Survey of Large Companies in Brazil about Demand Management

This article presents the analysis of the responses by 50 companies to a survey on Demand Forecasting in Organizations. The method used was an exploratory descriptive type survey. The practices identified fall into five categories - Functional Integration, Approach, System, Forecasting Errors and Performance. The article presents the issue in detail, including the methodology, results and final considerations. The results show that 52% of the responding companies conducted was considered an intermediate level of demand forecasting. Some of the problems identified include: many companies do not define forecasting errors for products; do not offer training in forecasting techniques; only use simple quantitative techniques; 60% of the companies do not use structured qualitative techniques; companies do not offer rewards or incentives for the forecasting process and only a few company departments define the amounts forecast. In general, the study found that companies have plans to implement demand forecasting practices, which tend to occur in isolation.