CASE APPLICATION (40 marks) PART A RESEARCH DESIGN AND CONCEPTS (24 marks) Jason just joined a private company as a marketing research manager. The company happens to be a beverage producer. Jason reports to the owner (President) of the company who knows a lot about sales but little about marketing research. In order to increase revenue for the company, the owner wants to introduce a new line of packaged herbal tea in the marketplace. The company has been concentrated on manufacturing and marketing carbonated drinks, and has not launched anything in the packaged herbal tea segment. On the very first day when Jason walked into the office, the President's personal assistant escorted Jason to a meeting where the President was starting to meet and brief an external research supplier, and to assess the supplier's capability in undertaking a market research project. The President made the following statements during the meeting: 1. The market research purpose is to stimulate profitability in our company only. 2. The company needs to grow in a much bigger manner. I believe herbal tea has potential because people are more concernedabout health. In order to get some feel in the market place quickly, I would like to conduct some focus groups and obtain some quick feedback, and based on what people consume, I want to do some projection of the size of the market. 3. To be cost efficient, I would like to have 25 participants each group and plan to conduct 3 focus groups. 4. I would like Jason to quickly draft a questionnaire for this purpose once the supplier completes the contractual agreement with us. 5. I reckon based on calculation generated from the participants, if there is enough market potential, we can produce the product, cut the commercial and do the packaging, then launch into the market place. I am confident with the expertise in our company and in light of the timeline, there is no need to conduct more research after this current work I have in mind. 6. I have done probability sampling with sufficient sample size. My research design and methodologies are nearly perfect. For each of the 6 statements above, (i) identify what is wrong with the thinking; and (ii) provide your recommendation