Case Summary: Chemical Products Limited

Case Summary: Chemical Products Limited (A)

Anand Ashok Kumar
16050

Protagonist and the task at hand:

Chemical Products Limited (CPL) has achieved in formulating a process to produce synthetic menthol which has the potential to be part of the firm’s current product line. The firm was interested in gauging the various factors (includes financial) that would be important for Menthol’s success for which they commissioned MBA, Bombay a market research agency. These factors are as given below:

Raw Materials, Manufacturing Process, Existing manufacturers of Menthol, Domestic Demand for Menthol, External environment such as government and international trade policies

Based on the preliminary research of the above factors, the following decision problems were arrived at by MBA agency:

1. Estimation of the current demand for menthol and its future demand for the next five-year span

2. To come up with pricing policy over the next five years based on past behaviour of prices

3. Gain access to the   existing and likely future production of Menthol from natural resources in India

4. To review international trade policy by studying he past, present and future trends in the import and export of menthol.

The evaluation of the mentioned decision problems will require information against each of the factors. These information needs are for the following:

1. Assessment of Demand: Primary data will be collected around the future consumption of menthol which will provide the future demand. Another method, by assessing the norms in the end use of each product multiplied with the assessment of growth in demand would provide an estimation of future demands of menthol

2. Assessment of Supply: Information was to be collected for assessing the supply of mentha arvensis grass, mentha oil and menthol. With regards to the farmers, information was collected with regards to the acreage, yield of grass, prices of grass and economic return of grass. The information was to be collected from organizations specializing in monitoring work of acreage under mentha avernsis.