AI
A smarter way to plan: AI demand forecasting that drives real business impact
AI demand forecasting helps retailers predict sales, optimize inventory and staff appropriately, all through a visually intuitive dashboard.
June 25, 2025 by Retail Customer Experience
In a fast-paced industry like retail or hospitality, keeping up with changing trends and demand is difficult. Warehouse costs skyrocketing due to overstock, missed sales opportunities due to the stockout, and costly marketing promotions that misalign with customers' expectations are all too painfully familiar to the retail businesses. These are just a few examples of issues that occur when a company lacks forecasting capabilities. But what if we say that you can predict the future?
Every retail or hospitality business out there is sitting on an enormous amount of historical data (and generates even more every day!). Unfortunately, many businesses don't use this data to optimize their operations, make correct predictions and build a solid basis for growth.
Several years ago, Daniel Baron, the CEO of SmartTab POS platforms realized how enabling businesses to transform their information into demand forecasts can provide a competitive edge to his solution. He hired MobiDev, a software development company, to implement demand forecasting in the POS.
Achieving 470% growth in its number of active values over four years, SmartTab expanded its market presence, capturing share from industry giants, with AI-based demand forecasting developed by MobiDev being one of the contributing factors.
"MobiDev's engineers consistently met my high expectations," Baron said. "I went from five engineers to over 50, allowing us to compete with industry giants like Square, Micros (Oracle), and Aloha (NCR). Thanks to MobiDev, SmartTab stands as the most robust and reliable software in our space."
Solving real business challenges with forecasting intelligence
SmartTab's clientele of high volume bars, restaurants and nightclubs heavily depend on selling alcohol as their main source of income. Now, imagine running out of craft beer on the night of the NBA finals. Human predictive capabilities are limited and prone to inevitable errors. The week leading to the finals was too busy, and the manager forgot to order several extra kegs. The result? A large group of former regular clients is leaving the bar for the competitors across the road.
MobiDev's solution changed that equation. They engineered a custom AI-driven demand forecasting engine that uses machine learning techniques, including Gradient Boosting models, to analyze demand patterns across time — factoring in everything from seasonal peaks to outlier events.
As a result, SmartTab users gained the ability to predict sales, optimize inventory and staff appropriately, all through a visually intuitive dashboard.
"We build forecasting systems that aren't just technically sound — they're designed for real-world usability," Anastasiia Molodoria, AI team leader at MobiDev, said. "Our goal is to help clients turn raw data into insights that drive growth."
Usability that drives results
One of the keys to adoption has been ease of use. Venue managers can select custom time periods — days, weeks or entire seasons — and receive demand and revenue forecasts in seconds. Interactive dashboards help them spot sales anomalies, track top-selling products, and plan campaigns with data-backed confidence.
That level of insight has real, tangible outcomes:
- Reduced stockouts and overstocking.
- More targeted marketing campaigns.
- Efficient labor planning.
- Stronger customer retention.
Notably, SmartTab's analytics toolkit offers detailed insights into product-level performance. Venue managers can assess revenue contributions from different beverage categories, identify emerging bestsellers, and tailor their menus or pricing strategies accordingly — all within a user-friendly visual interface.
Bringing enterprise-grade forecasting to the masses
Until recently, such sophisticated forecasting capabilities were largely the domain of massive corporations like Amazon, which uses AI to manage demand for hundreds of millions of products. What MobiDev has done is democratize this technology, putting advanced predictive tools in the hands of smaller businesses and niche SaaS platforms that need to be agile to survive.
In doing so, MobiDev is helping reshape how retail and hospitality teams plan and execute on everything from staffing to promotions — not through gut feeling, but with data-backed foresight.
As SmartTab continues to scale, its partnership with MobiDev underscores a broader trend: AI isn't just the future of retail — it's happening right now.
To explore more about the technologies powering SmartTab's transformation, visit MobiDev's full use case:
A Smarter Way to Plan Demand Forecasting That Drives Real Business Impact
