New Product Introduction (NPI) forecasting is a high-stakes operational bottleneck where planners must predict demand for SKUs with zero sales history. Manual reliance on analogous items and gut feel leads to systematic error—either costly overstock that triggers markdowns or stockouts that kill launch momentum. The business upside is direct: a custom automation workflow reduces launch failures, improves sell-through by 15-30%, and protects margin by aligning initial buys with true demand signals, not guesswork.




