In such times, general top-down adjustments of a manually or statistically generated demand forecast could create a significant over- or under-supply at item level.
Data show that the COVID-19 situation has caused significant and sudden shifts in demand within and across markets, customer segments, product categories and sales channels. They also clearly show that the nature and severity of the impact on demand also varies significantly on a detailed product item level.
Many companies have therefore introduced and are leveraging demand sensing technologies to generate a realistic demand forecast at item level on a continuous and frequent basis.
