The founder of Kids Market Consulting, a market research firm dedicated to the kids, tweens and teens segment, was faced with increasing competition and slowing revenue, and was exploring a variety of possibilities for the future strategic direction of the business. In particular, she had to formulate the best plan for protecting the niche market and decide how aggressively to pursue expansion. In addition, there was the existing relationship with her business partner, and Kids Market Consulting was part of his group of marketing firms. Any changes the founder chose had to respect this relationship and she was therefore restricted to a limited number of options. The over-arching corporate objective for the company was to defend the market from larger businesses who were trying to increase their share of the market research industry.
