The power and politics of sales forecasting: Uncertainty absorption and the power of the Marketing Department

Recent concerns have focused on the adequacy of the power of Marketing Departments to implement the marketing concept and to put into effect marketing plans and strategies. The article analyzes the marketing function as an information processing activity, where one significant element of information processing is sales forecasting as an uncertainty absorption process. The major hypothesis is that the power of the Marketing Department can be partially explained by its control of sales forecasting, both directly but also indirectly through a set of strategic contingencies which make marketplace uncertainty critical to the firm. The argument is supported by empirical data from a study of manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom, and leads to the identification of a number of implications for managers and researchers.