Development of Market Growth Pattern Map Based on Growth Model and Self-organizing Map Algorithm: Focusing on ICT products

Market forecasting aims to estimate the sales volume of a product or service that is sold to consumers for a specific selling period. From the perspective of the enterprise, accurate market forecasting assists in determining the timing of new product introduction, product design, and establishing production plans and marketing strategies that enable a more efficient decision-making process. Moreover, accurate market forecasting enables governments to efficiently establish a national budget organization. This study aims to generate a market growth curve for ICT (information and communication technology) goods using past time series data; categorize products showing similar growth patterns; understand markets in the industry; and forecast the future outlook of such products. This study suggests the useful and meaningful process (or methodology) to identify the market growth pattern with quantitative growth model and data mining algorithm. The study employs the following methodology. At the first stage, past time series data are collected based on the target products or services of categorized industry. The data, such as the volume of sales and domestic consumption for a specific product or service, are collected from the relevant government ministry, the National Statistical Office, and other relevant government organizations. For collected data that may not be analyzed due to the lack of past data and the alteration of code names, data pre-processing work should be performed. At the second stage of this process, an optimal model for market forecasting should be selected. This model can be varied on the basis of the characteristics of each categorized industry. As this study is focused on the ICT industry, which has more frequent new technology appearances resulting in changes of the market structure, Logistic model, Gompertz model, and Bass model are selected. A hybrid model that combines different models can also be considered. The hybrid model considered for use in this study analyzes the size of the market potential through the Logistic and Gompertz models, and then the figures are used for the Bass model. The third stage of this process is to evaluate which model most accurately explains the data. In order to do this, the parameter should be estimated on the basis of the collected past time series data to generate the models' predictive value and calculate the root-mean squared error (RMSE). The model that shows the lowest average RMSE value for every product type is considered as the best model. At the fourth stage of this process, based on the estimated parameter value generated by the best model, a market growth pattern map is constructed with self-organizing map algorithm. A self-organizing map is learning with market pattern parameters for all products or services as input data, and the products or services are organized into an $N{\times}N$ map. The number of clusters increase from 2 to M, depending on the characteristics of the nodes on the map. The clusters are divided into zones, and the clusters with the ability to provide the most meaningful explanation are selected. Based on the final selection of clusters, the boundaries between the nodes are selected and, ultimately, the market growth pattern map is completed. The last step is to determine the final characteristics of the clusters as well as the market growth curve. The average of the market growth pattern parameters in the clusters is taken to be a representative figure. Using this figure, a growth curve is drawn for each cluster, and their characteristics are analyzed. Also, taking into consideration the product types in each cluster, their characteristics can be qualitatively generated. We expect that the process and system that this paper suggests can be used as a tool for forecasting demand in the ICT and other industries.

자기조직화 지도를 활용한 성장모형 기반의 시장 성장패턴 지도 구축: ICT제품을 중심으로

시장 예측은 일정 기간 동안 소비자에게 판매되는 동종 제품 또는 서비스의 수량 혹은 매출액의 규모를 추정하는 활동으로 정의할 수 있다. 정확한 시장 예측은 기업의 입장에서 새로운 제품의 도입시기 결정, 제품 설계, 생산계획 수립, 마케팅 전략 수립 등에 활용됨으로써 경영활동에 있어 효율적인 의사결정을 내릴 수 있게 하고, 정부의 입장에서는 발전 가능성이 있는 분야에 국가예산을 더 배분할 수 있는 효율적인 예산수립이 가능하게 한다. 본 연구는 정보통신기술(Information and Communication Technology: ICT) 분야의 제품 및 서비스에 대해서 과거의 시계열 자료를 이용하여 시장 성장곡선을 도출하고, 성장패턴이 비슷한 그룹으로 분류하여, 산업 내 시장에 대해 이해하고, 제품들의 미래 전망을 예측하는 데 목적이 있다. 다양한 아이템들을 통일되고 일관적인 방법으로 예측하기 위하여, 로지스틱 모형, 곰페르츠 모형, Bass 모형의 세 가지 전통적인 성장모형과 로지스틱 모형이나 곰페르츠 모형에서 도출되는 잠재시장 크기를 Bass 모형에 결합시킨 두 가지 하이브리드 성장모형을 개발하여 비교 분석하였다. 데이터 설명력이 우수한 로지스틱 + Bass 모형을 최적의 모형으로 선정하여 ICT 제품 및 서비스들 각각의 시장 성장곡선 모수를 확인하였다. 도출된 모수를 데이터로 하여, 자기조직화 지도 알고리즘을 통해, 5개의 의미 있는 영역으로 구분된 시장 성장패턴 지도가 구축되었는데, 각 영역별로 차별화된 특징과 성장패턴을 가지고 있었다. 본 연구에서 제안한 프로세스 및 시스템은 산업 시장 분석 시스템의 수요 예측 기능으로 활용될 수 있으며, ICT 산업뿐만 아니라 다양한 산업 및 분야에도 적용 가능할 것으로 기대된다.