I can't seem to solve this problem. I am setting up a bonus program for our
sales people. Each sales person sells 3 products (A, B and C.) Management
wants the products to be weighted 40%, 40%, 20% in the bonus plan. The bonus
payouts kick in at a minimum of 70% sales to quota. However, there is a
stipulation that no sales person can be paid if their sales growth is
negative.

I have been asked to set a growth target for each product. My concern is the
products are not growing very fast (around 2%-4% each.) I need to determine
the minimum targets need to be for each product to satisfy the above
criteria. Is there a way the Solver tool can solve this?

From what you've described there's no need for Solver. A worksheet model
should do the job. Of course, you still need to better define things like
"sales growth is negative," how product weighting affects the bonus, what
happens after "70% sales to quota," are the threholds product specific or
global, etc.

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta
www.tushar-mehta.com
Excel, PowerPoint, and VBA add-ins, tutorials
Custom MS Office productivity solutions

In article ,
says...
I can't seem to solve this problem. I am setting up a bonus program for our
sales people. Each sales person sells 3 products (A, B and C.) Management
wants the products to be weighted 40%, 40%, 20% in the bonus plan. The bonus
payouts kick in at a minimum of 70% sales to quota. However, there is a
stipulation that no sales person can be paid if their sales growth is
negative.

I have been asked to set a growth target for each product. My concern is the
products are not growing very fast (around 2%-4% each.) I need to determine
the minimum targets need to be for each product to satisfy the above
criteria. Is there a way the Solver tool can solve this?