Sales Force Composite:

ere the salesmen are considered as experts on their territories. They are asked to project sales volume to their own territories and their estimates are reviewed at a higher management level. The forecasting rule assigned to sales people is assigned to those who must later produce results.

Advantages

• This method has the merit of utilizing the specialized knowledge of those company personnel who are in the closest touch with market conditions.
• Because the salespeople help to develop the forecast, they should have greater confidence in quotas based upon it.
• Forecasts developed by this method are easy to breakdown according to products, territories, customers, middlemen and sales force.

Weaknesses

• It is not free of bias
• Sales people are not trained in forecasting and many tend to be even optimistic or over-pessimistic about their prospects for making future sales (many predict either too much or much more than they can deliver).
• A salesperson might also be unaware of larger economic developments in the country or of company marketing plans that will shape future sales in his territory.