Customer demand planning at Lucent Technologies - A case study in continuous improvement through sales forecast auditing

One of the critical drivers of supply chain success is effective customer d emand planning. A company must be able to accurately forecast its business opportunities and then effectively plan throughout its supply chain to expl oit those opportunities. Unfortunately, many companies fail to understand t he importance of effectively forecasting customer demand This article prese nts a case study of one company-Lucent Technologies-that is committed to co ntinuously improving its ability to effectively forecast customer demand Lu cent recently demonstrated that commitment by conducting a sales forecastin g audit, performed by external experts, that has had a significant impact o n its sales forecasting process and performance. The case study presents th e process for conducting a sales forecasting audit, the benefits Lucent has realized from the process, the challenges they continue to face, and the f actors that can be applied to other organizations (C) 2000 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved.