As a market leader in the heavy duty truck industry, serving well over 100 international markets, the manufacturer was interested in forecasting the number of registered trucks in Europe weighing over 6 tons. Beyond that, they needed to have the ability to plan for optimal capacity to meet market turns and shifts. To do so, they required accurate forecasts of their aggregated sales volumes.
However, this was currently not the case.
Their forecast accuracy was low and this led to an inability to detect trend shifts. This subsequently hindered them from optimizing capacity planning. Additionally, due to a dependency on building models in Excel, suboptimal decisions were made.
What were their challenges
Lack of accurate forecasting
Their Excel-based forecasting methodology resulted in low forecast accuracy and an inability to detect trend shifts. This subsequently hindered them from optimizing capacity planning
Aligning forecasting globally
There was a requirement to extend forecasting coverage to more markets for both demand and production needs. Due to a heavy reliance on a scarce team covering multiple markets globally, this was not possible.
Meet market shifts
They needed to have the data to adapt production capacity efficiently and ahead of time to meet market turns and shifts, and to date, this was not possible.
What did they want to achieve?
01 Minimize forecast error margin
02 Identify new market drivers, evaluate new policies, and their impact on the market
03 Extend coverage of more markets for both demand and production
They were able to detect trends shifts 1-2months earlier than before. This meant that they were able to minimize the discrepancy gap between what was internally forecasted and the market reality.
Here were the results:
Gained the ability to detect market shifts
With Indicio, they were able to detect trends shifts 1-2months earlier than before. This meant that they were able to minimize the discrepancy gap between what was internally forecasted and the market reality. This ensured that cost management and resource planning were optimized.
Improved forecast accuracy
With the application of econometrics forecast models, the manufacturer achieved a double-digit MAPE forecast accuracy improvement.
Aligned forecasting globally
Successfully established a structured process across all markets and ease of sharing forecasts ensured that they worked in the same way, and enabled them to share information seamlessly.
