software for the next few years.

Michele Trovero is currently leading the Forecasting R&D group at SAS. He has over 17 years of experience in the development of commercial forecasting software. His interests cover a wide variety of topics related to forecasting, time series analysis, and machine learning. He has presented at several international conferences on these topics. He received a PhD in statistics from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and has a degree in economics from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. When he’s not thinking about forecasting or driving his children to activities, you can find Michele running or riding his bikes.

Images by https://storyset.com/​