Businesses use forecasts in order to gather information concerning phenomena that are important to them. Since electronic commerce has grown in importance for businesses, forecasts concerning this area are becoming increasingly important.
The work presented in this report aims at gathering information useful when improving forecast quality. In practice the report presents a collection of forecasts, concerning business-to-consumer electronic commerce, and a collection of factors affecting electronic commerce forecast outcomes.
A categorisation and evaluation of the collected forecasts is performed, this evaluation is done by comparing the forecasts in the categories to the actual outcomes. Problems that occur during the evaluation process, such as problems with forecast wording and scope, are described, and suggestions of how to avoid these problems are provided. Structured methods to categorise and evaluate the forecasts are also presented.
Finally, the outcome from the evaluation is analysed using the compiled factors and indications are given of how to use the results in order to improve future forecasting.
Source: University of Skövde
Author: Knutsson, Mats