Im working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and can see sales behaviour is almost same across the globe! they do not want to forecast and no active participation in demand planning process!

During my perivious company which is in food products distribution for some well known brands, we tried to work on top-down/bottoms-up approach in forecast and then have demand planning meeting for exceptions out of it, it was not easy at first but gradually it took momentum and we start measuring MAPE and then put the S&OP in place, and achieved good results in cash flow.