Demand Planning & Sales Forecasting Consulting

Author:Dr. İlker Guclu Latest update:05 July 2025

Demand planning covers all planning activities that help an organisation accurately forecast the timing and quantity of demand for its products or services.

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Forecasting is made difficult by the many factors that influence demand.

Companies that plan demand better than their competitors will be able to plan production and purchasing more effectively, provide more reliable lead times to customers and improve competitiveness through cost and price advantages. These competitive benefits translate into sustained market share and customer portfolio growth.

In practice, a properly designed demand planning framework is a precondition for sustainable profitability.

We observe that many firms suffering production and purchasing issues actually do not plan demand accurately.

Demand planning processes must produce the forecasts needed for long-, medium- and short-term planning.

Long-term forecasts are strategic projections (typically 2–10 years) of total sales used for strategic business and investment planning.

Medium-term forecasts are aggregate forecasts for 12–24 month horizons used in budgeting and S&OP processes.

Short-term forecasts are detailed forecasts for products sold over horizons up to 2–3 months.

There are standard practices and software options for statistical forecasting.

But how demand planning is structured depends on sales & marketing strategies, product/brand management, production strategies, supply chain operations and relationships, the nature of customer demand, data interpretation and assumptions.

Therefore demand planning must be tailored to each organisation.

These factors make demand planning a 'bespoke' activity: processes, roles, analysis methods and supporting tools vary by company.

What Demand Planning Services Does Optimum Planlama Offer?

Optimum Planlama provides consulting services to design customized demand planning and forecasting processes and related tools.

To embed demand planning thinking and align functions, we recommend starting with an in-house workshop.

Our demand-planning-related training and workshop topics include the following.

For company-specific demand planning consulting, please contact us or submit a quote request.

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