Principles of Business Forecasting 2e

By | October 16, 2017

I recently got my hands on a physical copy of my new book: Principles of Business Forecasting (2nd edition).

Ord, K., Fildes, R. and Kourentzes, N., 2017. Principles of business forecasting. 2nd ed. Wessex Press Publishing Co.

I was invited by Keith Ord and Robert Fildes to join them in writing the much-revised 2nd edition of the book. The book is aimed at both practitioners and students and it differs from typical time series textbooks in being focused on business forecasting, with appropriate focus on various methods, as well as processes and judgemental forecasting.

The book’s chapters give you an idea of the various topics covered:

  • Chapter 1: Forecasting, the Why and the How
  • Chapter 2: Basic Tools for Forecasting
  • Chapter 3: Forecasting Non-Seasonal Series
  • Chapter 4: Seasonal Series: Forecasting and Decomposition
  • Chapter 5: State-Space Models for Time Series
  • Chapter 6: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Models
  • Chapter 7: Simple Linear Regression for Forecasting
  • Chapter 8: Multiple Regression for Time Series
  • Chapter 9: Model Building
  • Chapter 10: Advanced Methods of Forecasting
  • Chapter 11: Judgment-Based Forecasting
  • Chapter 12: Putting Forecasting Methods to Work
  • Chapter 13: Forecasting in Practice

The content of some chapters is self-evident, though others cover a broad set of topics. For example, chapter 10 looks at logistic regression and neural networks, amongst other topics, while chapters 12 and 13 provide a lot of the business context that is missing in many of the available time series textbooks. The book is supported by online material, including R based exercises and examples. You can find more information about the book here, or head to the publisher’s website.

One forecast I surely got wrong is how much work is involved in writing a book! Nonetheless, it has been a fantastic experience to co-author this book with Keith and Robert! I hope you will find it equally interesting and rewarding to read it.

7 thoughts on “Principles of Business Forecasting 2e

  1. Juan Ramón

    Congratulations for the new book! It is a great piece of work. May you include the whole reference so that I can cite the book?

    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. Forecaster

    Hi Nikos, congratulations. I own the first edition, what is the difference between the new edition and the old edition. I see that the 2e has R programs.

    Thanks

    Reply
    1. Nikos Post author

      The book structure is quite similar, but the content is reworked substantially. Several parts are re-written to make them both easier to read and up to date. For example in the regression chapters we have expanded the text to introduce lasso regression and throughout the book there is a heavier focus on information criteria and cross-validation. We have also tried to provide numerous references, where appropriate, to guide the reader to additional material. I think the following photo gives a good idea!
      DeltaBook

      Reply
      1. Forecaster

        Awesome thank you. Can you pleas let me kno if this book would be available in Amazon anytime soon?

        Reply
        1. Nikos Post author

          Currently the way to get it is through the publisher’s website. They ship worldwide, but based in the US. They are working on alternative worldwide distribution, but not in place yet.

          Reply
  3. Pingback: R package: tsutils – Forecasting

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