Practical Business Forecasting: A First Course

Statistical Services and Consultancy Unit

University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

Contact: Neil Spencer (statistics@herts.ac.uk)

 

Tuesday 17th – Wednesday 18th July 2012
  • Do you make forecasts at work?
  • Do you want to understand and improve what you are doing when making forecasts?
  • You need to know about Practical Business Forecasting

Who is it for?

This course is aimed at all who need to learn about the role played by forecasting in modern business. It teaches the practical use of the most common forecasting methods and subsequent presentation of results to a business audience.

What prior knowledge is assumed?

No prior computing knowledge is assumed apart from the ability to use a basic Excel spreadsheet. The course is taught using Excel 2007 but anyone familiar with Excel 2003 will be able to participate fully. Some simple formulae are used so participants should have GCSE Maths to benefit fully from the course.

What does the course cover?

The topics covered in the course are:

  • The role of forecasting in business
  • The forecasting process
  • Moving average methods
  • Exponential Smoothing
  • Handling seasonality
  • Handling curved and straight trends
  • Causal regression with multiple predictors
  • Construction of models using Excel
  • Presentation of results numerically and graphically

The course provides hands-on experience to build and use the simple but most commonly used Excel forecasting models under the expert guidance of a tutor.

Course fee: £560 (£466.67 excl VAT) including teas/coffees, and lunches

Discounts are available for those attending more than one course (e.g. Practical Business Forecasting: A Further Course), research students, those on limited incomes and University of Hertfordshire staff and students.

Please see below for a draft programme and click here to see how to apply(and details of fees/discounts). For enquiries, please phone 01707 285574 or e-mail statistics@herts.ac.uk.

Please click for details of accommodation available and maps/travel information.

Draft Programme

Day One

10:00 Registration and tea/coffee (room M116)

10:30 Domestic announcements and introductions

10:45 The importance and role of forecasting in business

11:15 The forecasting process

12:00 Simple and weighted Moving Average methods

12:45 Lunch

13:30 Error measures; Simple exponential smoothing;

Picking the best model – Optimising with the Solver tool

15:30 Tea/Coffee

16:00 Solving a Case Study – Part 1

17:00 Data quality and review

17:30 End of day

Day Two

09:15 Tea/Coffee

09:30 Forecasting data with trend

10:45 Tea/Coffee

11:15 Seasonal models

12:30 Lunch

13:15 Solving a Case Study – Part 2

13:45 Causal regression with multiple predictors

14:30 Solving a Case Study – Part 3

15:30 Tea/Coffee

16:00 Solving a Case Study – Review of Results

16:30 Presenting your results to a business audience

17:15 Summary and feedback

17:30 End of course

Please note that this programme is intended as a guide only and may be subject to change.