This report intends to show how an Italian company has set up and carried out a development program taking as a basis the results obtained from a marketing research plan. No special methodologies were used for each separate research but taken as a whole they form a good example of an organised and sufficient collection of the information necessary to reduce the risk involved when making decisions of importance for the future of the company. This report describes, the characteristics of the individual researches and the utilisation of the results obtained. It is also pointed out bow the researches carried out have inspired the management and employees of the firm to have confidence in the programs and in their own capacities and will to improve showing that these researches have an effect on the people concerned and on whom the success of the firm depends. In the case described, marketing research has assumed, besides the well known instrumental function, an active role as catalyst and stimulant of the firm's activities.
The applications of mathematics in the development of sampling methods are generally well known and appreciated. However, mathematics is now engaged in other problem-solving roles which will be just as important to marketers in the future as sampling is and was in the past. Already, powerful analytic devices such as Markov Chains, Mathematical Models, Simulation Techniques, Monte Carlo Methods, and other techniques have been applied to marketing decision making. It is the purpose of this series of bulletins to present at occasional intervals non-mathematical expositions of some of these applications. The first Bulletin will be concerned with a discussion of Markov Chains.