How demand forecasting helped a company retain market leadership

An industry leader of managed service provider of ATMs is among the top solution providers in the sector’s semi-urban and rural (SURU) markets. The company grew rapidly and attained a market leading position within a short timeframe. In order to maintain its growth trajectory and market position, the company had to reduce existing levels of loss of sales and holding costs. The challenge of loss of sales and higher holding costs happens due to inaccurate demand prediction. Demand prediction, however, is a difficult challenge across the sector because of a multiplicity of factors involved.

The company needed a model for demand prediction, which was highly accurate. Inaccuracy in demand prediction is a core challenge faced by companies in the sector and often leads to deficit or excess cash inventories. Deficit of cash inventory leads to loss of sales whereas excess cash leads to an increase in holding costs.

An integrated and interactive digital platform to streamline daily cash supply chain operations was a critical need for the organization. The solution’s accuracy depended on the ability to cater to different user scenarios while it also needed to integrate into the company’s existing platforms. The company, thus, needed a solution provider with expertise in developing planning solutions with extensive sector knowledge and experience. After evaluating various aspects of its requirements, the company chose EY to build a demand prediction model which could help reduce loss of sales and holding costs. EY’s extensive knowledge about the consumer market, besides its extensive experience of working in the sector, helped the company engage with us to build an accurate demand prediction solution.

EY worked closely to understand different aspects of the company’s database structure. The exercise enabled the design of an efficient database within the final solution. We also established a daily master and transactional data transfer mechanism from the company’s servers. The EY team also discussed the solution’s wireframe with approximately 50 people from the organization who were associated with the process. 

We built the forecasting solution based on the following objectives:

1. Accurate forecasting
2. Intelligent planning
3. Real-time monitoring of KPIs with dashboards and display screens
4. Scalability
5. Cloud-ready architecture
6. Compliance and security
7. User-friendly interface
8. Support and training

Our digital solution revolutionized the cash supply chain, offering a range of benefits that enhanced accuracy, efficiency, visibility, scalability, integration, and collaboration. This comprehensive approach empowered the company to optimize cash management, reduce costs, and meet customer demands more effectively. By leveraging real-time data insights, the solution enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, ensuring better planning, fewer errors and better inventory management. 

By reducing manual intervention, minimizing errors, and maximizing resource utilization, EY's solution enabled the ATM services provider to achieve cost savings, boost profitability, and gain a competitive advantage in the market.