American Airlines

All firms engaged in activities as a tactical entity will, in some form or another, attempt to get a handle on expected demand for their products within a certain future time period such as a week, month, quarter or year. This is a tactical environment and, aside from any earth shattering new developments or shocks to the existing environment, forecasts for expected demand/maximum-likelihood share of market may be made with a fair degree of accuracy with little variance. There are several key points that are important to this process, such as: activities of competitors, market projections for the industry by industry insiders/analysts, and a great deal of historical data.

Competitive intelligence is a parameter which attempts to add subjective background to the environment in which demand forecasting is carried out. Information comes from a variety of sources such as secondary information gathered from written sources, direct observation, and from competitors themselves through pre...