Researching Sales Forecasting Practice: Commentaries and authors’ response on “Conducting a Sales Forecasting Audit” by M.A. Moon, J.T. Mentzer & C.D. Smith

Sales forecasting is a common activity in most companies affecting operations, marketing and planning. Little is known about its practice. Mentzer and his colleagues have developed a research programme over twenty years aimed at rectifying the gap in knowledge. Most recently, in the Mentzer et al. (2002) paper they have demonstrated with supporting evidence the use of a sales forecasting audit to establish the dimensions of best practice. In this commentary on the paper, the methodology underlying their approach is examined from a number of different perspectives. The commentaries examine how convincing and complete has been the choice of audit dimensions as well as how this new research fits with evidence from other sources. Both commentators and respondents agree that the topic is important to organisational practice and more research is needed to gain a complete picture of the sales forecasting function and the systems that support it. Clarifying the audit function is particularly important since sales forecasting often has a low organisational profile until events turn sour with damaging consequences to organisational viability.