Demand or sales forecasting is a scientific exercise. It has to go through a number of steps. At each step, you have to make critical considerations. Such considerations are categorically listed below: 1) Nature of forecast: To begin with, you should be clear about the uses of forecast data- how it is related to forward planning and corporate planning by the firm. Depending upon its use, you have to choose the type of forecasts: short-run or long-run, active or passive, conditional or non-conditional etc. 2) Nature of product: The next important consideration is the nature of product for which you are attempting a demand forecast. You have to examine carefully whether the product is consumer goods or producer goods, perishable or durable, final or intermediate demand, new demand or replacement demand type etc. A couple of examples may illustrate the importance of this factor. The demand for intermediate goods like Continue reading
Economics Concepts
Managers and Selection of Proper Forecasting Technique
The increasing complexities of the business environment together with the changing demands and expectations, implies that every organization needs to know the future values of their key decision variables. In virtually every decision they make, executives today consider some kind of forecast. In any organization, managers play a significant role in implementing Forecasting techniques. Forecasting takes the historical data and project them into the future to predict the occurrence of uncertain events. Forecasting serves as a self-assessment tool for the company. To handle the increasing variety and complexity of managerial forecasting problems, many forecasting techniques have been developed in recent years. Each has its special use, and care must be taken to select the correct technique for a particular application. The manager as the forecaster has a role to play in technique selection; and the better he understands the range of forecasting possibilities, the more likely it is that a Continue reading
Trade-Off Between Equity And Efficiency
In any society at any point of time all the resources would be relatively scarce. We cannot have whatever we want. We need to decide our priorities and then distribute the resources. In such a situation we need to take into consideration goals of efficiency and equity (sense of fairness). If the distribution of resources or goods in an economy is fair between different members of the society, it indicates equity. Efficiency is making the best out of scarce resources at the best possible price. Efficiency refers to the size of economic resource and equity refers to how this economic resource is distributed. When the resources are distributed we will be faced with a trade-off between efficiency and equity. This trade off is a central principle in economics. The best example of trade-off between equity and efficiency can be explained with environmental policy of the government. Who gets the most Continue reading
Interest Rate as an Effective Tool for Regulating the Economy
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Central Bank in India, operates its monetary policies primarily by the set of interest rate. Therefore, interest rate policy plays an important role than ever before in economy. It is used as an effective tool for regulating the economy, dominating inflation and controlling investment and savings. In general, the Central Bank often changes the level or construction of the interest rate to achieve these goals. The increase or decrease of interest rate causes the capital of enterprises go up or down respectively, which determines the expansion or narrowing of production. Therefore, it changes the number of jobs available. As a common payment method in the borrowing of enterprises from banks, credit rate has direct influences on unemployment situation in society and plays an important role to solve it. The change in deposit rates, especially rediscount rate has direct effect on the amount of foreign Continue reading
Monopolistic Competition
In the real world, market is neither perfectly competitive nor a monopoly. The great majority of imperfectly competitive producers in the real world produce goods, which are neither completely different nor completely same. They produce goods, which are analogous to those produced by their rivals. This means that the goods produced in the market are close substitutes. It follows that such producers must be concerned about the way in which the action of these rivals affects their own profits. This kind of market is known as ‘Monopolistic Competition’ or group equilibrium. Here there is competition, which is keen, though not perfect, between firms manufacturing very similar products. According to Chamberlin, “Monopolistic competition is a challenge to the traditional viewpoint of economics that competition and monopoly are alternatives…By contrast it is held that most economic situations are composites of both competition and monopoly.” Monopolistic Competition is that market category in which Continue reading
Role of SMEs in Economic Development
All over the world, there is growing evidence that Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the national economic development of any country. SMEs are becoming more and more a subject of high attention in the developing countries, countries in transition but also in the countries with developed economies. In market economies, SMEs are the engine of economic development. Thanks to their private ownership, entrepreneurial spirit, their flexibility and adaptability as well as their potential to react to challenges and changing environments, SMEs contribute to sustainable growth and employment generation in a significant manner. Until latest, the private sectors of many emerging economies were missing the middle level of development. Investors, policymakers, and professionals dedicated most of their efforts to big companies of over 500 employees, larger enterprises or multinationals. Large Enterprises and MNCs were target of TAX incentives and subsidies whereas organizations like World Bank and Continue reading