Making the forecast
By now, you have squeezed the patterns out of your sales records and decided how you are going to develop your forecast. It is time for some spreadsheeting. Begin by building a completely mechanical forecast, and then add in judgement or cause and effect. This is discussed next.
Rulers only
Figure 10.4 shows the analysis from the previous chapter (Fig. 9.3), with most of the patterns projected mechanically into the future – for 2007 and 2008. This is the step-by-step approach (you can walk through it in the workbook that accompanies this chapter – see website).
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