From the information below write a 

• Problem statement?
• Research question?
• Hypothesis?

The Problem with Market Expansion

The Background:

The COSMO Corporation was a large bulk item and discount buyer's club chain that offered everything from cases of soup to big-screen televisions. Over the past several years, the company had experienced a significant increase in membership as well as sales. In fact, sales had peaked three years prior to an all-time company high. This made the senior leadership team, board of directors, and of course, the stockholders very happy as increased revenues meant higher levels of profit and the opportunity for expansion. The senior leadership team and the board of directors decided to move from being a regional company to a national company by expanding with 100 new stores. The question was where to locate the stores? Company marketing surveys revealed many of the prime locations selected by COSMO as potential new store locations had high concentrations of their biggest competitor's stores. COSMO knew if they collocated with their competitors, this would have an impact on their revenue and profit margins.

The senior leadership team consisted of Julius Frankay, the president and CEO, Marie Bumgardner, the COO, William Devaney, the CFO, and MaryBeth Whithead, the CIO. This team met to discuss the expansion plan and the issue presented. Marie had looked over the data from a recent and extensive customer survey and noticed what she thought might be a trend. The survey seemed to suggest that COSMO's biggest draw of customers was based on income demographics. The proposed new store locations were not based on income, but rather on population density. With this information, the SLT decided to use statistics to determine if there was, in fact, any potential relationship between the customer base and income.

The Facts:

COSMO plans to expand its operations nationally. COSMO must decide what data and information to use in order to determine the most profitable sites for their new store expansion. 

Data from the recent customer survey suggested there might be a relationship between family income and membership/revenues. The senior leadership team decided to run a study to determine if this relationship between family income and COSMO revenue exists.