Blog.

Provocative title, I know... but I have learned so much about the misuse of this forecast error measure this past year and I would like to share with you what I've learned and what you can use instead of MAPE. The Problem Most companies rely on forecast accuracy metrics such as MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) and RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error) to evaluate how well their demand forecasts perform. These measures are intuitive and easy to communicate, but they become misle

Can social media predict product demand?   Many supply chain professionals still rely on traditional forecasting methods, but what if social media could give us real-time demand signals before sales even happen? In my recent research, we found that analyzing social media sentiment and engagement can improve demand forecasting accuracy by 42%, especially for new products with no historical data. Let’s break it down. The Challenge: Forecasting New Product Demand is Unpredictabl

Not All Products Behave the Same, So Why Forecast Them That Way? Imagine trying to forecast daily demand for toothpaste the same way you would for holiday gift baskets. One sells steadily year-round, the other spikes unpredictably. Yet in many businesses, all products are still forecasted using the same models, with the same assumptions, and often with the same level of effort. The result? Overstocked warehouses, stockouts during peak demand, and wasted hours spent fine-tunin

The Game-Changer You’re Not Using... Yet Imagine identifying early signs of customer dissatisfaction before they decide to leave, how investors feel before they act, or what your employees truly think before they leave. Sentiment analysis is the key to unlocking these insights, yet many businesses still underutilize its potential. Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, uses AI and machine learning to analyze text data and determine whether the sentiment is positive

Can social media predict product demand?  Many supply chain professionals still rely on traditional forecasting methods, but what if social media could give us real-time demand signals before sales even happen? In my recent research, we found that analyzing social media sentiment and engagement can improve demand forecasting accuracy by 42%, especially for new products with no historical data. Let’s break it down. Image generated by AI (DALL·E) The Challenge: Forecasting New