PAF – Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology City Campus

Course: Sales Management

Faculty: Muhammad Shahbaz
Class ID:
Examination: Midterm (Fall - 2020) Date: 22nd October 2020

Total Marks: 25 Max. Time: 3 Hours

(Questions & Answers) 15 Marks

Q1.) Make the flow chart of Sales Planning Process. (2 marks)

Start

Rethink
Gather
Customer data
Strategy

Unsuccessful
Sale
Campaign

Successful Buy
sale Success

Opportunity
for sales Page 1 of 4
Sensitivity: Internal
 Q2) Make the matrix of Portfolio Model for Effort Allocation. Also briefly
explain the attractiveness of each account and the selling efforts required with
atleast two examples at each stage. (5 marks)

Q3) What are the five Qualitative methods used for Sales Forecasting?
Define any three methods with advantages and disadvantages along with
atleast one example. (5 marks)

Qualitative methods for sales forecasting

 Opinion method
 Delphi method
 Sales force composite method
 Buyer’s expectation method
 Historical analogy method

Delphi Method
This method tries to determine the forecasts on the likely time period
of occurrence of certain future events and the probability of their
occurrence. In this method, a group of experts and a Delphi
coordinator will be selected.
Advantages
 Forecasting a specific, single-dimension question
 Rapid consensus
 Participants can reside anywhere in this world
 Avoid groupthink

Disadvantages
 Cross impact is neglected in the original form.
 Does not cope well with paradigm shifts.
 Success of the method depends on the quality of the participants.

Page 2 of 4
Sensitivity: Internal
 Sales Force Composite Method:
In this method, the organization asks its sales personnel to come up with their
forecasts. It is assumed that such persons who are in direct contact with the
customers and other members of the distribution channel will be better
informed about the trends in demand for the product. The individual forecasts
are then combined to get an overall demand forecast for the organization.

Advantages
 The intimate knowledge and experience of the sales force in their respective
territories can be used efficiently.
 The responsibility to forecast sales rests on the shoulders of the sales agent
and thus could be held accountable if anything goes wrong.
 Since the sales agents forecast the sales by themselves, put more efforts to
achieve them.
Disadvantages
 Sales force are often pessimistic or optimistic
 Unable to product a downturn or upturn in the market
 Cannot predict long term sales forecast accurately
 Historical data is needed

Historical analogy method

Forecasting by analogy is a forecasting method that uses additional
information from equivalence groups of analogous series to make a more
accurate forecast than what can be made with a single series or judgment
alone.

Advantages:

Page 3 of 4
Sensitivity: Internal
 Q4) Define the following concepts with example. (3 marks)

Market Potential
Sales Potential

Page 4 of 4
Sensitivity: Internal