Forecast Need
In business, it is often paramount to make an accurate prediction of future events to meet the emerging needs (Ord & Fildes, 2013). The proposed forecast will be aimed at investigating the question about how many new client managers will be needed for the company to appropriately address an increasing number of customers in the next season. The number of clients is expected to rise due because a new service will be launched in a few months. To select the technique for carrying out the forecast, the method proposed by Georgoff and Murdick (1986) will be employed.
Forecast Situation Analysis
Table 1 below provides answers to the basic questions required for selecting an appropriate forecasting technique according to the method provided by Georgoff and Murdick (1986).
Table 1. Answers to the Basic Questions Needed to Select a Forecasting Technique. (Georgoff & Murdick, 1986, pp. 4-5).
Recommendations
The analysis that was conducted to find out which forecasting technique best suits the need to estimate the required quantity of new client managers to deal with the expected increasing number of customers allowed for concluding that Jury of Executive Opinion best suits the specified requirements of the planned analysis. More specifically, this type of technique was best supported by the table provided in Georgoff and Murdick (1986, pp. 4-5). According to that table, no aspects of the said technique are weak when it comes to the details of the situation that should be analyzed to make the required forecast; 6 aspects are marked as “neutral” (white) in the table (that is, they are neither weak nor strong); and 3 aspects are shown as “strong” (light gray).
In addition to that, Exponential Smoothing apparently ought to be considered the next best method for predicting the required number of new employees during the coming season. According to the table provided in Georgoff and Murdick (1986), only one aspect of this technique remains weak (it is highlighted in dark gray in the table) when it comes to the analysis (pp. 4-5). On the other hand, 5 aspects of the analysis are marked in the table as “strong” (that is, they are highlighted in light gray in the said table), and 3 of its aspects are seen to be neither strong nor weak when evaluated against the aspects of the needed analysis.
The forecast of the Jury of Executive Opinion requires gathering the professional opinions of experts from within the various areas of the organization in question (Georgoff & Murdick, 1986). In this case, it is possible to obtain the opinions of the top managers of the company, the sales department, and the HR department. The data that they will have to consider will include the expected volume of sales and the information about the staff needed for serving customers given certain sales figures in the past. The analysis may only need to be repeated after the launch of the product to see if the number of the hired employees is sufficient and not redundant. The results will be used to determine how many new client managers to hire before launching the new service.
At the same time, Exponential Smoothing will be executed by the HR department of the organization. The data will come from the records of the company about past sales. It is expected that the analysis will not need to be repeated. The results will be utilized to estimate the number of new client managers to be hired before the new service will be launched.
References
Georgoff, D. M., & Murdick, R. G. (1986). Manager’s guide to forecasting. Harvard Business Review, 64(1), 110-120.
Ord, K., & Fildes, R. (2013). Principles of business forecasting. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.