Customer Reviews

Business Forecasting (6th Edition)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book presents the topic of forecasting in good, methodical way with examples and illustrations from Minitab. It the book also illustrates the procedures on how to work with Minitab.

However, it appears the book may not have been updated for the changes in the Minitab software. As such, trying to replicate the tables and output illustrated in the book is very frustrating. As a student trying to learn the basics of forecasting, it is not possible to tell what errors are mine versus being due to differences in the software.

The supporting student website only contains data sets. An update to the tables and exhibits at the website would be helpful, as well as mentioning the existence of the website more than is currently done in the text.

Other than the frustration caused by the tables and printouts not exactly matching the current Minitab printouts, it is a good, understandable text that would have rated a 5.

I bought this book to do forecasting for work. The authors' names looked familiar, but I thought maybe an obscure article or footnote was the reason. Then, after going through this book, I realized the reason - Wichern is the same guy who wrote the utterly confusing, frustrating, and represensible Multivariate textbook myself and fellow graduate students were subjected to (and promptly ignored in favor of better books on the subject).

This book is a perfect example of why textbooks suck - professors get tenure by publishing and other professors do the evaluation. Learning or effectiveness never comes into the equation. So, as a book for impressing other professors, this book is a huge success. But as a book for actually learning how to do forecasting, it is an utter failure.

With the advent of the internet, there is better information about this subject on-line (like Wikipedia), written for people who do real work. I gave it two stars only because it is a moderately useful reference.

This was a required text for a class I was taking. It seemed to flow pretty well for the amount we used it. If I recall correctly, we did a lot of the problems in the back of the book which seemed to be fairly well explained/supported in the related chapters.

Forecasting and statistics are not easy for even the most experienced grad students and professors, but this book really helps to tie in basics with advanced concepts.