A Data-based Sales Forecasting Support System for New Businesses

Analysis of future business or investment opportunities, such as business feasibility analysis and company or technology valuation, necessitate objective estimation on the relevant market and expected sales. While there are various ways to classify the estimation methods of these new sales or market size, they can be broadly divided into top-down and bottom-up approaches by benchmark references. Both methods, however, require a lot of resources and time. Therefore, we propose a data-based intelligent demand forecasting system to support evaluation of new business. This study focuses on analogical forecasting, one of the traditional quantitative forecasting methods, to develop sales forecasting intelligence systems for new businesses. Instead of simply estimating sales for a few years, we hereby propose a method of estimating the sales of new businesses by using the initial sales and the sales growth rate of similar companies. To demonstrate the appropriateness of this method, it is examined whether the sales performance of recently established companies in the same industry category in Korea can be utilized as a reference variable for the analogical forecasting. In this study, we examined whether the phenomenon of "mean reversion" was observed in the sales of start-up companies in order to identify errors in estimating sales of new businesses based on industry sales growth rate and whether the differences in business environment resulting from the different timing of business launch affects growth rate. We also conducted analyses of variance (ANOVA) and latent growth model (LGM) to identify differences in sales growth rates by industry category. Based on the results, we proposed industry-specific range and linear forecasting models. This study analyzed the sales of only 150,000 start-up companies in Korea in the last 10 years, and identified that the average growth rate of start-ups in Korea is higher than the industry average in the first few years, but it shortly shows the phenomenon of mean-reversion. In addition, although the start-up founding juncture affects the sales growth rate, it is not high significantly and the sales growth rate can be different according to the industry classification. Utilizing both this phenomenon and the performance of start-up companies in relevant industries, we have proposed two models of new business sales based on the sales growth rate. The method proposed in this study makes it possible to objectively and quickly estimate the sales of new business by industry, and it is expected to provide reference information to judge whether sales estimated by other methods (top-down/bottom-up approach) pass the bounds from ordinary cases in relevant industry. In particular, the results of this study can be practically used as useful reference information for business feasibility analysis or technical valuation for entering new business. When using the existing top-down method, it can be used to set the range of market size or market share. As well, when using the bottom-up method, the estimation period may be set in accordance of the mean reverting period information for the growth rate. The two models proposed in this study will enable rapid and objective sales estimation of new businesses, and are expected to improve the efficiency of business feasibility analysis and technology valuation process by developing intelligent information system. In academic perspectives, it is a very important discovery that the phenomenon of 'mean reversion' is found among start-up companies out of general small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as stable companies such as listed companies. In particular, there exists the significance of this study in that over the large-scale data the mean reverting phenomenon of the start-up firms' sales growth rate is different from that of the listed companies, and that there is a difference in each industry. If a linear model, which is useful for estimating the sales of a specific company, is highly likely to be utilized in practical aspects, it can be explained that the range model, which can be used for the estimation method of the sales of the unspecified firms, is highly likely to be used in political aspects. It implies that when analyzing the business activities and performance of a specific industry group or enterprise group there is political usability in that the range model enables to provide references and compare them by data based start-up sales forecasting system.

데이터기반의 신규 사업 매출추정방법 연구: 지능형 사업평가 시스템을 중심으로

사업타당성 분석이나 기업 기술가치평가 등 미래의 사업에 대한 진입이나 투자 타당성을 분석하기 위해서는 새로운 사업과 관련한 시장을 추정하고 그 안에서 확보 가능한 매출을 객관적으로 추정하는 과정이 필수 불가결하다. 이런 신규 매출이나 시장규모의 추정 방법은 다양한 방법으로 구분이 가능한데 크게 정량적인 방법과 정성적인 방법으로 구분할 수 있다. 그러나 두 가지 방법 모두 많은 자원과 시간을 필요로 한다. 그래서 우리는 신규 사업의 평가지원을 위한 데이터 기반의 지능형 매출 예측 시스템을 제안하고자 한다. 본 연구는 사업타당성 분석이나 기술가치평가를 위한 신규 사업의 매출 추정 시스템을 개발하는데, 알고리즘 기반으로 전통적인 정량 예측방법 중 하나인 유추방법에 주목했다. 동일한 국내 산업에서 최근 창업한 기업의 매출 실적을 국내 신규 사업의 매출액을 추정하는 유추 대상 변수로 활용할 수 있는지 검토한다. 여기서 유추예측 대상은 최초 매출액과 초기 성장률이며, 주요 비교 차원은 산업분류, 창업시기 등이 고려된다. 특히 본 연구는 우리나라 창업 기업이 가지는 매출 성장률의 평균회귀 현상을 활용하는 지능형 정보 지원 시스템을 제안하다. 본 연구에서는 신규 매출 추정을 위해서 역사적 자료인 창업 매출 실적을 활용하는 방법이 적절한지 판단하기 위해서 잠재성장모형 등을 활용해 산업분류에 따른 신규 사업의 초기 매출액과 연도별 성장률이 산업분류별로 차이가 있는지 분석한다. 기존 기업의 창업 후 4년간 매출 성과의 종단자료를 잠재성장모형으로 분석하는데, 특정 산업분류에서 차이를 보여주는지 분석해 산업분류가 유추 예측에서 고려해야할 유의미한 변수인지 분석하는 것이다. 본 연구의 결과는 신속하고 객관적인 신규 사업 매출 추정을 가능하게 하는 지능형 정보시스템을 개발하게 해서 사업성타당성 분석이나 기술가치평가 과정의 효율성을 개선시켜 줄 것으로 기대된다.