An Integrated Planning System can be built from internal data of a company, port, shipping company, or air freight carrier.  QuERI product and market detailed estimates are matched to company sales information.   Using pooled-cross-sectional estimation techniques QuERI can develop a systematic set of equations that measure the relationship between company performance in markets for detailed products of a similar nature to the 415 commodity detail available from the QuERI databases. 

 

For example if a company has 50 product lines sold in 35 markets, an integrated planning system once developed could make projecting potential market sales relatively easy.  By integrating internal information, models can be updated to reflect the latest information.  By shortening the time dimension and including relative company factors like number of sales professionals, targets, coverage, differences in performance between sales teams can be analyzed.  By using this information proactively, sales targets can be fairly set relative to underlying and projected future market conditions.  Setting sales targets fairly can pay off in reduced payouts as well as a simified, but inherently fair, performance evaluation system.

 

Companies with a fully functioning IPS can adapt to changing economic conditions quickly.  QuERI will reestimate internally consistent global forecats for market demand, production, exports and imports as economic conditions change due to changing macroeconomic and other factors.  By linking company forecasts automatically to these external or exogenous influences, new sales projections can be developed and new sales strategies devised.