Forecasting Forecasting is the ability of a firm to plan for its future. The future of firms has different parameters such as costs, inventory, interest rate charges, and capacities. The constant changes in the business environment demand that organizations must prepare to adapt to the environment in order to continue realizing continuous growth. The forecasting process enables organizations to predict the future behavior of their internal activities like financial flow (“Industry Forecasting Methods” par. 1). They can also evaluate the external activities like the customers’ tastes and preference. This approach enables firms to satisfy their customers’ needs. Therefore, the forecast helps firms to come up with strategies that they can employ to go through the future challenges. This gives organizations competitive advantage over other competitors. Methods and Techniques of forecasting Firms employ various forecasting techniques in order to understand the nature of their customers’ demands. Forecasting entails research and development with the purpose of replacing old trends with new trends. The various types of forecasting are in two broad categories that are qualitative and quantitative approaches. Under qualitative approach, there are Delphi method, market research, product life-cycle analogy and expert judgement (“Forecasting” par. 6). In this method experts are presented with a scenario and are tasked to make initial predictions based on a questionnaire to write opinions. Afterwards, response analysis is carried out, and another summary is given to the experts for further predictions. This process undergoes several repetitions until a consensus is reached. Market research involves the use of questionnaires and surveys in testing the market trends and customers’ behaviors. There is also the product life-cycle analogy which analyzes the performance of a given product in the market. This method studies the general life-cycle of all products that firms produce. Lastly, expert judgement is carried out by the entire management and other technocrats. On quantitative methods, there are the time series forecasting methods; it is analyzes historical information over consecutive periods (“Forecasting” par. 8). In this method, analysts assume that they can use varied precedent data patterns to foresee future data points. In time series, there are moving averages, Box-Jenkins methods of autocorrelation, exponential smoothing and mathematical models. In this broad base quantitative forecasting method, firms plot to determine the characteristics of the plotted data. The components are trend, cyclical, irregular and seasonal component. Smoothing methods is an example of forecasting approaches, which show a fairly stable time series of no notable cyclical, seasonal effects, and trends. Apple’s Forecasting Technique The Apple Company uses time series analysis. The use of historical data has helped the company to redesign new products to constantly changing market, for example, the iPod (“Industry Forecasting Methods” par. 5). Apple has overtime altered their product models and sizes. The company forecasts on music portability in light gadgets. This strategy made the co