Economics · Ch 8 — Use of Statistical Tools
Project
Project
The situation. Project X is a young entrepreneur who wants to set up a factory to make toothpaste, and you have been asked to advise him on how to proceed.
The starting move. A sensible first step is to study people's tastes in toothpaste, their monthly spending on it, and other relevant facts. Because no ready information exists for exactly this question, you decide to collect primary data with the help of a questionnaire — and whatever questionnaire you use must be capable of generating precisely the information the study needs.
The information the study must yield. You decide the essential things to find out are:
- the average monthly expenditure on toothpaste;
- the brands currently in demand;
- the customers' attitude towards those brands;
- customers' preferences about ingredients in the toothpaste;
- the major media influences on the demand for toothpaste;
- the relation between income and all of the above factors.
Drawn by us to help you understand the concept clearly, and verified to make sure it's accurate. For exams, practice from your textbook's own diagram.
Our own line-art recreation of the unnumbered NCERT cartoon printed on page 125 of Use of Statistical Tools, beside the bullet list of information the sample toothpaste project needs to find out. It shows the entrepreneur (Project X) thinking through the survey while talking with a prospective customer — the thought bubble's toothpaste tube keeps the whole sample project anchored on its concrete example. The scene and its in-picture label are taken from the textbook …
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