Subjective techniques

Abstract

Up to now we have concentrated on objective forecasting techniques which rely on mathematics to a greater or lesser degree in their computation. It could be said that all forecasting relies on mathematics, because at the end of the day we must produce a set of figures in the form of a sales forecast. However, for one reason or another, it may not be appropriate to employ an objective technique, and the forecaster may be reduced to using one of the judgemental methods that are termed subjective (or intuitive) techniques (or, more unkindly perhaps, ‘naive’ methods). This chapter describes such techniques, and it is demonstrated later that it is possible to use a combination of subjective and objective techniques when preparing a sales forecast.