Life And Work Lessons Of Forecasting In China

LIFE AND WORK LESSONS OF FORECASTING IN CHINA By Mark Covas The forecasting model used in demand planning is the same across all P&G forecasting groups, but the way Demand Planners in China apply it within their Markets is different ... an increase in purchasing power has enabled Chinese consumers to purchase premium brands they could not afford before or may not have even been available to them ... where no single retailer accounts for more than 3% of total China sales volume and about 65% of consumer products are sold in China through distributors who then re-sell directly to grocers as well as to second-level distributors, making it difficult to have a timely visibility of inventory held by each trade channel. T T he adventure of living and working in China began for me about a year ago when Procter & Gamble (P&G) invited me to focus on operational forecasting needs in China as well as on overall demand planning capability in Greater China (China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). I joined P&G following the acquisition of The Gillette Company where I had been the Global Demand Planning Process owner. In this role, I traveled extensively to Gillette’s 26 different key regional offices ...