Case Study: NBCUniversal achieves a 15-point improvement in sales forecast accuracy with Teradata Demand Chain Management

Getting The Forecast Right Nbcuniversal Finds A Better Way To Predict Consumer Demand

NBCUniversal’s retail operations group, which distributes DVDs and Blu-ray Discs to over 7,000 stores under a vendor‑managed inventory model and forecasts more than 1 million units daily, faced mounting forecasting challenges as consumers shifted toward streaming. New releases were especially critical—about 60% of DVD revenue and 85% of a title’s sales occur within the first eight weeks—so the studio needed a more dynamic, accurate demand‑prediction system to avoid stockouts or costly overages.

NBCUniversal partnered with Teradata for a proof of concept on 17 titles using Teradata Demand Chain Management, integrating the solution with its existing IT environment. After full implementation, forecast accuracy improved by 15 percentage points—example: predicting 86,000 week‑two sales for Oblivion versus about 87,000 actual—enabling better point‑of‑sale performance without increasing inventory.

NBC Universal