New Product Forecasting

This chapter presents the process, tools, methods, and algorithms used in new product forecasting. It discusses the various data options open to the forecaster in new product forecasting. Modelling the market determines the potential market size for new products. Dynamics such as an ageing population, changes in birth or death rates and demographics associated with race and gender are captured in the new product forecast algorithm at this point. The assumptions used in determining the shape of the uptake of a new product have significant and direct consequences on the forecast itself. Once an appropriate analogue is identified the forecaster can then examine the historical uptake pattern for the analogue and apply this uptake pattern to the new product being forecast. The final dynamic to model in the share projection section of the new product forecast algorithm is that of cannibalisation.