managers’ and their own knowledge about channel holdings, current sales, and expected promotions
to develop forecasts based on information about what was happening in the distribution channel.
Sales directors were inclined to shield account managers from this forecasting responsibility,
maintaining that it would be too distracting to involve them. The sales directors’ bottom-up forecast
was first stated as a sell-in forecast, since most incentives for the sales organization were based on
commissions on sell-in to the resellers.