The Forecast Pro uses statistical methods of forecast proved scientifically. Together with a powerful specialist system in these methods, Forecast Pro supplies you accurately unbeatable forecasts.
Sales, Revenue, Demand or any other important variable with which you work. Forecast Pro will make your work easier, faster and more precise.
Product description
It is easy to learn to use Forecast Pro. It is not necessary to have formation in Statistics. In fact, to forecast in the "Expert Selection" mode (using the specialist system) reduces itself to a mouse click. You provide the historical data so that Forecast Pro does the rest. The specialist system analyzes your data, selects the apropriate technique of forecast, builds the model and calculates the forecasts. And it explains all this methodology in a language easy to understand.
For people with more experience, Forecast Pro supplies a complete pile of customization options during the forecast model creation, as well as diagnostic tools to generate the forecasts.
Forecast Pro - The Market Leader
Forecast Pro is available in 3 versions and is clearly the market leader with more than 15 thousand companies in 84 countries using his packages. A recent research of the "Institute of Business Forecasting" i demonstrated that the market share of Forecast Pro is of 32%, overcoming its nearest competitor by a margin from 4 to 1.
Forecast Pro - With confirmed precision Forecast Pro recently overcame all the other forecast softwares, and 18 of the 19 students' groups in Makridakis-3, the biggest and more detailed study about empiric forecasts already made.
Forecast Pro includes:
- A specialist system that chooses between the five forecast model classes listed below with the aim of satisfying the needs of the most different business sectors.
- Simple methods: For very small or very volatile data, Forecast Pro includes models with mobile average.
- Curves adjustment: It supplies a fast and easy way of identifying the general form of the curve followed by your data. Forecast Pro supports four kinds of curves: straight lines, quadratic, exponential and growth curves (only Standard and XE).
- Models for low Volume: Intermittent model of Croston and models for discreet data are supplied to accommodate dispersed data or with little volume (for example, in cases in which the demand is frequently zero).
- Exponential smoothing: Twelve Holt-Winters' different Exponential methods are supplied for use with a data wide range. The robustness of the Exponential Smoothing makes her ideal when there are no key indicators, and when the data is very small or volatile for Box-Jenkins' Model.
- You can choose the model yourself and adjust your parameters or let Forecast Pro do that automatically.
- Box-Jenkins: For sets of stable data, Forecast Pro supports a Box-Jenkins' Model multiplying and seasonal. The model can be built automatically or interactively, using a series of diagnostics and orientations that appear on the screen of your computer.
Add Knowledge to your Business
Forecast Pro allows you to adjust your forecasts in graphs or worksheets. You can adjust individual points, intervals or total, using percentages, increments or simply introducing new values. If you defined hierarchies with multiple levels, to adjust a value in any level will automatically make all the appropriate levels be updated together.
Make Convincing Presentations
To Document your work in Forecast Pro is very easy. Click in the graphs icon and a graph with its forecasts, historical data, reliable intervals and safety stocks appears instantly. With some more clicks, you can print a forecast report and export it to a worksheet, a ASCII file or an ODBC database. During the work, Forecast Pro records all the operations accuratelly. Each group of data, each model, each interaction with the specialist system, everything is captured so that you have a permanent register of your forecast session.
Work with your already existing data
Forecast Pro imports a variety of flexible and easy to create formats, including Excel and Lotus worksheet, ASCII FILES (text) and ODBC. These flexible formats allow you to easily import and export data from any source. there is also an on-line editor, through which you can enter data directly, or modify and add data.
For Advanced Forecasts, choose Forecast Pro XE or Forecast Pro Unlimited
Forecast Pro XE and o Forecast Pro Unlimited expand the capacity of the basic package including additional methodologies made for specific needs. The models include:
- Dynamic regression: If there are important key-indicators or explaining variables, use o Forecast Pro XE to create causal models. You can include independent, out of date or transformed variables and build Cochrane-Orcutt's generalized models. Automatically interpreted diagnoses will help you to create the forecast model quickly.
- Models with Events: They increase the power of the Exponential Smoothing supplying fittings for events as promotions, strikes or any other irregular occurrences. They can be different kinds and sizes of promotions, or the effects of holidays that change of date such as Easter or or Mother's day. Models with Events are easy to build and are adaptable to a wide variety of situations.
- Exponential smoothing with Multiple Levels: Models with multiple levels allow you to aggregate data in groups that can be examined with top-down or bottom-up approaches to produce consistent forecasts in all aggregation levels. There is no limitation to the number of levels. References about seasonality and events can be extracted from higher levels and applied to inferior levels data.
- Census X-11: Used to divide a temporal series into its constituents (cycle-tendency, seasonality, irregular, etc.).
- Larger batch Forecast capacity : O Forecast Pro XE allows you to foresee up to 100 items in an unique bout. If you need to foresee hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of items, you can do it with Forecast Pro Unlimited.
Which is the adequate version for you?
To satisfy different needs of the companies, three versions of Forecast Pro are available: Forecast Pro (Standard Edition), Forecast Pro XE (Extended Edition) and Forecast Pro Unlimited. The most adequate version for you depends on how many items you need to foresee and which techniques you intend to use. The picture below will help you in your decision:
| Standard | XE | Unlimited | |
| Expert selection | X | X | X |
| Simple methods | X | X | X |
| Curve fitting | X | X | - |
| Low volume models | X | X | X |
| Exponential smoothing | X | X | X |
| Box-jenkins | X | X | X |
| Dynamic regression | - | X | - |
| Event models | - | X | X |
| Multiple level forecasting | - | X | X |
| Census X-11 | - | X | - |
| Batch forecasting | Up to 10 | Up to 100 | Unlimited |
| Command line operation | - | - | X |
| Multiple forecast overrides that can be saved and recalled with comments | - | - | X |
| Collaborative forecasting | - | - | X |