Section Threeregression analysis is the stability of the utility’s environment.
Because utilities typically have stable environments,
assumptions of stable relationships between the predictor
variables and the dependent variable are more likely to be valid
than in many environments characterized by turbulence.^88
Utilization of Demand Forecasting Techniques
The survey of techniques cited earlier also examined the
utilization rates for demand forecasting techniques. The
percentage of companies utilizing the various techniques are
reported in Table 3-4, which indicates that the simple
techniques of supervisor estimates (69.7 percent) and
replacement charts or succession planning techniques
(65.2 percent) are the most heavily utilized techniques. At the
other end of the distribution are regression analysis
(9.1 percent), and the Delphi technique (3.0 percent). While
the study found that there has been a decline in the utilization
of regression analysis from earlier periods because of the
reliance of line managers on simpler techniques, corporate-level
specialists in human resource planning, who do large scale
organization-wide forecasting, probably make extensive use of
regression analysis.^89