Question

Direction: Read the following scenario and answer the THREE questions that follow.
Dhan, a poor but enterprising 15-year-old, resided in the world’s largest slum in a metropolitan city, along with her widowed mother. The densely packed slum housed about a million people, mostly in rickety one room tenements, connected by labyrinthine lanes and by-lanes. Dhan’s mother worked intermittently as a daily wager in a small savoury factory. For a 15-year-old, Dhan’s life was hectic. She spends two hours every day in fetching water for the household, packing breakfast and lunch for her mother. In addition, she had to prepare supper. On her mother’s insistence, Dhan also attended an evening bridge school run by an NGO. Dhan’s dream was to provide a comfortable life to her mother and take her family out of poverty. Of late, Dhan observed that the customers to a nearby tea-cum-savoury stall (TCS), were mostly the slum dwellers, who thronged the stall for its low prices and lack of alternatives. Further, Dhan gathered that the TCS could not cater to all of its customers, and the owner still made a neat Rs.800 profit per day. Dhan saw that a probable first step towards her family’s economic independence could be to own her own TCS.
Dhan with her ingenuity finds a way to scale up her production capacity on her own terms. Though Dhan’s TCS has become the famous “Dhan Dhana Dhan” brand within the slum, it is still unknown to the outside world. Thus, Dhan embarks on the next challenge of creating a market for savouries amongst the masses in the metropolitan region.
From the following, choose the BEST option that will help Dhan to sell her products, at the lowest price, to a maximum number of metropolitan customers?

• A. Overwhelm the metropolitan residents with digital advertisements on Instagram.
• B. Reach out to the malls and high-end retail stores in the metropolitan region through a few marketing executives to sell the products
• C. Hire a celebrity who currently endorses a diamond jewellery brand to endorse the “Dhan Dhana Dhand” brand
• D. Hire a few sales executives to sell products of Dhan Dhana Dhan brand
• E. Engage slum dwellers commuting daily to metropolitan region for work, to sell the products on commission basis

Answer 1

Answer: (E)

Dhan wants to sell her products to the maximum number of metropolitan customers at the lowest price. So, we have to evaluate the given options accordingly.

A won’t help Dhan reach out to the customers not active on social media.

B and C require a lot of investment.

D requires investment and the outreach to the maximum number of customers cannot be guaranteed with a few sales executives.

Engaging slum dwellers commuting daily to the metropolitan region for work to sell the products on commission basis would be the best course of action as more such people can be engaged at lesser prices. This will help in keeping the costs low and reaching out to more people as many slum dwellers can be engaged.

Hence, the correct answer is E.