When trying to identify new technologies that promise to transform the

Question

When trying to identify new technologies that promise to transform the marketplace, market researchers survey the managers of those companies that are developing new technologies. Such managers have an enormous stake in succeeding, so they invariably overstate the potential of their new technologies. Surprisingly, however, market researchers typically do not survey a new technology's potential buyers, even though it is the buyers—not the producers—who will ultimately determine a technology's commercial success.

Which of the following, if true, best accounts for the typical survey practices among market researchers?

(A) If a new technology succeeds, the commercial benefits accrue largely to the producers, not to the buyers, of that technology.

(B) People who promote the virtues of a new technology typically fail to consider that the old technology that is currently in use continues to be improved, often substantially.

(C) Investors are unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing.

(D) The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified.

(E) The developers of a new technology are generally no better positioned than its potential buyers to gauge how rapidly the new technology can be efficiently mass-produced.

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Responding to a pm:

Question: Which of the following, if true, best accounts for the typical survey practices among market researchers?

Let's find out what the survey practices are.

Market surveyors try to find the new technology that will be a commercial success in the near future (perhaps to invest or whatever). They survey the managers that are developing new technologies (who tend to overstate the potential of their new technologies). 
However, market researchers typically do not survey the potential buyers (even though it is the buyers who determine commercial success).

Here is the problem. The researchers survey the managers (even though their opinion may be biased) but not the buyers (whose opinion drives commercial success). What will resolve this paradox? If they survey 'just the buyers' or at least 'the buyers too'. They want the opinion of the managers, they can take it but they MUST take the opinion of the buyers. The paradox here is that they don't take the opinion of the buyers. All you have to do is find what explains the reason they don't survey the buyers.

What explains the paradox? Option (D) - they are unable to identify the buyers and hence they can't survey the buyers.

Option (A) tells you that the commercial success accrues mainly to the producers, not the buyers. This gives the producers a reason to create unwarranted hype about their product. So this just tells you that why manager's opinion may not be very relevant. It doesn't explain why researchers don't survey the buyers.

karlfurt · Answer

A:If a new technology succeeds, the commercial benefits accrue largely to the producers, not to the buyers, of that technology. 
 out 
B:People who promote the virtues of a new technology typically fail to consider that the old technology that is currently in use continues to be improved, often substantially. 
 out 

C:Investors are unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing. 
 out- explains why researchers have an interest in surveying managers, but grounds for not surveying customers are not provided. 
D:The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified. 
 In : here s the reason! 
E:The developers of a new technology are generally no better positioned than its potential buyers to gauge how rapidly the new technology can be efficiently mass-produced.
 out- if not better positioned, then why do the researchers focus on managers only!?

haas_mba07 · Answer

D:The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified. 


The survey cannot poll the customers as the customers are not known. Therefore, it makes sense for the survey to talk only to the company managers.

Answer: D

kripalkavi · Answer

Easy D.

Conclusion: Market researchers prefer talking to the technology developers rather than the technology buyers even though the developers exaggerate the capabilities of their respective technologies.

CR type: Resolve/Explain. - why do the market researchers prefer talking to developers rather than the buyers?

A - Hmmm....Maybe..Keep.
B - Out of scope. 
C - this explains why the managers exaggerate,  NOT  why the researchers ask the developers.
D - YES!!! So thats why they dont ask the buyers...they don't know who they are!
E - eh?? even if it were within scope, it would weaken the argument

imhimanshu · Answer

Hi Karishma,

Thanks for the response. I would like to discuss couple of follow up questions. Request you to provide your reasoning on them as well.

1. Veritas CR book says that you must select the answer choice that allows both parts of the stimulus to exist. Does this mean that even if an answer choice targets only one position of the paradox and the other position is logical outcome of the first position, then the answer choice will probably be correct.

Lets take an example of this question only.

Choice D) The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified.

This answer choice is giving an explanation of buyers only and there is no relevant information of Managers. However, it does implicitly targets Managers as well i.e if we are not able to find the buyers, then the second best case is to approach Managers. I discarded this option, bcoz I thought it is not giving me a clear cut explanation about Managers.

2. I read that the best strategy to crack CR questions is to Pre -Think. I did analyzed the correct option before moving onto answer choices. However, I have a doubt on this approach. Many a times you do see your analysed answer choice in options and many a times you don't. And because of this on and off situation, when I see my analyzed answer choice in options, I become unsure of my answer. How to cope up with this situation.

Please suggest.

Thanks
H

LogicGuru1 · Answer

The answer is D 
 
]A big budget movie was pirated and distributed 3 weeks before its release by a internet hacker. Now to figure out how that leak happen, who would you arrest, the people who downloaded it from the internet or the Hacker who uploaded it. Catching the hacker would be a better option because he would give information as to how he as able to get the movie. Is there some person inside the studio who helped him or Is the Digital security of the studio's server vulnerable or Did the editor who edited the final version of the movie forget the DVD on a train and the hacker found it. All such questions can be found mostly by catching the hacker. There is no use to catch people who downloaded the movie from internet. They will simply say, I found the copy on internet and I don't now how and who uploaded it on Internet.

Similarly Market Researchers survey the managers ; because it is easy to catch a manager and find out all about his product. 
It is hard to figure out a potential customer of a future technology because you cannot know for sure which person is a consumer and which person is not. While talking to a random person ,there is a high probability that either :-
1) The person you talk to is not a user of the technology.
2) Even if the person is a user of similar technology or interested in it, he cannot tell you how exactly the technology works because he has not used that particular technology.. right ?

THREFORE D which says :- The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified.

KarishmaB · Answer

First of all, note that this question is not your "typical paradox" question. We would club it with other paradox questions but it is slightly different.
Usually, your paradox questions have two positions A and B. You don't expect A and B to coexist but the answer explains how and why they do.

Here, you expect B to happen too. It seems that B would be more useful than A but still only A is done. The problem here is not why A exists but why B doesn't exist too. The manager's account may not be without exaggeration but that doesn't imply that the managers SHOULD NOT be interviewed. The real question is why the potential buyers are not interviewed even though their opinion would matter more. Option (D) addresses that concern.

Pre-thinking is usually helpful. The advantage lies not just in the fact that you may be able to arrive at the answer even before you read it in the options but also in the fact that you read the argument more closely when you expect yourself to answer the question on your own first. If it is throwing you off, avoid doing it. Not every strategy works for everyone.

adkikani · Answer

VeritasPrepKarishma

I had few additional queries.

In a typical paradox question, are we not supposed to resolve BOTH sides of discrepancy?
Here the discrepancy is between why surveying only managers and not buyers.

I agree that this choice addresses that it is difficult to survey buyers but what about advantage of surveying managers?

Quite opposite to one I wrote above, now this choice only addresses managers and not buyers.

KarishmaB · Answer

In a paradox question, you have to find what will explain the existence of the two apparently conflicting sides. You find one link that helps make sense of the situation. It doesn't matter which side you address. The two existing together should make sense with your answer.

Here, the paradox is that they survey managers (whose opinion may be a tad exaggerated) but not the buyers who decide commercial success. the problem is not that managers are surveyed. The argument doesn't say that their opinion is useless - just that their opinion may not be completely on the dot. The problem is that buyers, whose opinion perhaps matters the most, are not surveyed. (D) tells us why buyers are not surveyed. Now it makes sense. You cannot identify the buyers and hence not survey them though their opinion might be more important than the opinion of the managers. Now the situation makes sense.

anothermillenial · Answer

Premise: When trying to identify new technologies that promise to transform the marketplace, market researchers survey the managers of those companies that are developing new technologies.

Premise: Such managers have an enormous stake in succeeding, ….so they invariably overstate the potential of their new technologies.

Counter Premise: Surprisingly, however, market researchers typically do not survey a new technology's potential buyers, even though it is the buyers—not the producers—who will ultimately determine a technology's commercial success.

Which of the following, if true, best accounts for the typical survey practices among market researchers?

Basically, the argument states that market researchers look for managers who are developing new technology….which is weird to them because the potential buyers are the one’s who determine the technology’s success, not the managers (who also have incentive to lie). We are tasked to found out why that is. Maybe it’s hard to find potential buyers when they haven’t seen it yet? Or that the market researchers don’t think a survey produces good results….(neither does a biased one) or have the $ to conduct a true representative survey.

(A) If a new technology succeeds,  the commercial benefits accrue largely to the producers , not to the buyers, of that technology. 
Just because the benefits go to the producers doesn’t explain why marketers don’t survey buyers.

(B) People who  promote the virtues of a new technology  typically fail to consider that the old technology that is currently in use continues to be improved, often substantially. 
Not relevant. Do we care about the people promoting new technology and their failure to consider the new stuff? No.

(C) Investors are  unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital  in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing. 
OK….so what if investors won’t invest. Does that explain why the survey practices only interview managers? No. 
 
(D) The potential buyers for  not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified . 
Hold. Sounds like our pre-think!

(E) The developers of a new technology are generally  no better positioned than its potential buyers to gauge  how rapidly the new technology can be  efficiently mass-produced . 
This started off terribly and ended worse. We don’t care about how rapidly it can be produced. We care about the reasoning behind the survey.

Sneha2021 · Answer

KarishmaB 
 GMATNinja 
Can you please help to reject C?
(C) Investors are unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing.

We need to explain why only managers are interviewed or why customers aren't interviewed?
Option C gives us another reason why capturing manager view's are important. If the investors funding is dependent on manager's behaviour and independent of customer's behaviour, this gives a reason to ignore customer because customer will not impact the growing tech. 
Why this reason is incorrect?

Thanks!

KarishmaB · Answer

What is the paradox? It is that though the customers define the commercial success, their views are still not captured. Note "Surprisingly, however, market researchers typically do not survey a new technology's potential buyers".
So this is the surprising point.

This is what we have to explain - the reason why customers are not surveyed. No matter how important managers are, we are given that customers are important too. So the point is why are customers not surveyed? This is explained by (D). 
(C) does not give us a reason why customers are not surveyed.

ArnauG · Answer

The passage explains that market researchers typically survey the managers of companies developing new technologies to identify potential market-transforming technologies. However, it points out that the managers, due to their vested interest in the success of the technology, often overstate its potential. Surprisingly, the potential buyers of the technology, who ultimately determine its commercial success, are not typically surveyed. We need to find the option that best explains this typical survey practice. Let's evaluate each choice:

(A) If a new technology succeeds, the commercial benefits accrue largely to the producers, not to the buyers, of that technology.
This option doesn't explain why market researchers primarily survey the managers of companies developing new technologies and not the potential buyers. It discusses the commercial benefits but doesn't provide a reason for the survey practices.

(B) People who promote the virtues of a new technology typically fail to consider that the old technology that is currently in use continues to be improved, often substantially.
This option is irrelevant to the explanation for the survey practices of market researchers. It discusses the failure of technology promoters to consider improvements in old technology but doesn't provide insights into why potential buyers are not surveyed.

(C) Investors are unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing.
This option doesn't directly explain the survey practices of market researchers. While it mentions investors' likelihood to invest based on managers' skepticism, it doesn't address the omission of surveying potential buyers.

(D) The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified.
This option provides a potential explanation for the survey practices. If potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies cannot be reliably identified, it would make sense for market researchers to focus their surveys on the managers developing the technologies instead.

(E) The developers of a new technology are generally no better positioned than its potential buyers to gauge how rapidly the new technology can be efficiently mass-produced.
This option is irrelevant to the explanation for the survey practices. It compares the ability of developers and potential buyers to gauge the efficient mass production of a technology but doesn't provide insights into why market researchers primarily survey developers and not potential buyers.

Based on the analysis, the option that best accounts for the typical survey practices among market researchers is (D) – "The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified." This explains why market researchers primarily survey the managers of companies developing new technologies instead of potential buyers, as the potential buyers for technologies that are not yet available are difficult to reliably identify.

exuberantvivek · Answer

My thought process: Experts! Please provide your input.

The para is highlighting the thought process of the market researchers that they typically do not survey the buyers of the technology even though they know buyers will determine the commercial success. The typically is very important here which is making a difference.

"Surprisingly, however, market researchers typically do not survey a new technology's potential buyers, even though it is the buyers—not the producers—who will ultimately determine a technology's commercial success."

Question is asking about why the researchers are following this typical practice in market that not to survey buyer.

According to me Answer should be "C"

Market reseachers already nkow that "Investors are sure taht the managers already know the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing" hence they are folling the practise to survey only manager but not the buyers.

Gemmie · Answer

(D) This is the strongest answer.

It directly addresses the challenge of identifying potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies. Since they're difficult to find, researchers resort to surveying the readily available developers, even though their bias is acknowledged.

agrasan · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep   KarishmaB

Can we have following reasoning to reject options A and C?
 Option A:  This can’t be a reason, the argument talks about market researchers surveying managers of companies developing new technologies so what happens once that technology succeeds isn’t a matter of concern for us as we also don’t know whether market researchers favor people who benefit more or not, thus, this doesn’t explain why MRs do not survey a new technology's potential buyers as they determine a technology's commercial success.

Option C:   This can’t be a reason, this option talks about investor preferences and also, we don’t know whether managers in the argument are skeptical or not, thus, this option doesn’t explain MRs’ decision to survey only managers and not potential buyers.

Please let me know if my reasoning was not correct somewhere.

rushimehta · Answer

Still not fully convinced with D, though marked it as the answer...

Thought process for each options as below -

(A) If a new technology succeeds, the commercial benefits accrue largely to the producers, not to the buyers, of that technology. --> "If a new technology succeeds"... talking about a scenario where the technology, has succeeded, but our paradox is regarding new technologies which are being developed, whether it succeeds further or not, is not in the scope of argument.

(B) People who promote the virtues of a new technology typically fail to consider that the old technology that is currently in use continues to be improved, often substantially. - Out of scope

(C) Investors are unlikely to invest substantial amounts of capital in a company whose own managers are skeptical about the commercial prospects of a new technology they are developing. - This is a tricky option, I was stuck between this and D... Rejected this option on the basis that this specifically talks about "Investors", whereas there is no mention of "Investors" in the question, the market researchers can be anyone, and need not be investors... And also, this option tells the reason as to WHY the managers "invariably overstate the potential of their new technologies"...

(D) The potential buyers for not-yet-available technologies can seldom be reliably identified. - Correct

(E) The developers of a new technology are generally no better positioned than its potential buyers to gauge how rapidly the new technology can be efficiently mass-produced. - This further deepens the paradox, if this is the case, then it leads us to think that why are buyers not interviewed... Also, it doesn't tell us any thing about the survey practices i.e. doesn't provide insights into why market researchers primarily survey developers and not potential buyers.

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