16.   A small manufacturer has just experienced a rapid drop in sales. The marketing manager thinks that she knows what the problem is and has been carefully analyzing external secondary data to check her thinking. Her next step should be:

a)    conduct an experiment.
It is a bit too early to start thinking about an experiment, since only external secondary data have been gathered. The marketing manager doesn't know yet where the problem comes from.

b)    develop a formal research project to gather primary data.
This sounds good, except that for the same reason as for a), she still doesn't have a clear picture of the situation with respect to her product. Therefore, more information, even informal, is necessary before going over to a formal research project. Also, since we're dealing with a small manufacturer, one has to be careful not to spend too much money on gathering primary data, since the additional cost of obtaining the right information may be more that what it provides to taking decisions.

c)    conduct informal discussion with outsiders, including middlemen, to see if she has correctly defined the problem.
This is the best way to go, do some exploratory research with people who are close to the situation and who will give a better picture of the situation. After this step, a formal research project - whether a survey or an experiment - may be considered.

d)    develop a hypothesis and predict the future behaviour of sales.
This could prove to be very dangerous, since she only takes external secondary data to make predictions. The situation could be different for the company.

e)    initiate corrective action before sales drop even further.
Hopefully, some corrective action has been take already, however, it is difficult to know what action to take if we don't know where the problem comes from.

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