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CMA Intermediate · Operations Management and Strategic Management · Operations Planning

A packaged-snacks company in Pune wants to forecast next quarter's sales of a new flavour for which no sales history exists. It decides to collect views from a panel of marketing and sales experts through several anonymous rounds of questionnaires, sharing summarised results after each round. Which forecasting method is this?

The method is the Delphi technique. It is a qualitative forecasting approach in which a panel of experts answers anonymous questionnaires over several rounds, seeing summarised feedback each time. It suits new products lacking sales history, whereas the other options require historical numerical data.

  1. AMoving average method
  2. BDelphi techniqueCorrect
  3. CExponential smoothing
  4. DLeast squares regression

Explanation

The Delphi technique is a qualitative method that gathers expert opinion through repeated anonymous questionnaires with feedback of summarised results. It suits new products with no history. Moving average, exponential smoothing and regression all need past numerical data, so they are unsuitable here.

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