Stampin’ Up! is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company selling crafting supplies in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.  Their forecasting team was looking for a way to analyze their forecast accuracy across years, catalog publications, and markets.  An Excel pivot table was created to display information on micro and macro levels for MAPE, MAD, over/under forecasts, Percent of IOQ, Absolute error, etc… All of these metrics had weighted and unweighted values which could be displayed in table or graph formats.

Information for forecasting of new products had previously been housed by individual catalog publication and were limited to simplistic metrics such as number of units sold relative to the initial forecasts.  This made it difficult to track the forecast accuracy over time and display it in meaningful and actionable ways.  An excel document with various forecast tracking formulas was implemented and then analyzed with a pivot table allowing for a deeper understanding of the information.  This permitted decision makers to quickly dissect and visualize the data so future improvements could be made.

The forecasting team became more informed and was better able to identify consumer preferences across products, markets, and years.  Updating of the document was simplified through its accommodation with copying and pasting, and mathematical weights added because Stampin’ Up! launches thousands of products a year with some selling very little and others selling in large numbers.  This allowed for the team to prioritize areas with the most potential impact on the company.