Good news, everyone! I’ve turned my website into a company. But first, some history that explains why…
Back in 1990, Robert Fildes joined Lancaster University and established the Centre for Marketing Analytics and Forecasting (called “Lancaster Centre for Forecasting” back then). The main idea of the centre was to bridge the gap between academia and practice in demand forecasting. The academic world rarely listens to the things that bother business, thinking that those problems are boring, while business usually finds “hacks” to the problems rather than proper solutions. Robert wanted to listen to what business has to say and to use rigorous scientific methods in solving the problems. And while this has been a challenging road, I think it was wildly successful. As Robert says himself, for many years it was a journey of a man and a dog (and we all know who that man was). But after a decade of work, the centre started growing and attracting such smart people as Sven Crone, Kostas Nikolopoulos, Juan Ramon Trapero, Fotios Petropoulos, Devon Barrow, Nikos Kourentzes, John Boylan and many others. If you pick a random person working in forecasting in academia, chances are they have some connection with the CMAF and Robert Fildes.
The centre has evolved, it has grown, and after some time, for some of us it was time to move on. Nikos left Lancaster University back in 2019, I left it in August 2026. Over the last couple of years, the CMAF has changed, and we feel that Robert’s legacy should continue, OpenForecast being one of the potential ways forward. And I’m glad to say that Robert has agreed to join OpenForecast as an advisor.
So, I have started building the OpenForecast company, following the same principles that Robert built CMAF on. I have updated my website, which has worked as my personal blog for the last 10 years or so, to explain what the company does and how we can help. This is now the website of a company offering demand forecasting and inventory consultancy, and practitioner training. The books (e.g. ADAM and the Statistics lecture notes) are still there, all the resources are still there, and the packages that I have developed together with my colleagues are still open source and will stay that way. And most importantly, the blog is still there — it just lives in a different place now.
What’s changed is that the whole website now has a company around it. So, if your company keeps running out of stock, faces over-ordering, or relies on a system nobody understands, get in touch. And stay tuned — I plan to write more posts on the topic.