Strategic Sales Management Guided By Economic Regimes
by Wolfgang Ketter, John Collins, Maria Gini, Alok Gupta and Paul Schrater
We describe a method for automated characterization of market
conditions, which we call economic regimes, and for prediction of
future market conditions and of price trends. These predictions
can then be used by the agent to make strategic and tactical
sales decisions.
The method is based on learning dominant market conditions, such
as over-supply or scarcity, from historic data and using this
knowledge, together with real-time observable information, to
identify current market conditions, forecast market changes, and
compute price trends over a planning horizon.
The approach is presented in the context of the Trading Agent
Competition for Supply Chain Management (TAC SCM), a market
simulation in which six autonomous agents buy parts, assemble
personal computers, and sell them in daily auctions to customers.