You are required to take the role of a Research Executive at a renowned research and

consultancy FBL. Your Client Services Director has received the letter (below) from a
potential client and has asked you to respond to the letter with a short research proposal
(no more than 2000 words).

The research proposal should contain the following:

• 1) A clear statement of the research question and a justification why, given the
client’s requirements, you believe this to be of importance.

• 2) A set of coherent and appropriate research objectives that, if achieved, would

answer the research question.

• A critical reflection on which objectives might be addressed using secondary

sources (and which sources) and which would require primary research.

• A research plan which details the structure of your proposed research (i.e. the
sequence of actions), your proposed research methodology and methods and the
design of the research (best important concepts to mention: - cross-sectional,
ethnography, idea screening / concept testing: comparative testing, sequential
monadic testing, proto-monadic testing, standard test markets, controlled test
markets, simulated test markets, experimental etc - qualitative/quantitative/primary/
secondary; focus group, interview, survey etc

• 5) A critical reflection upon any advantages, disadvantages, challenges, limitations

or issues of validity that you think your client should be aware of.

Required to produce a proposal only - Not supposed to do the research