Which of the following forecasting technique uses three types of participants: decision-makers, staff personnel and respondents?

Explanation:

Forecasting: 

Forecasting is the prediction of future sales or demand for a particular product in the market. Forecasts can be made by using the past data of a product.

It can be done in two ways

i) Qualitative Technique: 

This approach is used for new product and used for long term forecasting. In this approach, there is no need for any data.

Opinion survey:

• In this method, opinions are collected from the customer, retailer and distributor regarding the demand pattern of the product.

Market trial:

• It is applied for new product and in this case, a product is introduced between a limited population in the form of a free sample.
• It is applied for low-cost products like toothpaste, chocolate, coldrinks etc.

Market research:

• In this method, the work of survey is assigned to an external marketing agency and the purpose of the research is to collect information regarding the demand of a product and the various factors which influence the demand like customer income, location, quality, quantity etc are required to get the forecast.

Delphi technique:

• This technique is used to make more realistic judgemental methods by minimizing bias.
• In this method, a panel of experts (including decision-makers, staff personnel, and respondents) is asked sequential questions. 
• It is the step by step procedure and the final forecast is obtained by the common opinion of all the experts.

ii) Quantitative Technique: 

This is used to forecast the demand for the existing product for short term

Here some previous data are given and based on that forecasting is done.

• Simple Moving Average Method
• Weighted Moving Average Method
• Simple Exponential Smoothing Method
• Trend Line Estimate or Linear Regression Method