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RSR releases state of retail benchmark report

May 3, 2011

RSR Research's latest report, "Crystal Ball 2.0: The State of Retail Demand Forecasting, Benchmark 2011," finds that retailers believe demand forecasting capabilities to be critical to their operations but struggle to incorporate the insights deeper into their businesses.

These findings are based on a survey of 83 retailers between January and April 2011.

"Retailers have made significant investments in optimization technologies, particularly around price and labor, and demand forecasts come hand-in-hand with those capabilities,” said Brian Kilcourse, managing partner at RSR and a co-author of the report. “But the forecasting engines that create those inputs into optimization tools can often be completely different in terms of assumptions, time horizons and models."

The report contains analysis of the business drivers, opportunities and organizational constraints surrounding demand forecasts, as well as recommendations for creating successful demand forecasting capabilities. The report is part of RSR Research's efforts to provide market intelligence on retail technology trends, and can be downloaded here.