MS-66

1. MS-66 Marketing Research Block-I Marketing Research Concepts & Design

2. UNIT-1 Marketing Research • Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The term is commonly interchanged with market research; however, expert practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that market research is concerned specifically with markets, while marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes.

3. marketing research may also be described as the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis, and dissemination of information for the purpose of assisting management in decision making related to the identification and solution of problems and opportunities in marketing. The goal of marketing research is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

4. Market Research

5. Purpose

6. Market Research • Advantages of Market Research • Helps focus attention on objectives • Aids forecasting, planning and strategic development • May help to reduce risk of new product development • Communicates image, vision, etc. • Globalisation makes market information valuable (HSBC adverts!!)

7. Market Research • Disadvantages of Market Research • Information only as good as the methodology used • Can be inaccurate or unreliable • Results may not be what the business wants to hear! • May stifle initiative and ‘gut feeling’ • Always a problem that we may never know enough to be sure!

8. Stages in Marketing Research Process • Defining the problem • Statement of Research objectives • Planning a Research Design • Planning a sample • Collecting the Data • Analyzing the Data • Formulating conclusion • Preparing & presenting the Report

9. Marketing Research Functions • Sales Analysis • Sales methods & policies • Product Management • Advertising Research • Corporate Research • Syndicated Research

10. Scope of Marketing Research • Marketing Research is essential for strategic market planning and decision making. It helps a firm in identifying what are the market opportunities and constraints, in developing and implementing market strategies, and in evaluating the effectiveness of marketing plans. • Marketing Research is a growing and widely used business activity as the sellers need to know more about their final consumers but are generally widely separated from those consumers. Marketing Research is a necessary link between marketing decision makers and the markets in which they operate. • Marketing Research includes various important principles for generating information which is useful to managers. These principles relate to the timeliness and importance of data, the significance of defining objectives cautiously and clearly, and the need to avoid conducting research to support decisions already made.

11. Marketing Research is of use to the following • Producers • To know about his product potential in the market vis-à-vis the total product; • New Products; • Various brands; • Pricing; • Market Structures and selection of product strategy, etc. • Business and Government Marketing Research helps businesses and government in focusing attention on the complex nature of problems faced by them. For example: • Determination of Gross National Product; Price indices, and per capita income; • Expenditure levels and budgeting; • Agricultural Pricing; • The economic policies of Government; and • Operational and planning problems of business and industry.

12. UNIT-2 ORGANIZATION OF MARKETING RESEARCH IN INDIA

13. Growing importance of Marketing Research in India • Use of marketing research in India has been considerably low in the past due to highly protected nature of the Indian market during the fifties and sixties. Only few large firms having linkages with foreign firms, were making use of marketing research in fifties and sixties. The focus of the firms at that time was primarily on procuring the licenses and raw materials.They hardly had any concern for the product improvements or satisfaction of their customers’ needs and wants. In a way, a sort of sellers’ market prevailed at that time.

14. Of late, however the situation has undergone considerable changes. With successive deregulation of the economy in the ensuing period and abolition of the archaic industrial licensing system and other regulations especially in the nineties, the competition has hot in the market. Due to fast changing technological environment, product life cycles has been shortened and many new substitute have emerged. Need for timely, accurate and relevant information about the markets and buying behavior of the target market customers is fast becoming sine qua non for improved decision making.

15. Expenditure on Marketing Research in India • Though no precise information is available, the guesstimate is that Indian firms do not spend much money on marketing research. Consulting and Research Enterprise (CORE), Hyderabad conducted a survey of the Indian firms in 1986 to ascertain their expenditure on marketing research and attitudes toward it. About 40% of the firms were found spending less than 1 lakh. Expenditure by other 46% of the firms ranged between Rs.1lakh and Rs.10 lakhs. Only about 14% firms were spending more than 10 lakhs, with highest figures being Rs.1 crore.

16. Ways of conducting Marketing Research in India • Broadly speaking Researches conducted in ‘2’ ways: Either through its own staff Or by hiring the services of outside agencies. Some firms make use of both the alternatives. • In-house research generally conducted by the firm’s sales and marketing staff or else they can have specialized staff or department for conducting marketing researches. But due to high expenses of specialized staff & separate department only large firms go for this type of organizational arrangements.Small firms use their sales or marketing staff for undertaking research studies. As and when the need arises, some of the sales or marketing persons are picked up and assigned the research tasks.

17. The other important method of collecting information is the use of outside agencies or experts such as marketing research organizations, advertising agencies and consultants. Seeing the increased demand for research services, many marketing research organizations have come up in the country. Now customized research to meet the information needs of the particular client in vogue. • Use of in-house marketing research staff, outside research agencies and marketing research services is more often prevalent among the larger rather than medium and small size firms.

18. Increased demand for outside Research Services The demand for outside marketing research services has phenomenally increased during the eighties and nineties. This is evident from the increase in turnover of the marketing research agencies during this period. The value of marketing research agencies went up to Rs.3crore in 1983 from 1 crore during seventies and further up to Rs 10.06 crore in 1988-89. Currently, the turnover of the research agencies is expected to be somewhere around Rs.20 to Rs.25 crore. Seeing growth in demand for different kinds of outside marketing research services have mushroomed in the country to meet the information needs of the business firms.

19. List of Marketing Research Organizations • Operation Research Group (ORG) • Indian Marketing Research Bureau (IMRB) • Marketing and Research Group (MARG) • Advertising Consultants (India) Pvt. Ltd. • Concept Marketing and Advisory Pvt.Ltd. • Research Consultants and Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd. • National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) • Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT)

20. Common Applications of Marketing Research • Estimation of market share • Collection of competitive information • Demand estimation • Product modification decisions • Measurement of Customer satisfaction • Product positioning • Diversification & Market segmentation decisions • Refer table 5

21. Problems in conducting Marketing Research in India • Heterogeneous population and infrastructural and attitudinal problems. • Cultural diversity and linguistic nuisances • Accessibility to people living in the hinterland of the country as very few people own telephone & postal system is also not up to the mark. • Secondary data available in the country also suffer on account of poor coverage and redundancy of information. • Not only the business firms, but advertising agencies also do not hold favorable attitudes towards marketing research.

22. UNIT-3 RESEARCH DESIGN

23. Research Design • It is a comprehensive master plan of the research study to be undertaken, giving a general statement of the methods to be used. The function of a research design is to ensure that requisite data in accordance with the problem at hand is collected accurately and economically. • It is simply a framework or blueprint for the research study which guides the collection and analysis of data.

24. Research design should furnish the following details: • A statement of objectives of the study or the research output • A statement of the data inputs required on the basis of which the research problem is solved. • The method of analysis which shall be used to treat and analyze the data inputs. The research design furnishes a clear idea as to the activities that would need to be undertaken in order to achieve the research objectives.

25. Classification of various types of Research Design • Exploratory Designs • Descriptive Designs • Quasi-Experimental designs • Experimental designs

26. Exploratory research • Exploratory research provides insights into and comprehension of an issue or situation. It should draw definitive conclusions only with extreme caution. Exploratory research is a type of research conducted because a problem has not been clearly defined. Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data collection method and selection of subjects. The main objective of the exploratory research is to fine tune the broad problem into specific problem statement and generate possible hypotheses.

27. The exploratory studies are mainly used for: • Providing information to enable a more precise problem definition or hypothesis formulation. • Establishing research priorities. • Giving the researcher a feel of the problem situation and familiarizing him with the problem. • Collecting information about possible problems in carrying out research, using specific collection tools and specific techniques for analysis. Generally used exploratory research methods: • Survey of existing literature • Survey of experienced individuals • Analysis of selected case situations

28. Descriptive Research • Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions who, what, where, when and how.Descriptive design only describe the phenomenon under study attempting to establish a relationship between factors. Descriptive designs are aimed only at providing accurate descriptions of variables relevant to the problem under consideration, they are generally used for preliminary and explorative studies. Descriptive design can however, be used to draw inferences about the possible relationships between variables.

29. Descriptive research can be used for the following purposes: • To describe the characteristics of certain groups of interest to the marketer e.g. users of the product, potential users, possible receivers of promotional communication by the company and so on. • To estimate the proportion of people in a given population who behave in a certain way for example the proportion of consumers who are prone to deals. • To make specific predictions for specified future periods. • To develop inferences whether certain variables are associated, for example income and shopping place preference.

30. Descriptive Research Designs • Panel research Design • Cross Sectional Design • Focus Groups

31. Experiments validity • Internal Validity:It means that no other plausible cause of the observed results should exist except those tested. This is the basic minimum that should be present in an experiment before any conclusion about treatments can be made. The presence of other extraneous factors or the absence of internal validity, makes the experiment confounded. • External Validity: It relates to the question of “generalization” of the results obtained from the experiments. We are interested in knowing whether it is possible to project the conclusions of the experiment to what population, geographical areas etc.

32. Factors influencing experiments validity • History • Maturation • Testing • Instrumentation • Selection Bias • Test Unit Mortality

33. Quasi-Experimental Designs • A quasi-experiment is a scientific research method primarily used in the social sciences. "Quasi" means likeness or resembling, so therefore quasi-experiments share characteristics of true experiments which seek interventions or treatments. The key difference in this empirical approach is the lack of random assignment. Another unique element often involved in this experimentation method is use of time series analysis: interrupted and non-interrupted. Experiments designed in this manner are referred to as having quasi-experimental design.

34. Various Quasi-Experimental Designs • After-only without control group • Before-After without control group • The Static-Group Comparison • Longitudinal Designs (Time Series Designs) • Multiple Time-Series Designs

35. BLOCK-IIDATA COLLECTION UNIT-4 DATA COLLECTION

36. DATA & THE RESEARCH PROCESS Define Research objectives Identify information needs Formulate Research Design Identify Primary data needs & data sources Secondary data needs & data sources Search & analyze Internal data Identify extent & type Of external secondary data Respondents Experiments Case studies Marketing research & other Government Statistical publication Syndicated sources Library sources

37. SECONDARY DATA • Secondary data is data collected by someone other than the user. Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, surveys, and organizational records. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research. • The data already available are called secondary data.

38. SECONDARY DATA NEEDS & USES • Secondary data is data collected by someone other than the user. Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, surveys, and organizational records. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research. • The data already available are called secondary data. Secondary data isdata that is neither collected directly by the user nor specifically for the user, often under conditions not known to the user. Examples include Government reports.Secondary information has already been collected for some other purposes. It may be available from internal sources, or may have been collected and published by another organization. Secondary data is cheaper and more quickly available than primary data, but likely to need processing before it is useful.

39. For example, secondary sources of market penetration of an organization are data collected already for accountancy and operational purposes. Total industry sales may already been collected and published by some external body such as the government, trade association as secondary source of information.A company who wants to know the users of its products may have following secondary sources:•Published reports•Government statistics•Scientific and technical Abstracts•Company's financial statements•Banks reports

40. SOURCES OF SECONDARY DATA Government Agencies and official publications: • Population statistics • Statistical abstract of India • Estimation for National product, savings & capital formation • Monthly statistics on the production of selected industries • Basic statistics relating to Indian economy • India, pocket book of economic information • Trade statistics Other Sources: • Library • Research Agencies and data services

41. ADVANTAGES OF SECONDARY DATA • Secondary data is provides a multipurpose bases to researchers. • Secondary data can be used for creating or generating new ideas by providing a base for some core issues. • Secondary data is the best method of getting information regarding a particular area where the direct collection of data is impossible. • The time involved in searching secondary sources is much less than that needed to complete primary data collection. • It does not exhaust people's good will by re-collecting readily available data. • Secondary data can be easily located by using printed indices.

42. DISADVANTAGES OF SECONDARY DATA 1. In some cases, it is very expensive (scanner data, e.g.)2. You may have less control over how the data was collected.3. There may be biases in the data that you don't know about.4. Its answers may not exactly fit your research questions.5. It may be obsolete data

43. SOURCES OF PRIMARY DATA • A primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.

44. SOURCES • Respondents • Past Behavior • Intention • Attitudes & opinions • Socio-economic characteristics • Life styles • Primary data from Analogous situations-Case study

45. Advantages & disadvantages of Primary Data Advantages1. Basic data2. Un biased information3. Original data4. Data from the primary market/ population5. Data direct from the population.Disadvantages 1. Large volume of data.2. Huge volume of population.3. Time consuming4. Direct and personal intervention has to be there.5. Raw data.

46. BASIC METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION • Structured and direct interviews • Unstructured direct interviews • Structured & unstructured direct interviews • Word association tests • Sentence completion tests • Thematic appreciation test • Focus groups • Observation method

47. UNIT-5 SAMPLING

48. SAMPLING • A part of population is known as sample. The method consisting of the selecting for study, a portion of the ‘universe’ with a view to draw conclusions about the ‘universe’ or ‘population’ is known as sampling. A statistical sample ideally purports to be a miniature model or replica of the collectivity or the population constituted of all the items that the study should principally encompass, that is, the items which potentially hold promise of affording information relevant to the purpose of a given research. • Sampling helps in time and cost saving. It also helps in checking their accuracy. But on the other hand it demands exercise of great care caution; otherwise the results obtained may be incorrect or misleading.

49. Advantages of Sample Survey • The size of the population • Amount of funds budgeted for the study • Facilities • Time

50. Characteristics of a Good Sample • Representative ness • Accuracy • Precision • Size