Designer Clothing (DC) DC is a medium sized private limited company. DC has three main shareholders. It has been trading for ten years. DC makes luxury dresses for women using job production methods. DC has an excellent reputation for quality. A DC designer has a meeting with every customer to design a dress that satisfies the customer's individual needs, including choice of fabric and colour. Cost-based pricing is used with 50% added to the total costs. DC's employees are highly skilled and paid hourly rates (a time based system). Ikram, one of the designers, has just had a meeting with a new customer, Lydia. She wants him to design and make a new dress for her. Ikram has worked out the following information for the dress. Table 1: Production data for the dress for Lydia Production time: 20 hours Hourly rate (time based): $10 Material costs: $250 Other costs such as packaging: $50 Jenny, the Managing Director, wants to use DC's excellent reputation and move into a new market. Jenny wants to create a new range of DC branded trousers for women. She has developed some elements of a marketing mix for the new trousers (see Table 2). Table 2: Elements of a marketing mix for the new trousers Product: Quality trousers aimed at women aged 25-50 years Distribution channel: Sold in large shops Promotion: Branded with the DC logo Jenny is waiting for a market research report including feedback from a focus group. She thinks that the pricing strategy DC currently uses will not be appropriate for the new trousers. The new product range will be made using a batch production method. The Production Director, Khaleal, has identified the machinery needed for the new production method. Khaleal is worried about the problems that introducing the new production method will cause DC's employees.