Question

The Focus on Vision Foundation says it can product its Focusspec glasses for about $4 a pair. When originally announced, the Dutch firm planned to distribute about 30,000 pairs in early 2010 in Afghanistan, Ghana, and Tanzania. The advantage is that these are self-adjusting glasses, designed so that untrained wearers could set the right focus themselves. This attribute is quite important given the lack of access to vision care professionals throughout parts of Africa and Asia.  

In order to determine whether actual people can adjust these new glasses, some actual research is needed. Would you conduct focus groups, give a survey, conduct some observational product tests, or a combination of methods? Briefly explain your choice.

Answer 1

Before going to the actual answer, let me explain some basic things, which are very much necessary for any business strategy. The question asked above regarding the Focus on Vision Foundation is a common situation for a company before entering into the market with a new product for the first time. The company tries to capture the consumers’ needs, current trends in the society, habits of the consumers etc. To understand these market conditions and consumer’s habits and preferences, the company can approach different methods like survey method, focus groups method, and observational product tests etc.

For the case given in the question about the Focus on Vision Foundation, it would be better to use both survey method and observational product tests methods in order to determine whether the actual people can get accustomed to the self-adjusting glasses developed by the company. Because initially by doing a survey, we can get all the information required for the distribution of glasses. Through the survey method, we can collect all the basic details about the needs of the consumers, their inclination towards the usage of self-adjusting glasses. The survey method is the most cost effective to collect all the basic information to get overall picture of the conditions of the people in Afghanistan, Ghana, and Tanzania and also in other Asian countries. Survey method is very useful for larger samples. This research involves large number of people, so the focus group research cannot be used in this situation. Although we can use focus group research, it will not be much useful, because it will not give meaningful insights for marketing. Focus group research is mainly useful and effective for smaller groups of people.

By doing observational product tests, we can get a good understanding of how the individuals actually be and how they can use these glasses etc. So after finishing the survey research, we can go for observational product research so that we can get the true picture of how people will use these glasses. Survey research can be done in different ways and means. It can be done online, through telephone, emails, interviews etc. Compared to focus research and observational product tests, survey is more efficient for larger groups of people and it is less time taking also. Whereas focus research and observational product test are time taking processes.

By doing these surveys effectively, the company can go for sales. After a period of time, the company may face economies of scale, through which the average cost of the glasses will come down, which is beneficial to the consumers as well as for companies.