The Development And Application Of Sales Forecasting Audit Scale

Sales forecasting permeates all aspects of business operations. In company almost all management functions need sales forecasting such as marketing, production, sales, finance and logistics. Although virtually every business function needs accurate sales forecsts, very little attention has been devoted to examing how the forecasting function should be managed. This research developed a sales forecasting scale to evaluate sales forecasting management.The development of sales forecasting scale based on the following basement: first, the standards of sales forecasting management in foreigh research; second, the methods of developing scales in overpast research. Based on these, this research colleted standards adaptive to inland company by opening questionnaire and group interview; deleted unimportant items by pre-testing; colleted data by formal testing; constructed scale by item analysis and factor analysis; evaluated scale by reliability analysis and applicability analysis. The final formal scale includes 20 items attributed to 4 dimensions. Finnaly, this research concluded two discussion after applying this scale in 16 companies in China, which is the 4 characters of audited companies in sales forecasting management and the 4 suggestions towards them.There are 3 innovative points in this research: First, this research developed more comprehensive standards towards sales forecasting management. Second, this sales forecasting scale is a quantitative and nomative one, it is convenient for companies to practice. Third, this research is established in Chines companies. Every steps in research considered the environment in China, so it is a contribution to Chines companies.