Event-Based Sales Quantity Planning

Purpose

To reproduce the way in which events affect sales figures, you perform event-based sales quantity planning. Events do not take place on fixed dates.

Example Example

You map Easter in the system as an event because these public holidays do not have fixed dates.

By contrast, Christmas is not an event because it takes place on the same fixed date every year.

End of the example.

In the case of events, it is decisive whether or not you know about them before outbound delivery takes place. Depending on this, you can use a known event in sales quantity planning or create one subsequently when correcting the sales figures if the event took place unexpectedly.

Example Example

Examples of plannable and unplannable events:

End of the example.

  • You can plan how the Olympic Games will influence sales figures before outbound delivery.

  • You cannot know how freezing rain will influence sales figures until after outbound delivery.

You use this process to perform event-based sales quantity planning. You classify an event according to custom attributes (for example, freezing rain is a specification of the attribute Weather ). You define the influence of a plannable event on planned delivery quantities in the form or an increase or reduction in the sales quantity plan. This event can be reused. You can make subsequent corrections to sales quantities that are affected by events.

Prerequisites

You have made the following settings in Customizing for Press Distribution under Start of the navigation path Sales Planning Next navigation step Events End of the navigation path :

  • You have defined the number ranges for the events.

  • You have defined the event attributes and their specifications so that you can classify events.

  • You have defined a calculation rule for calculating the corrected sales figures.

Process Flow

This process runs as follows:

  1. Create event and assign media issue

    You enter a new event that affects the sales figures and planned delivery quantities (for example, upcoming Olympic Games). You either enter the event directly in event processing or when performing sales quantity planning for a media issue.

    You assign a media issue to the event and classify it according to the attributes and specifications defined in Customizing. This makes it easier for you to find the event again later (for example, attribute : Sport , specification : Global ).

    For more information, see Processing Events and Sales Quantity Plan Processing for a Media Issue .

  2. Enter event-dependent sales quantity changes

    You specify which quantity changes you expect for an event (for example, expected increase of 10% for the upcoming Olympics) in the sales quantity plan for the media issue. You can enter the increase or reduction as an event total and distribute it among the contract items, or enter it for each contract item. The system records the quantity changes for each contract item in the event.

    For more information, see Sales Quantity Plan Processing for a Media Issue .

  3. Correct sales figures

    The sales quantity (= quantity delivered - return quantity) can be influenced by an event. You check media issues that are no longer on sale on a regular basis to determine whether unforeseen events have affected or falsified the actual sales quantity for these media issues.

    To smooth the forecast, you correct the following sales figures:

    • Corrected sales quantity

      This is the sales quantity not influenced by an event.

    • Verified event quantity

      This quantity is influenced by an event and represents the difference between the actual sales quantity and the corrected sales quantity.

      For more information, see Correction of Sales Figures .

  4. Use event as a template

    You select an event for a media issue for which you expect similar increases or reductions to the sales quantity due to an event. For example, you can search for the template event for a media issue or for an event classification (for example, you can use the last Olympic Games as the template event for the next Olympic Games). The system copies the increases or reductions defined for the event to the sales quantity plan. It corrects the planned delivery quantities, taking account of increases or reductions from the event.

    For more information, see Sales Quantity Plan Processing for a Media Issue .

Result

You have entered how events affect the sales quantities. By doing so, you have cleaned up the sales history and made it possible to access and refine historical data when dealing with future events.