Here is the information about the demand for a particular brand of fax machine in a department store for the last twelve months: Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Demand 12 15 19 23 27 30 32 33 37 41 49 58

a) Calculate the four-month moving average for months 4 to 12, and provide your forecast for demand in month 13.

b) Apply exponential smoothing with a smoothing constant of 0.2 to obtain a forecast for the demand in month 13.

c) Explain your preference between the two forecasts for month 13 and provide your reasoning. d) Identify other factors, not included in the above calculations, that could influence the demand for