Fanciful Surveys
Fanciful Surveys
I had to take classes in research for my Doctor of Business Administration degree program. This made me aware of other surveys and I take a perverse enjoyment at finding glaring faults with other surveys. I stumbled across this survey and wondered how much it cost, why they needed to do it, and didn’t the answer seem rather obvious to all.
KPMG, one of the big world wide accounting firms, conducted a survey of auto industry executives, not the sharpest set of tools in the shed by any measure, and asked them which segment of the auto market would experience the biggest growth.
Anyone care to make a guess?
Yes, it was the very fuel efficient hybrid autos. When gasoline goes to $3.00 or more a gallon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out consumers want fuel efficient cars. This should have been obvious since there were waiting lists months long for hybrids.
Come on guys, this is not rocket surgery now.
Care to guess what was the second segment?
Yes, it was low priced cars. Did those guys in Detroit and elsewhere sleep through Economics 100 when the professor explained supply and demand. With low prices, demand goes up.
Time for the sad part of the survey, the North American executives also believed the big land hog, gasoline sucking SUVs would increase market share. In fact, North American executives expected all segments to increase market share.
Time for the Reality Fairy to fly on stage. Market share must equal 100; if one segment is going to increase then another segment must, by definition, decrease.
Maybe KPMG meant to say sales volume which is different from market share.
In any event, I was amazed and shocked, shocked I say, that someone would pay good money for a survey like that. Automobile industry executives’ opinions are nice to gather, I suppose, but their ideas and opinions about what the customer is going to buy don’t really matter. KPMG would have been better off asking some other groups like the consuming public. After all, it is the public that makes the only important decision and that is what type of vehicle to purchase.
New Class Today
There was another new class at one of the cosmetics companies today.
The students or employees didn’t look much different than the group from yesterday. They were all wearing black and a lot of them were wearing jump style boots. If they had been a whole lot more athletic, they might have passed for tall ninjas.
Since it was warmer today, some of the students took off their coats when they took their smoke breaks. I saw one young woman that reminded me of my old Gunner’s Mate from when I was in the United States Navy except she had more tattoos plus her hair was shorter.
Frankly, it was a scary vision and I was very glad that I was inside and not out in the courtyard with her.
Catching up with the Big Guy
Doug called to check in this morning. We talked about the Adam Carolla Show; you can read my comments from yesterday. Doug said it thought it was really dull and boring.
I am going to give it another chance tomorrow. I have a meeting out of the office where I am working. It will take me an hour and change to get from my home to the meeting so I can give the show a good listen.
If I end up tuning out on the drive to the meeting, then the show will have probably lost me except for station surfing during commercials and when music I don’t like is being played on another station.
Be well and stay happy.
I had to take classes in research for my Doctor of Business Administration degree program. This made me aware of other surveys and I take a perverse enjoyment at finding glaring faults with other surveys. I stumbled across this survey and wondered how much it cost, why they needed to do it, and didn’t the answer seem rather obvious to all.
KPMG, one of the big world wide accounting firms, conducted a survey of auto industry executives, not the sharpest set of tools in the shed by any measure, and asked them which segment of the auto market would experience the biggest growth.
Anyone care to make a guess?
Yes, it was the very fuel efficient hybrid autos. When gasoline goes to $3.00 or more a gallon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out consumers want fuel efficient cars. This should have been obvious since there were waiting lists months long for hybrids.
Come on guys, this is not rocket surgery now.
Care to guess what was the second segment?
Yes, it was low priced cars. Did those guys in Detroit and elsewhere sleep through Economics 100 when the professor explained supply and demand. With low prices, demand goes up.
Time for the sad part of the survey, the North American executives also believed the big land hog, gasoline sucking SUVs would increase market share. In fact, North American executives expected all segments to increase market share.
Time for the Reality Fairy to fly on stage. Market share must equal 100; if one segment is going to increase then another segment must, by definition, decrease.
Maybe KPMG meant to say sales volume which is different from market share.
In any event, I was amazed and shocked, shocked I say, that someone would pay good money for a survey like that. Automobile industry executives’ opinions are nice to gather, I suppose, but their ideas and opinions about what the customer is going to buy don’t really matter. KPMG would have been better off asking some other groups like the consuming public. After all, it is the public that makes the only important decision and that is what type of vehicle to purchase.
New Class Today
There was another new class at one of the cosmetics companies today.
The students or employees didn’t look much different than the group from yesterday. They were all wearing black and a lot of them were wearing jump style boots. If they had been a whole lot more athletic, they might have passed for tall ninjas.
Since it was warmer today, some of the students took off their coats when they took their smoke breaks. I saw one young woman that reminded me of my old Gunner’s Mate from when I was in the United States Navy except she had more tattoos plus her hair was shorter.
Frankly, it was a scary vision and I was very glad that I was inside and not out in the courtyard with her.
Catching up with the Big Guy
Doug called to check in this morning. We talked about the Adam Carolla Show; you can read my comments from yesterday. Doug said it thought it was really dull and boring.
I am going to give it another chance tomorrow. I have a meeting out of the office where I am working. It will take me an hour and change to get from my home to the meeting so I can give the show a good listen.
If I end up tuning out on the drive to the meeting, then the show will have probably lost me except for station surfing during commercials and when music I don’t like is being played on another station.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 8:34 PM
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