Follow Up Response Business Operations

BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Business Operations: Follow-Up Response

Peer Discussion 3

Time series analysis is a useful tool for making strategic predictions and decisions for a company’s future with statistically-based models. It should be understood that ‘exact’ predictions cannot be through this model; however, keeping the future directions clear with the number analysis and processing through time-series data is a beneficial tool for better decision making rather appearing strayed only (Gerunov, 2016). The underlying cause of a certain notable pattern that has occurred over the past and whether it would be sustained in the future are some of the key deciding factors for a business provided with this statistical analysis tool.

A human judgment could be a useful technique for making forecasts for a business, which could be in focus groups. Group methods, such as focus groups, are among the fastest ways to obtain and share information about a concept, product, or service through which businesses take practical data (Zellner et al., 2021). The opinions and attitudes of the people involved in these groups can disseminate some crucial points that could help forecast the firms for their future profits and value creation.

Peer Discussion 4

The importance of time series analysis cannot be overstated in this case; however, another useful qualitative method for collecting suitable data and making strategic forecasts is market or consumer research. It is necessary to keep track of the consumer preferences, especially for a product at a certain stage of its growth, like concept testing, pre-test markets, early sales, etc. (Mas-Machucha, Sainz & Martinez-Costa, 2014). It is an easy method for its usage, and the data could be conveniently extracted from the responses. It could be either conducted online or physically/ face-to-face. Its applicability for the firm is apt as the existing preferences are assessed along with identifying any gaps where changes could be made to bring new products, by even sometimes changing the preferences, as Apple did when they replaced the traditional Walkman with their IPods and Apple music library from where people could download hundreds of songs without any hassle.