Demand Management

Demand Management is a planning methodology used to forecast [predict], plan for and manage the demand for products and services. This can be at macro levels as in economics and at micro levels within individual organizations. For example, at macro levels, a government may influence interest rates in order to regulate financial demand. At micro levels, a cellular service provider may provide free night and weekend use in order to reduce demand during peak hours.

Demand management has a defined set of processes, capabilities and recommended behaviors for companies that produce all manner of goods and services. Consumer electronics and goods companies often lead in the application of demand management practices to their demand chains; demand management outcomes are a reflection of policies and programs to influence demand as well as competition and options available to users and consumers. Effective demand management follows the concept of a "closed loop" where feedback from the results of the demand plans is fed back into the planning process to improve the predictability of outcomes. Many practices reflect elements of the theory of Systems Dynamics. Increasingly volatility is being recognized as significant an issue as the focus on variance of demand to plans and forecasts.

In macroeconomics, demand management is the art or science of controlling aggregate demand to avoid a recession.

Demand management at the macroeconomic level involves the use of discretionary policy and is inspired by Keynesian economics, though today elements of it are part of the economic mainstream. The underlying idea is for the government to use tools like interest rates, taxation, and public expenditure to change key economic decisions like consumption, investment, the balance of trade, and public sector borrowing resulting in an 'evening out' of the business cycle. Demand management was widely adopted in the 1950s to 1970s, and was for a time successful. However, it did not prevent the stagflation of the 1970s, which is considered to have been precipitated by the supply shock caused by the 1973 oil crisis.

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