Demand Analytics: Forecasting and Planning with Data

Modern businesses rely on accurate predictions to balance inventory, optimize marketing spend, and prevent costly stockouts. Understanding how to analyze and predict customer demand is a critical skill for supply chain professionals and marketers alike. This course guides you through the foundational concepts of demand analytics, showing you how to transform raw historical sales data into actionable business forecasts. You will learn how to identify demand drivers, build predictive models, and evaluate their accuracy to make confident planning decisions. What you'll learn: - Understand the core terminology and mathematical foundations of demand planning and forecasting. - Identify key internal and external demand drivers, including seasonality, promotions, and pricing strategies. - Build and validate predictive demand models using regression analysis and time-series concepts. - Evaluate forecasting accuracy using modern industry metrics like MAPE, WAPE, and bias tracking. - Analyze promotional effectiveness and price elasticity to help stimulate market demand. - Apply data-driven insights to align supply chain operations with marketing campaigns. You will start by mastering foundational demand concepts before moving on to practical data analysis scenarios. Through written explanations, structured formulas, and step-by-step calculations, you will progress from basic historical averages to predictive modeling. This text-based course is designed for aspiring data analysts, supply chain planners, and marketers who want to build quantitative skills. No prior experience in advanced statistics or forecasting is required. Start analyzing demand patterns and driving better business decisions today.