Forecasting
Forecasting demand for customer service is one of the most
important ingredients in the planning and scheduling process. QServ provides
several options for creating forecasts of sales and other measures
of work (drivers).
The options range from simple entry of forecasts to
calculation of forecasts at the merchandise level based on sales history.
Direct Entry of Forecasts
QServ makes direct entry of forecasts simple. Corporate administrators can enter forecasts by week
by location and store managers can then refine the top level forecast by distributing the forecast
to individual scheduling areas by day.
Import Forecasts
If your organization has an existing forecasting system the output from that system can
be easily imported into the QServ database.
Forecast Calculation
The QServ Forecasting engine generates year-over-year sales forecasts at the merchandise level by day using
historical data. The merchandise level forecasts are linked
to scheduling areas based on a cross-reference table. This detailed level forecasting by day by scheduling area
(typically not available in merchandise systems) is used to predict the workload
for each scheduling area.
Holidays, promotions, and other special events are taken into account by linking
them to similar events in the prior year using the Event Calendar.
The detailed forecasts created by QServ can be easily scaled up or down so that company or location totals are consistent
with those from an alternative (e.g., financial) system, while preserving QServ's
detail level forecasts which are necessary for calculating ideal staffing requirements.
Forecast relationships can be defined that extend system generated forecasts based on historical data into forecasts
for other drivers for which historical data is not available.
For example, forecast relationships can be used to create a forecast for a back
office driver based on the sales forecast.