Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies(r) | 
 enlarge | Author: Conrad Carlberg
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 66961
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 408
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0764575937
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.8180285554
EAN: 9780764575938
ASIN: 0764575937
Publication Date: March 14, 2005
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Product Description
When they first told you that forecasting sales would be part of your job, did you feel just the tiniest bit of panic? Did you momentarily consider consulting the Yellow Pages for listings of “Psychics” or “Tea Leaf Readers”? Well, fear not. Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies can help you predict the future without incense or a crystal ball. Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies shows you how to use the number one workbook program, Microsoft Excel, to predict trends and future sales based on something not quite so ethereal—numbers. You use data about the past to forecast the future. Excel provides all sorts of tools to help you do that, and this book shows you how to use them. From recognizing why forecasting is a good idea to making sense of exponential smoothing, Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies has you covered. If you have a basic grasp of how to use Excel, you’ll be ready to discover how to Select and use the right forecasting method for your business Choose and arrange data in lists, then manage that data with pivot tables Filter lists and turn them into charts that illustrate what’s going on Find relationships in your data Use Excel’s Analysis Toolpak feature to create forecasts automatically, or venture into advanced forecasts using worksheet functions Gain more control over your forecasting and target specific types of predictions Use moving averages and predict seasonal sales Written by Conrad Carlberg, a nationally recognized expert on Excel who also has experience in sales and marketing, this friendly guide gets you up and running quickly and easily. You’ll soon be setting up a baseline you can chart and label, summarizing data with pivot tables, making forecasts based on regression, understanding correlation, and discovering how smoothing lets us profit from our mistakes. You’ll find your confidence in your ability to make sales predictions has soared right off the chart.
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| Customer Reviews:
I was impressed with what tis book could offer February 3, 2007
Vijai P. Atavane
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are new to forecasting and want to learn forecasting in a breeze, this is the book for you. If you like to use excel spreadsheets and want to play with data, this book gets you started in the right path. The book teaches you 3 types of forecasting techniques ( moving average, exponential smoothing and regression forecasts) and explains how to use excel functions to use these techniques.
In fact I have used the concepts like exponential smoothing and regression analysis on spreadsheets based on the book at work and at school.
You will like this book if
1. You are new to forecasting and want to learn in less than 24 hrs.
2. Like using excel formula functions.
3. Like to analyze statistical data
4. Want to develop simple to use forecasting models for your work or for your school project.
 Average Information with Zero "WOW" Factor August 31, 2005
S. Albers
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I was expecting new and interesting ideas from this book, but was disappointed. If you truly have no idea how to find a sales baseline for your business or don't know how to track trends, this book is for you. If you are like me (you know the basics but were trying to find a more thorough approach), I wouldn't buy the book.
 A Unique and Valuable Book August 29, 2005
T. Schurman (Stanford, CA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read the book from cover to cover and was thoroughly enlightened. From a content perspective, the book is first rate. Carlberg not only explains how to forecast, but he also clarifies the pros and cons of the various methods, explains how to reduce forecasting error, and offers excellent insight into regression and the other statistics involved in making and evaluating a forecast.
Carlberg also masterfully integrates theory with practice by clearly explaining how to best utilize Excel for forecasting. I consider myself a very advanced user of Excel, but nevertheless benefited from Carlberg's sophisticated understanding of Excel. He provides an excellent overview of the pros, cons, and pitfalls of using the Analysis Toolpak vs. spreadsheet modeling, and offers a number of arcane Excel tips that I haven't found elsewhere. For example, despite years of Excel experience, I never understood (or, more accurately, noticed) the difference between a `Category Axis' and a `Value Axis' in an Excel chart.
I almost gave Excel Sales Forecasting four stars, for one important reason: The book was poorly organized. The main topics in the book - moving averages, exponential smoothing, and regression - were broken up into too many pieces, such that each topic was covered multiple times with a lot of unnecessary repetition. I realize this is, to some extent, the nature of Dummies books, which are not necessarily meant to be read cover-to-cover. But as a result, I often found myself needlessly re-reading material several times and, conversely, often had to flip back several chapters because I had forgotten some of the nuances of one of the methods by the time I got to a more advanced section. Having just finished the book, I still feel like I need to review it one more time, by topic, to put all the `pieces' back together in my mind.
With the exception of the final rant above, the book is outstanding and provides an insightful introduction to someone like myself who knew nothing of forecasting.
I'm not one to normally quote old sayings, but this book brought to mind the Chinese (Confucius) proverb: "I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand." Learning forecasting via Excel helped strengthen my understanding. The author and Wiley (the publisher) deserve a lot of credit for producing this unique and valuable book.
If "For Dummies" Means Comprehensible... May 15, 2005
Gene V. Glass (Boulder, Colorado)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If "For Dummies" means, clear, comprehensible, well illustrated, and fun to read to boot, then "Excel Sales Forecasting for Dummies" is true to its name. When you put together a guide to one of the most powerful and useful pieces of software in any company's arsenal with the genius of Conrad Carlberg to lead even the neophyte through the intracacies of sales forecasting, the combination is downright unbeatable. Carlberg has won awards for a string of some of the best "how-to" books on EXCEL and Microsoft Office. This new one gets my personal award for "best EXCEL guide of the year."
A book I've needed for a long time May 6, 2005
Linda A. Tetrault (Scottsdale, AZ)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I know that Dummies books are supposed to be easygoing and offer a lighter tone than most, so I was surprised to see this topic getting the Dummies treatment. I'm glad to report that it works. Excel Sales Forecasting is very reader-friendly, and it demystifies intimidating concepts like "exponential smoothing" and "mutiple regression." I've done a lot of numeric analysis but not much forecasting, mainly because the available texts are so dense and inpenetrable. No more! This book provides the material I need to understand, clearly and with useful detail and examples. It covers the basics and also dips into some more advanced topics. It considers not just the number crunching aspects, but also the business context that you're forecasting into. And it's fun to read! We dummies have a secret: we're smart enough to get books written for us that don't make our eyes glaze over. This one makes the grade.
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