CASE A

Q. 1) Has the Management decision problem been defined

appropriately?
ans-: The case is about the Fruitzone India Ltd. Who is the
market leader in the Indian market in fruit juices which is
marketed under a brand name of Tropivia. From the past few
years the MD of the company noticed that the growth of the
company is stagnant. So he decided to launch a new variant of
juice in the market and before launching a new variant of juice
in a market he, wanted to do a market research regarding its
product. It hired an external market research agency, India
Monitor International (IMI) to conduct the market research.
India is a tropical country and huge population of the country
consume sugarcane juice and bail juice in summer season. Now
the people are more health conscious and prefer more to fruit
juice than cola and other drinks. So the company decided to
launch a new variant of juice other than existing ones.
The issue is to make the juice available to the consumer fresh.
The vendors don’t believe that it can be stored. The demand of
the sugarcane juice is high during hot summer day as it give
freshness to the consumer. The another problem also to maintain
the selling during the winter season. As the company has
decided to maintain the selling in offseason they well be
launching the particular variant of juice in different taste like
ginger, fizzy taste etc.
The other management problem for the company was the
packaging system of the particular juice. The option for packing
was tetra pack, bottle or can bottle.
The company is having a good option for launching a sugarcane
juice in India as it is very clearly mentioned that India is one of
the largest sugarcane producing country. So, raw material will
be easily available to the company. And the preference of the
consumer is switching towards fruits juice from cola and other
drinks.
Q.2)Critique the overall research plan prepared by the IMI?
ans:- For the research purpose the IMI divided the plan in two
parts exploratory research and confirmatory research. The
following steps had been done under exploratory research and
confirmatory research.
 In the focused group discussion the participants who
consumers packed juice frequently were only selected. But
in this case IMI would have taken some more participants.
They may have chosen participants who generally use to
have sugarcane juice from the roadside vendors. The main
purpose of choosing them was to know the perception of
those type of customers if the juice they liked the most
would be available in tetra packs or in bottle.
 In a dept-interview the regional sales manager of a
competitor was taken which may be a wrong decision for
the company. As the competitor may provide some false
information to the researcher due to competence.
  The roadside vendors who were taken for the in-depth
interview was very less. They were only 3 members. The
IMI would have chosen some more roadside vendors
because case very clearly states that more than 90% of the
sugarcane juice market is covered by these vendors only.
So, the opinion of these vendors matters a lot.
 If we talk about the confirmatory research, so the
information which is given about confirmatory research is
very less. Details of survey is not mentioned by the IMI.
The more details of survey may have given some more
views on the research.
Q.3) Is the exploratory research plan prepared by IMI
appropriate?
ans-: The overall research plan prepared by IMI is appropriate.
 In exploratory research the first step taken by the IMI is
secondary data. They collected some of the secondary data
for their research. The secondary data would help them to
analyze their performance of fruit juice as compared to
their competitors.
 The plan for secondary data research includes collection of
data from company source. The information would also be
obtained from newspaper, magazines and online database.
Based on this research IMI came up with the list of
question to understand the perception of consumer in fruit
juice market and specially about sugarcane juice market.
  Then focus group discussion was made. The participants
was recruited using a two stage online survey and only
participants who consumed packed fruit juice on a frequent
basis (three or more packs/week). Homogeneity of the
group was maintained which is very important.
 In-depth interview was done with the regional sales
manager of competitor and several retail stores manager to
understand the trend of packed juice market. Roadside
vendors were also interviewed to understand the customer
juice consumption behaviors.
So, from the above statements we can say that exploratory
research made by the IMI was appropriate.