CMAF FFT: Pragmatic insight on forecasting during the global pandemic
Channel: Lancaster CMAF
Date: 14/12/2020

This is the sixth webinar in the series of "Friday Forecasting Talks", hosted by Centre for Marketing Analytics and Forecasting of Lancaster University, UK.
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-- Contents of this video --------------------------
00:00 - Introduction
01:23 - Previous and future talks
03:48 - Demand Forecasting with R
05:30 - How has pandemic impacted our process?
11:10 - Forecast Pro example
13:56 - What our customers are telling us
18:08 - Phases of pandemic
23:54 - Strategies for forecasting
30:40 - Using dynamic regression for forecasting
39:36 - Examples with dynamic regression
50:05 - Summary
52:10 - Q&A session
1:06:34 - Final remarks

The abstract: Just as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all our lives, it has had a major impact on virtually all businesses. While some businesses have seen demand surge, others have seen it plummet. While some businesses continue to observe a disruptive influence on demand, others have seen demand stabilize to a new normal. Many companies continue to struggle with stockouts and longer lead times. This webinar will provide pragmatic insight into how to use Forecast Pro’s methods and techniques to create accurate forecasts during the global pandemic. Drawing upon their extensive expertise in forecasting approaches that have been successfully used during this and other business disruptions, Sarah and Erik will provide an overview of how Forecast Pro can be used to account for the impact of Covid-19 in statistical models and how to efficiently integrate judgmental overrides in large scale forecasting projects. Erik and Sarah will profile several business categories, review the methods that are best suited to each group and demonstrate these approaches in Forecast Pro TRAC using real-world examples
Sarah Darin (sdarin@forecastpro.com) is a Vice President at Business Forecast Systems. Sarah received her undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and has a M.S. in Statistics from the University of Chicago, where she was a PhD candidate (ABD) and served as a Lecturer.
Erik Subatis (esubatis@forecastpro.com) is Sales Director at Business Forecast Systems. Erik started at BFS as a product specialist and has been Sales Director for the past 8 years. Erik has a B.A in Writing from Ithaca College and expects to earn a Master’s in Software Engineering from Harvard Extension School next year.