1) Nick calculated that of 200 customers who completed the questionnaire at the rock festival, the mean age was 23. The age distribution conformed to a curve of normal distribution with a standard deviation of 5. Calculate the number of customers aged 33 and over who featured in Sonia’s survey
(33-23)÷5 = 2
2% of 200= 4
Answer= 4
2) With reference to the report on the UK smoothie market (appendix 2) analyse two limitations of using secondary sources as the basis of Sonia's decision making.
Secondary research is one that is carried by a third party and not yourself. The information is collected as it may serve propose in the information you need even though it may have been collected for a different research. There are however some limitations of Sonia using this secondary research whilst making a decision on what smoothie flavours to bring out. In this essay I will discuss these and give my opinion on whether Sonia should or shouldn’t solely base the decision on this information.
The first limitation of using secondary research is that it may be several years old and may not reflect the current market conditions. If this is the case for Sonia then it would mean that she may be releasing a flavour into a market that no longer exists. This would mean that her sales will not be as high as she would of hoped, it would also mean that her costs will rise as she would be producing smoothies unaware that these are not going to sell. The impact of both of these things happening will result in Sonia losing profit. This one example shows that for Sonia to solely base her decision on secondary research it would not be good for her business as she could lose out on a lot of potential customers.
The second limitation of using secondary research is that it may not be accurate and reliable as it may be biased. If this does happen then it would mean that Sonia would be making a decision on information that is not 100% accurate and true.