This document provides an introduction to statistics, covering key topics such as what statistics is, its functions, applications in business, and subject matter. Statistics is defined as both a set of numerical data and a set of techniques for collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting quantitative data. It serves functions like simplifying complex facts, providing comparisons, and forecasting. Statistics is used widely in business decision making across areas like marketing, finance, and operations. The subject matter of statistics has two parts - descriptive statistics, which summarizes data, and inferential statistics, which makes conclusions about large groups by studying samples.