Sonia Miller cannot believe what she has just heard. Having
joined Scalar Products as a Market Analyst and Planner she has just
been informed that the company has no sales forecasting system and
Finance simply examine previous sales when doing next year’s
estimated sales for budgeting purposes. She cannot understand how
the company has managed to operate effectively without one. Her
marketing manager, however, a very competent technical engineer who
has over the years moved through sales and into marketing in the
company, believes that all forecasts are simply a waste of time.
His view is that what is going to happen will happen and no amount
of forecasting will affect this. Moreover, he has pointed out that
in his experience forecasts are usually wrong and so it is better
to do without them.

Although Sonia has already pleaded her case regarding the need
for and uses of sales forecasts, her manager is adamant that she
should spend her time on other ‘more useful activities’. Sonia,
however, feels that she cannot effectively do her job with regard
to helping prepare marketing plans without an effective system of
sales forecasting.
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QUESTIONS:

1. How can Sonia persuade her manager that sales forecasts are
not only useful, but essential, in the marketing planning
process?

2. What should she advise her manager in relation to the types
of forecasts and forecasting techniques might be useful in any
newly established system of forecasting?