Most market forecasts are actually supply forecast driven by the limited resources of suppliers to inform customers of their product and convince them to spend money on them. I.e. determined by the willingness of the producer to spend. There could be elements in the customers decision making process that can not be influenced by the producer and which causes delays in the uptake of a new product, e.g. waiting to see how early adopters react, waiting for the second generation of products etc.

To the extent that market forecasters segment their markets wide enough, i.e. related to budget decisions of their customers they actually can be helpfull in working through these adoption rate questions which tend to show some typical uptake patterns. In that sense they do similar work to that of the financial technical analyst – making all kinds of decisionpoints visible that will influence decision making (Margin call points, portfolio balance issues, warning points etc).

The most important thing to forecast though is the moment at which the cost of solution B falls below the cost of solution A. The oil age will not end because of a lack of oil, but when the value proposition of an alternative dips under the value proposition of oil. Just as maps are disappearing from cars now the cost of a navigator is approaching that of a map while the extra convenience, time savings etc mean that the value is significantly higher.