MGTSC 405 - Forecasting for Planners and Managers

3 units (fi 6)(EITHER, 3-0-0)

Faculty of Business

This course is concerned with methods used to predict the uncertain nature of business trends in an effort to help managers make better decisions and plans. Such efforts often involve the study of historical data and manipulation of these data to search for patterns that can be effectively extrapolated to produce forecasts. This is a business statistics course that covers all aspects of business forecasting where the emphasis is on intuitive concepts and applications. Topics covered include the family of exponential smoothing methods, decomposition methods, dynamic regression methods, Box-Jenkins methods and judgmental forecasting methods (e.g. the Delphi method). Because forecasting is best taught through practice, the course contains numerous real, relevant, business oriented case studies and examples that students can use to practice the application of concepts. Prerequisites: MGTSC 312, MGTSC 352 or OM 352.