Ever since we have done that forecasting activity in class last week, with us being in charge of ordering the right amount of boxes of inventory for the upcoming week, so we are not short or waste our product. It made me think about the time, when I worked at my Dads Subway franchise store. I felt like it was the perfect example since the process of predicting a future, underlined the basis of all business decisions mostly to do with personnel, production, and most important Inventory. I never really realized how important it is to make sure you have the upcoming inventory absolutely as close as you can. Thats not all in subway, I believe there are alot of things to do with forecasting at our store, such as the  demand forecast that leads to the price on the menu, depends on how many costumers like that sandwich,or even new products that come in with different promotions. We change up the price on the menu due to new items, class favorites, or just simply because of the economy. Now if plan on changing the prices, we cant just charge someone $15 dollars for a sandwich when it only cost 6 bucks. We have to use the actual demand for that sandwich, as well as forecast store sales around us in the same region, understand what there selling price is  and place a predicted demand of the data we know. The trick is not to place the price higher than your competitor and not lower that what you are need to make a revenue. Which leads us to forecast the right price so in the end we win both ways.

Not only does price have to do with subway Every 2 weeks we have to do an inventory count at our store, to see what we need or what was used more, making sure we dont miss a step since it is vital for our store to be fully stocked at all times. For instance if we run out of lettuce that day and realize that we still have 2 more days till the next inventory to be here, where in big trouble since we did not accumulate enough boxes of lettuce for that week. Which now leads us to shortage of lettuce for costumers that really need lettuce on their sandwiches. That applies to all meat products, vegetables, cheese, new supplies and containers. You guys might think OMG, this must be such a hassle, it kind of is, but what made it easier is the stable historical data that we have stored in the computer as well as a check list for previous entries of boxes we have sold before. This  includes all the information of product we use from months to weeks all the way to how much of the product we have used daily. This helps us alot to forecast our future weeks up ahead, the data can be all the way from 2 years back. I guess the forecasting Approach, is similar and alike as the Quantitative approach using existing products and current technology that is stable and consists of historical data. You might think that there is no mathematical approach but there is since we use our costumer data , as well as the gross income, to make the right decision so we dont wast our product nor are we running out.

Forecasting is not only big at our store it defines what we do everyday, to make sure that we never have a problem. Even Forecasting how many employees you want to work for that day. If we know a monday is going to be slower than a saturday, we rather put two workers instead of 4, how is that done by forecasting daily through our business revenue patterns through trend projection of monday to Sunday.

I guess the real question is what would franchises and business like us do with out forecasting? Have you ever gone to a place and found out that they ran out of something you really wanted? What other Managment Operations are used that I have not included in here?

Hope this was interesting 🙂

After reading about the Greek debt crisis for over a year now,  International media focus on how the Greek government and people spend their money. But an equally important problem is the inability of the Greek state to collect revenues.“What went wrong in Greece?” Apparently, Greece’s adoption of the euro “made it easier for the country to borrow money…. Greece went on a big, debt-funded spending spree, including paying for high-profile projects such as the 2004 Athens Olympics.” Isn’t this a big part of project planning,scheduling, and controlling. I feel as though Greece really never had a strategic plan for anything, nor did they have control of their expense. Greece debt has accumulated to 350 billion and need to be bailed out  at least a 130 billion by march 20, 14.5 billion goes to Athens. That is a huge some of money!

Now I know you guys are thinking, how does a country that is gone in debt part of a project planning ,scheduling, or have to do with controlling. Greek debt actually accumulated back in the 1980s and early 90s, years before Europe got its common currency. The size of the Greek public sector (as a percentage of GDP or share of the labor market) is around or even below average compared to the rest of Europe. I feel as though Greece never really planned or controlled their spending habits, nor have they scheduled or learned from it. Look at where there country is at now, if they planned an action to make up for their revenues , control their spending and schedule to figure this out before hand instead of waiting it out. Look at the effect it has on the world, and on Europe. Not only is Greece part of the subject but many other countries are  following the pattern of Greece . Another country not to far away would be Italy, im sure that there are more to come.  For example, if Greece was scheduling , they should be resourcing, making ways to figure out revenues for their country, assign people to make sure this doesn’t get out of hand. On the other hand, if they were controlling, as soon as they know that there country is going downhill, they should revise and change plans or even monitor resources, cost and quality. But before all that comes the planning, that’s where they should set goals, identify their resources, and define there overall goal for their countries future.

The real question is, do you think that they are in fault for bringing there country down by not doing anything about it, besides asking for a bailout? Or if they do get the bail out, what should they do for the future? Should they revise their plan, schedule, and control for the better of Greece? Or simply just wait for another bailout to happen? What are your thoughts on Greece and there vast amount of debt? Not only that but what else have we learned in our Management class that Greece could use for future reference.

🙂