An example of this could be ice cream sales presented in monthly data. In many business scenarios there is a seasonality pattern that we would like to take into account in the forecast. The main advantages of using the ETS method are the ability to detect seasonality patterns and confidence intervals. Exponential Smoothing methods are a popular way to forecast and are among the leading methods that have become industry standards. The new functionality in Excel 2016 utilizes another algorithm, called Exponential Smoothing or ETS. Before Excel 2016, many used the FORECAST() sheet function, which performs a linear forecast or extended trendlines in chart properties to extrapolate forward.
There are many ways to generate a forecast for your historical data. Get Excel Using Exponential Smoothing for forecasting
