Sales forecasting plays the driving role in the order fulfillment process of a pharmaceutical company as presented below. It drives both the short-term production and replenishment schedules as well as the long-term needs in the required active ingredients.
These solutions deliver, for in-line and pipeline products, the sales demand forecast with the associated market driven and pricing/rebate assumptions/events. Forecasts may be initiated by prescription data, IMS audit data, or in-market sales. Moreover, the system configuration may be “Universal” with near zero learning or “GLOCAL” in nature, aimed at responding to local forecasting needs and data while fulfilling global requirements. This ability to configure the client’s applications in line with the characteristics of local market conditions, or the type of product (innovative versus generic) is one of the differentiating features of Pharma FUTURCAST.
The focus may exclusively be on the company’s own products or also encompass competing products in a total market environment with market share driving the forecast. Whatever the chosen solution, it offers marketing managers the ability to elaborate, from a unique planning base, the sales, financial, supply chain and strategic plans; each plan representing a different set of assumptions and impacts. The resulting assumption/event database stores, in a structured way, the explanations on the key forecast changes in units and currency for all products in all countries. Management can therefore gain a more in-depth understanding of their past performance and projected future growth.
