Ranjit Kumar is the CEO of Rantech Ltd. He was pondering on how to meet the demand for packaging machines manufactured by his company. The company is a market leader and also exports its machines to SAARC countries and certain African nations like Nigeria and Kenya. The company is a total solutions provider to customers with stringent processes and quality systems. It received an ISO 9001 certification in 2014 for design, manufacturing, sales, installation and servicing of its machines plus test equipment.

Demand for the machines vary due to changes in conditions in the economic and technology environments. With the influx of Covid , Ranjit was expecting a drastic reduction in the demand for his machines as they were primarily used by the packaged goods in the FMCG sector and the pharmaceutical industry. He was pleasantly surprised that demand not only held on, but increased.

Ranjit in fact increased the prices of his machines by 10 % for customers like Cipla, Sunpharma, Godrej and Dabur. Despite the increase in prices, demand for the product went up by 15%, which was in excess of the company's production capacity. Ranjit was wondering how to increase the accuracy of demand forecasting and how to meet the fluctuating demand for his company's products.

Question: Q. How will you describe the nature of demand for packaging machines? What methods should be followed by the company to improve the accuracy of sales forecast?