Important Functions to Know Before Performing Forecasting in Excel.

Why is Forecasting Important for an Analyst?.If you are a beginner in the world of data science and analytics I would recommend these free courses to get started: We will be forecasting the sales for the remaining months of 2020 and will also see the effect of coronavirus on our forecast. In this article, we will be working on a very interesting case study of a local sweet shop. So why not learn how to build forecasts in Excel yourself? I love this! Excel brings the predictive power of forecasting to everyone without any knowledge of statistics and programming. Anyone from analysts and managers to executives and investors can leverage the power of Excel to create these forecasts for the business. Here’s the thing – Microsoft Excel is one of the most versatile and easily-accessible tools for drawing up these business forecasts. Analytics professionals are at the forefront of designing forecasts – quite a significant advantage to have! As Shark Tank alludes to throughout the show, if you can’t perform a forecast for your business/product/service, you’re heading for trouble, folks.įorecasting is everywhere – sales, marketing, operations, finance, etc.

Given the scalable nature of business these days, I used to wonder how in the world are these guys forecasting their sales numbers? For someone who wasn’t yet acquainted with forecasting, this sure was an intriguing topic.Īnd let’s face it – forecasting is at the core of what we do in analytics and/or data science. Wonderful always asked – “What is your sales forecast for this year?” It’s such a simple question yet it started a conversation about the entire business model, framework, suitability, etc. I first came across the term forecasting, in the real-world business sense, in the popular TV show ‘Shark Tank’.

We’ll work on a real-world case study to design and forecast sales in Microsoft Excel.

Learn how to build an accurate forecast in Excel – a classic technique to have for any analytics professional.

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