A while a go we have reported about the start of Prediction Market forecasting with a global FMCG client here. After a preparation phase, which included the tailoring of our CrowdWorx system to the existing forecasting process of the client, we are now proud to present first results from the introductory phase of this CrowdWorx implementation.

Each week various products have been forecasted. Looking at the weekly MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) one can recognize how CrowdWorx outperforms the internal forecasts. The average MAPE is 22.5% for CrowdWorx and 38.0% for the internal forecast. CrowdWorx also handled the difficult-to-predict sales around the bustling Christmas period in calendar weeks 49-53 well, outperforming the internal forecast in 4 out of 5 weeks.

Prediction Markets are known to get better over time after participants have gotten used to the new tool and with the best forecasters having accumulated a large amount of play-money along them to exert larger influence on the forecasts than poor forecasters. Our results are excellent and relevant already but we hope to be able to improve even more as CrowdWorx progresses into the client’s forecasting process.

We’re looking forward to reporting more exciting news about the performance of our prediction markets!

Tags: Project, Results, Sales forecasting This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 19:40 and is filed under Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.