Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies


Book Description

Excel at predicting sales and forecasting trends using Microsoft Excel! If you're a sales or marketing professional, you know that forecasting sales is one of the biggest challenges you face on the job. Unlike other books on the subject, Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies, 2nd Edition leaves arcane business school terms and complex algebraic equations at the door, focusing instead on what you can do right now to utilize the world's most popular spreadsheet program to produce forecasts you can rely on. Loaded with confidence boosters for anyone who succumbs to sweaty palms when sales predictions are mentioned, this trusted guide show you how to use the many tools Excel provides to arrange your past data, set up lists and pivot tables, use moving averages, and so much more. Before you know it, you'll become a forecaster par excellence—even if numbers aren't your jam. Choose the right forecasting method Find relationships in your data Predict seasonal sales Filter lists or turn them into charts Consider this guide your crystal ball—and start predicting the future with confidence and ease!




Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies


Book Description

When they first told you that forecasting sales would be part of your job, did you feel just the tiniest bit of panic? Did you momentarily consider consulting the Yellow Pages for listings of “Psychics” or “Tea Leaf Readers”? Well, fear not. Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies can help you predict the future without incense or a crystal ball. Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies shows you how to use the number one workbook program, Microsoft Excel, to predict trends and future sales based on something not quite so ethereal—numbers. You use data about the past to forecast the future. Excel provides all sorts of tools to help you do that, and this book shows you how to use them. From recognizing why forecasting is a good idea to making sense of exponential smoothing, Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies has you covered. If you have a basic grasp of how to use Excel, you’ll be ready to discover how to Select and use the right forecasting method for your business Choose and arrange data in lists, then manage that data with pivot tables Filter lists and turn them into charts that illustrate what’s going on Find relationships in your data Use Excel’s Analysis Toolpak feature to create forecasts automatically, or venture into advanced forecasts using worksheet functions Gain more control over your forecasting and target specific types of predictions Use moving averages and predict seasonal sales Written by Conrad Carlberg, a nationally recognized expert on Excel who also has experience in sales and marketing, this friendly guide gets you up and running quickly and easily. You’ll soon be setting up a baseline you can chart and label, summarizing data with pivot tables, making forecasts based on regression, understanding correlation, and discovering how smoothing lets us profit from our mistakes. You’ll find your confidence in your ability to make sales predictions has soared right off the chart.




Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies


Book Description

Excel at predicting sales and forecasting trends using Microsoft Excel! If you're a sales or marketing professional, you know that forecasting sales is one of the biggest challenges you face on the job. Unlike other books on the subject, Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies, 2nd Edition leaves arcane business school terms and complex algebraic equations at the door, focusing instead on what you can do right now to utilize the world's most popular spreadsheet program to produce forecasts you can rely on. Loaded with confidence boosters for anyone who succumbs to sweaty palms when sales predictions are mentioned, this trusted guide show you how to use the many tools Excel provides to arrange your past data, set up lists and pivot tables, use moving averages, and so much more. Before you know it, you'll become a forecaster par excellence—even if numbers aren't your jam. Choose the right forecasting method Find relationships in your data Predict seasonal sales Filter lists or turn them into charts Consider this guide your crystal ball—and start predicting the future with confidence and ease!




Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies


Book Description

Make informed business decisions with the beginner's guide to financial modeling using Microsoft Excel Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies is your comprehensive guide to learning how to create informative, enlightening financial models today. Not a math whiz or an Excel power-user? No problem! All you need is a basic understanding of Excel to start building simple models with practical hands-on exercises and before you know it, you'll be modeling your way to optimized profits for your business in no time. Excel is powerful, user-friendly, and is most likely already installed on your computer—which is why it has so readily become the most popular financial modeling software. This book shows you how to harness Excel's capabilities to determine profitability, develop budgetary projections, model depreciation, project costs, value assets and more. You'll learn the fundamental best practices and know-how of financial modeling, and how to put them to work for your business and your clients. You'll learn the tools and techniques that bring insight out of the numbers, and make better business decisions based on quantitative evidence. You'll discover that financial modeling is an invaluable resource for your business, and you'll wonder why you've waited this long to learn how! Companies around the world use financial modeling for decision making, to steer strategy, and to develop solutions. This book walks you through the process with clear, expert guidance that assumes little prior knowledge. Learn the six crucial rules to follow when building a successful financial model Discover how to review and edit an inherited financial model and align it with your business and financial strategy Solve client problems, identify market projections, and develop business strategies based on scenario analysis Create valuable customized templates models that can become a source of competitive advantage From multinational corporations to the mom-and-pop corner store, there isn't a business around that wouldn't benefit from financial modeling. No need to buy expensive specialized software—the tools you need are right there in Excel. Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies gets you up to speed quickly so you can start reaping the benefits today!




Excel Formulas and Functions For Dummies


Book Description

Put the power of Excel formulas and functions to work for you! Excel is a complex program. Mastering the use of formulas and functions lets you use Excel to compute useful day-to-day information, such as calculating the true cost of credit card purchases or comparing 15-year and 30-year mortgage costs. This fun and friendly book demystifies Excel's built-in functions so you can put them to work. You'll find step-by-step instructions on 150 of Excel's most useful functions, how they work within formulas, and how to use them to make your life easier. See how to use 150 of Excel's most useful functions, with real-world examples showing how each function is used within a formula Learn to calculate the costs of leasing versus buying a car, compute classroom grades, create an amortization table, or evaluate investment performance Fully updated for Excel 2010, but the principles will work with earlier versions of Excel as well Includes essential coverage of an additional 85 functions In the ever-popular, non-threatening For Dummies style, Excel Formulas and Functions For Dummies, 2nd Edition makes Excel's power accessible to you.




Predictive Analytics


Book Description

EXCEL 2016 PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS FOR SERIOUS DATA CRUNCHERS! Now, you can apply cutting-edge predictive analytics techniques to help your business win–and you don’t need multimillion-dollar software to do it. All the tools you need are available in Microsoft Excel 2016, and all the knowledge and skills are right here, in this book! Microsoft Excel MVP Conrad Carlberg shows you how to use Excel predictive analytics to solve real problems in areas ranging from sales and marketing to operations. Carlberg offers unprecedented insight into building powerful, credible, and reliable forecasts, helping you gain deep insights from Excel that would be difficult to uncover with costly tools such as SAS or SPSS. Fully updated for Excel 2016, this guide contains valuable new coverage of accounting for seasonality and managing complex consumer choice scenarios. Throughout, Carlberg provides downloadable Excel 2016 workbooks you can easily adapt to your own needs, plus VBA code–much of it open-source–to streamline especially complex techniques. Step by step, you’ll build on Excel skills you already have, learning advanced techniques that can help you increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve productivity. By mastering predictive analytics, you’ll gain a powerful competitive advantage for your company and yourself. Learn the “how” and “why” of using data to make better decisions, and choose the right technique for each problem Capture live real-time data from diverse sources, including third-party websites Use logistic regression to predict behaviors such as “will buy” versus “won’t buy” Distinguish random data bounces from real, fundamental changes Forecast time series with smoothing and regression Account for trends and seasonality via Holt-Winters smoothing Prevent trends from running out of control over long time horizons Construct more accurate predictions by using Solver Manage large numbers of variables and unwieldy datasets with principal components analysis and Varimax factor rotation Apply ARIMA (Box-Jenkins) techniques to build better forecasts and clarify their meaning Handle complex consumer choice problems with advanced logistic regression Benchmark Excel results against R results




Fundamentals of Forecasting Using Excel


Book Description

Forecasting is an integral part of almost all business enterprises. This book provides readers with the tools to analyze their data, develop forecasting models and present the results in Excel. Progressing from data collection, data presentation, to a step-by-step development of the forecasting techniques, this essential text covers techniques that include but not limited to time series-moving average, exponential smoothing, trending, simple and multiple regression, and Box-Jenkins. And unlike other products of its kind that require either high-priced statistical software or Excel add-ins, this book does not require such software. It can be used both as a primary text and as a supplementary text. Highlights the use of Excel screen shots, data tables, and graphs. Features Full Scale Use of Excel in Forecasting without the Use of Specialized Forecast Packages Includes Excel templates. Emphasizes the practical application of forecasting. Provides coverage of Special Forecasting, including New Product Forecasting, Network Models Forecasting, Links to Input/Output Modeling, and Combination of Forecasting.




Financial Forecasting in Microsoft Excel


Book Description

Provides step-by-step instructions for creating financial forecasts with Microsoft Excel 2010 so you can: Assess project feasibility, Fund company cash needs, Determine financial feasibility of a project before committing, Identify problems before they become major.




Excel Data Analysis For Dummies


Book Description

Take Excel to the next level Excel is the world’s leading spreadsheet application. It’s a key module in Microsoft Office—the number-one productivity suite—and it is the number-one business intelligence tool. An Excel dashboard report is a visual presentation of critical data and uses gauges, maps, charts, sliders, and other graphical elements to present complex data in an easy-to-understand format. Excel Data Analysis For Dummies explains in depth how to use Excel as a tool for analyzing big data sets. In no time, you’ll discover how to mine and analyze critical data in order to make more informed business decisions. Work with external databases, PivotTables, and Pivot Charts Use Excel for statistical and financial functions and data sharing Get familiar with Solver Use the Small Business Finance Manager If you’re familiar with Excel but lack a background in the technical aspects of data analysis, this user-friendly book makes it easy to start putting it to use for you.




Sales Forecasting Management


Book Description

Incorporating 25 years of sales forecasting management research with more than 400 companies, Sales Forecasting Management, Second Edition is the first text to truly integrate the theory and practice of sales forecasting management. This research includes the personal experiences of John T. Mentzer and Mark A. Moon in advising companies how to improve their sales forecasting management practices. Their program of research includes two major surveys of companies′ sales forecasting practices, a two-year, in-depth study of sales forecasting management practices of 20 major companies, and an ongoing study of how to apply the findings from the two-year study to conducting sales forecasting audits of additional companies. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the techniques and applications of sales forecasting analysis, combined with a managerial focus to give managers and users of the sales forecasting function a clear understanding of the forecasting needs of all business functions. New to This Edition: The author′s well-regarded Multicaster software system demo, previously available on cassette, has been updated and is now available for download from the authors′ Web site New insights on the critical area of qualitative forecasting are presented The results of additional surveys done since the publication of the first edition have been added The discussion of the four dimensions of forecasting management has been significantly enhanced Significant reorganization and updating has been done to strengthen and improve the material for the second edition. Sales Forecasting Management is an ideal text for graduate courses in sales forecasting management. Practitioners in marketing, sales, finance/accounting, production/purchasing, and logistics will also find this easy-to-understand volume essential.