Forecasting Practice and Process

FORECASTING: PRACTICE AND PROCESS FOR DATA MANAGEMENT focuses on how forecast managers and planners create forecasts for products and services for their business. The text addresses both the macroeconomic forecasting procedures used by economists as well as the specific product-level forecasting techniques that are now widely used by sales and operations planning organizations in corporations.

Hans Levenbach starts his career at AT&T Bell Laboratories as an applied statistician, participating in forecasting project and developing analytical support systems for the Bell Operating Companies. Over the years he has many years of teaching experience as Adjunct Professor in the Business Schools of Columbia University and New York University. In 1996, he was a Visiting Professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU. In his professional life, he served as President, Treasurer and Board member of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF). In June 2003 he was elected Fellow of the IIF. Hans graduated from Acadia University (Canada) with a degree in Physics and Mathematics, and received an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Queen's University (Canada) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from the University of Toronto. Hans is involved in all aspects of the company and particularly enjoys working with forecasting practitioners and software developers.

James P. Cleary held a number of leadership positions in marketing and finance at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Avaya, and New York Telephone Company. Recently, he developed market sizing and quantified business case value propositions that demonstrated the product benefits from the perspectives of the end users, the service providers and the manufacturer. He directed the business management functions of strategic planning, business planning, forecasting and results analysis. He also led a forecast improvement team that improved the accuracy of the customer team demand forecasts. He was the Director-Market Research & Analysis in the Business Communications Services unit. His financial positions included the CFO-Data Communications Services and CFO-Computer Systems. Mr. Cleary developed courses in time series and econometric modeling for AT&T. He also developed a course for managers of the forecasting function.