Demand Planning, Forecasting & Business Planning is a structured track of 13 lessons that build a complete, interview-ready understanding of the topic. Work through them in order, then use the quiz and flashcards in each lesson to revise.
What this course covers
- Why Demand Planning Decides Everything Downstream - How a forecast error propagates into inventory, capacity and cash.
- Forecasting Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative - Every method, the data it needs and the horizon it suits.
- Time Series Forecasting: Trend, Seasonality & Smoothing - Decomposing a series and forecasting it, worked with real monthly data.
- Measuring Forecast Accuracy and Bias - The accuracy measures, and why bias matters more than error size.
- Forecasting New Products and Short-Life Items - Analogue methods and early-signal correction when there is no history.
- Demand Sensing, Signals & Point-of-Sale Data - Using downstream signals to see demand earlier than orders reveal it.
- The Bullwhip Effect and How to Dampen It - The four causes of amplification, and the countermeasure for each.
- Sales and Operations Planning: The Monthly Cycle - The full monthly cycle, who owns each step and where it usually collapses.
- Integrated Business Planning and Financial Alignment - Connecting the operational plan to the financial plan in one number set.
- Capacity, Supply & Constraint Planning - Balancing the demand plan against real supply constraints.
- Scenario Planning for Volatile Demand - Building scenarios that trigger different operational decisions.
- Machine Learning Forecasting: Where AI Beats Statistics - When learned models genuinely outperform, and what they need to work.
- Applied: Running a Planning Cycle With Real Numbers - A complete cycle from statistical forecast to a signed-off consensus plan.