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Sales Forecasting with a Human Simulator
Source: Management Science Publication Date: June 1967
This article summarized the work done by George Schussel in his doctoral thesis at Harvard Business School. His work investigated the possibility of using computer simulation to replace forecasting work done by sales executives. The simulation was of the human behavior characteristics of a diverse group of retail dealers. The purpose of the simulation was to propose and test a new method of forecasting a manufacturer’s sales to his retail dealers. A simulation model of dealer behavior was constructed and proved very effective in helping the manufacturer to generate good sales forecasts. Unsophisticated retailers were found to have a sufficiently systematic set of procedures to permit simulation of these procedures by a computer model and it was concluded that effective simulation of the human decision processes of a large nonhomogeneous group of businessmen is possible.
