Forecasting Definition and its Methods, FORECASTING INTRODUCTION The growing competition, frequent changes in customer's demand and the trend towards automation demand that decisions in business should not be based purely on guesses rather on a careful analysis of data concerning the future course of events. More time and attention should be given to the future than to the past, and the question 'what is likely to happen?' should take precedence over 'what has happened?' though no attempt to answer the first can be made without the facts and figures being available to answer the second. When estimates of future conditions are made on a systematic basis, the process is called forecasting and the figure or statement thus obtained is defined as forecast. In a world where future is not known with certainty, virtually every business and economic decision rests upon a forecast of future conditions. Forecasting aims at reducing the area of uncertainty that s...