Forecasting for Decision Makers
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IB9150 Forecasting for Decision Makers
Individual Assignment Question and Guidance
3,000 words:
This is a strict limit, not a guideline: any piece submitted with more words than the limit will
result in the excess not being marked. Note: any +10% word limit rule that may be applied in
other modules is not applicable here.
You are asked to analyse market size growth and market share prospects of a consumer brand
within a specific country, including an analysis of the country’s growth prospects.
(1) Choose first the country you would like to focus your analysis on. You are not allowed to
choose a country you are a citizen of. At the country level, download data on past annual
economic growth (real GDP growth), including forecasts up to 2028, by selecting
“economies”, “economy, finance and trade”, and “real GDP growth”, and then search for
the country you are interested in. Download data for the longest time series available.
Your analysis may be supported by the country reports available under “analysis” on the
“economies” “economy, finance and trade” tab.
(2) Your next choice is to choose an industry in the “industries” tab (say alcoholic drinks
under drinks).
(3) Then select a “category”, “geography”, and “statistic” in the “explore statistics” tab (as,
for example, “Beer, Germany, market size”). There are two main time series you should
focus your analysis on. The first one is a measure of the market size for your choice of
country/industry/category, usually measured as retail value RSP in local currency at
constant prices (headline units are in volume or dollars, but you are able to see the
values in local currency at constant prices on downloaded report data). You should use
the longest time series available and store five years of forecasts. The second time series
is the brand share for a specific brand (change the statistic option to “brand shares”). A
suggestion is to use the “country report” for your “category” and “geography” under
“explore analysis” in the industries tab to pick a brand with a reasonably large market
share (as, for example, “Krombacher”, which is a brand within “Beer in Germany”). The
database allows you to download the market share for the brand over the last ten years.
You should also consider alternative sources of information on the brand you have
chosen such that you have enough information to carry out an in-depth analysis of the
prospects of the brand for the next five years.