Research of Barclays - Essay Example

It also sponsored many big and major events also. This list of sponsorships may include Premier League, certain sports events e.g. tennis, golf and foot ball tournaments, the Churchill cup etc. Barclays is the second largest bank in the United States (Salz, 2013). There are also certain controversies which are associated with the name of Barclays as it is very usual matter that every banking institution is usually supposed to be involved in the money corruption cases. Same is the case with Barclays, most of the competitors tried to create a bad word of mouth regarding the Barclays bank but it was not successful and the popularity of the Barclays bank is still in the minds of its potential customers (Skinner, 2011).

Need for Marketing Research: Due to difference in the customer needs and choices the Barclays bank is also trying to serve them at every level. That is the reason of having different banking products and services so that customers of different segments can be targeted easily (the Beans Group, 2012). When any company has such a versatile kind of target market and customers then there is a need of market research so that new and prevailing trends in the market can be analyzed efficiently. The promotional tools of the banking products and services would also be different for different customers.

While doing market research the company should be capable of covering costs and also sell the product at a profit. They should also be able to handle the expected problems of the new segment (FAO Corporate document Repository). Marketing Research at Barclays: There is so much competition in the banking industry that every bank has to be vigilant about the opportunities arising in the customer market so that it can be grabbed at once and then have a first mover advantage in offering new services to its potential customers.

To achieve this vigilance by the company the marketing research should be very much active and effective also. Marketing research actually means to collect the customer related data from the market segments and thus analyzing it in comparison with the company’s resources and also the cost involved. This marketing research also helps to devise future plans for the company. Barclays have analyzed the potential in the students target market and thus do a market research to find out whether this would be a profitable decision to launch any product regarding this segment (Havard Business School, 2013).

Barclays have considered the students as the major segment to be invested in. They did a marketing research in order to analyze the potential of this specific market segment (Elizabeth, 2012). Barclays has a competitive advantage over other companies due to the geographic area it has covered (Barclays PLC Bank Annual Report, 2012). On the basis of this advantage Barclays can compete over them in the future also by serving more and more segments. The research and development department of the Barclays is very effective.

The research team provides actionable ideas that are based on the consumer preferences (Barclays PLC Bank Annual Report, 2012). At first the company which is going for market research should focus on its own image created in the customer’s eye (Gerber). In this way it can be easily analyzed that how the population of that segment will perceive that company’s product. The research and development department at Barclays efficiently try to cover all the possible segments of the consumer market and even also made valuations and other