Survey Techniques

Opinion polling methods and survey of consumers' intentions are often used to make short-term forecasts. They are used to supplement the quantitative forecasts that anticipate changes in consumer tastes and business expectations about future economic conditions.

(i)     Expert Opinion Polling: Forecasts are made by a panel of corporate executives who are experts in sales, finance, production and other fields. Panels can be inter-organisational (i.e., from different corporations) or intra-organisational (i.e. within a corporation). This technique is used widely and is often successful. To avoid influence of some dominant personality, Delphi method can be used. This technique was developed by Rand Corporation in the 1960s. A sequential series of written questions and probable answers are used to obtain opinion of panel of experts. The experts may revise estimates if required Anonymity of experts is maintained throughout the study to avoid influence of a dominant personality. Consensus is made of the divergent views of the experts by enquiring about the reasons for different forecast estimates from the experts, if any. In 1971; a study sponsored by Corning glass investigated trends in resident housing in the ensuing 15 yrs by this method.

(ii)    Sales Force Polling: It involves solicitation of views of individual sales people in a company to forecast firms' sales in each region and for each product line. Sales representatives are expected to have finger on the pulse of the market.

(iii)   Survey of Consumers' Intentions: This method involves survey of intentions of potential buyers. The rationale for conducting such surveys is that economic decisions are generally made in advance of actual expenditure. Thus, a survey of investment plans should reasonably provide accurate forecast for future demand. They can he used to forecast future purchases of capital equipment, inventory changes and major consumer expenditures. Direct interview of potential buyers can be done in form of:

(a)    Complete enumeration survey: This method involves the survey of probable demands of all the consumers for the forecast period. The amount of the good to be consumed by all the consumers 'is added together to obtain the probable market demand. This method is costly, time consuming and liable to consumer bias.

(b)    Sample survey: Under this method, a survey of sample units is undertaken. A sample is chosen as a representative of the population. Total market demand is then calculated by multiplying the total sample demand by the number of consuming units in the sample This method is simple, less costly and less tedious than the former. "But it may - have bias of the sample.

(c)     End use method: -Projections of sales of a product under this method are made by survey of its end users. Industries using an intermediate good as an end product are included in the sample to assess the probable demand for the good in consideration. 

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