Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches - Essay Example

? Marketing Practitioners Research The paper discusses a research programme carried out on behalf o a client, for analyzing the market of a nutritious corn flake product targeted for the student population in the UK. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction.....................................................4 2 Research Objectives.......................................4 3 Terms of Reference.........................................5 4 Approach..........................................................6 5 Issues for Inclusion in the Research.............8 6 Methodology....................................................9 7 Analysis...........................................................10 8 References.......................................................12 1. Introduction The main aim of this research is to provide important marketing data to the client which is a company seeking to introduce a new range of ready to eat nutritious meals for fixed budget customers. The client company is planning to launch nutritious food products in United Kingdom market with the students as the main target customer of the product. This nutritious food product features a variety of read to serve meals at an affordable price. Beaver’s Corn Flakes are targeted towards the student population of UK and it is a substituent for the junk food preferred because of low cost. The client is planning to conduct a research for understanding the eating habits of the specific target consumers of their product. On behalf of the client, a research agency is employed to carry out all the necessary research. There are various approaches followed by the marketing company to test the launch methods that have to be adopted for launching the product in UK market. This research will help the client company in understanding the real market conditions and help them in designing an effective strategy for the launch of product. This report is prepared with the purpose of highlighting the methods that are used in research process and the importance of every single method with relevant output for the client. There will be detailed explanation for the research methods used and reason behind using those particular methods for the research. 2. Research Objectives This main purpose of this research is to understand the UK market and the food habits of the potential customers. The research is divided into different stages including consumer research, expert advice from nutrition and diet experts in UK and conducting online research campaign for the product. The research agency will focus in finding the right methods for promoting Beaver’s Corn Flakes and getting the feedback from the targeted audience. The main objective of conducting this research is to provide important insights of the research and useful data to the client that will guide in marketing and production strategies of the company. One of the most important parts of the research is consumer participation and the inputs from direct targeted customers. The feedback from customers will be taken in form of short surveys and the satisfaction level of the customer from Beaver’s corn flakes and other range of products. It will allow the client to understand the customer’s perspective towards the product and estimate of number of customers that are willing to use this product. Some of the important results obtained from research are: a) Customer awareness of Beaver’s corn flakes product (Including data like age, socio-economic status, sex and location of customer) b) What are the possible challenges in introducing Beaver’s corn flakes and food products in UK market? c) What is the customer satisfaction level and feedback for Beaver’s Corn Flakes? d) What percentage of UK customers are willing to try this new range of nutritious food products from Kellogg’s? 3. Terms of Reference The main aim of the research is to provide information to the client that will help the company in developing a consumer base in UK market for their upcoming nutritious range of food products served as Beaver’s Corn Flakes. One of the principle objectives of the research is to understand the customer response for this new range of nutritious products from Beaver’s in the UK market. These findings will help the client in designing and developing an effective strategy for introducing this Beaver’s Corn Flakes in UK. The research process will be completed according to the research methods and testing standards used by the involved researches. The research process is divided into many parts including testing of the product, response from customers and summary outlining important findings of the research. The proposal will summarize the best method for commencing the work, major difficulties that may arise in the overall process and help client in developing an effective strategy for the campaign. The overall research is divided into different parts including qualitative research from the customers, response of the customers, developing questionnaire and collecting inputs from the consumers. After the development of research plan by the researchers, the research process has been conducted in two different parts. The first phase of the research is the qualitative phase under which different groups of customers participate in group discussions (Bryman, 2006) including the important features of Beaver’s corn Flakes and its nutritional benefits. This discussion can help in identifying some key factors like the features that are appreciated by the customers and some of the major dislikes. The quantitative phase of the research includes finding the customer response towards the product (Bryman, 2006). Interviews from some of the top supermarkets of the area were conducted to understand the response of the customers and any complaints against Beaver’s corn flakes. In the next stage, the team of researches prepared a questionnaire depending on the findings of initial research. The questions are based on different area of the overall product and the content of the questionnaire is prepared after laying proper emphasis over the wording and structure of the document. Once the questionnaire is prepared, the next of the research is to decide interview locations and interview dates for the initial testing of the Beaver’s Corn Flakes. It is important to target the right set of people for testing the product. This product is developed for the middle class student population of UK and locations should be decided accordingly. The process should be completed in a particular manner starting with introduction of the product, testing of product by the customers and the consumer should fill the questionnaires with additional suggestion for the further improvement of the product. There should be a team of researcher for conducting different parts of the process including arranging customers for testing the product, providing food samples to the customers and guiding the customers for filling questionnaires. The next step of the process is to collect the data from the customer participation and hold a meeting of the researchers to discuss the results obtained from the data received after testing of Beaver’s Corn Flakes. It is not necessary that the initial testing process should accurate data and there are some risks involved in the overall process, including the expenses in the process and time consumed in the process. 4. Approach The research is conducted with different techniques including descriptive as well as exploratory research methods for the process. Descriptive approach is more suited as per the requirement of the client. This is a new product for the UK market and it is required to study different aspects of the UK market. The descriptive research method includes some important factors given as: I. Understanding of the aim of research and the target audience of the research II. Different pattern of customers purchasing nutritious food product from Beaver’s in UK market III. Study of different patterns including average sales, frequency of buying and budget for nutritious health products. IV. Focus on target customer group and collecting important data like average income group, percentage of customers willing to spend on buying nutritious food products. All of these factors and important information is achieved with descriptive research only. Descriptive research is selected as the main method of research for the overall research process. This research process uses quantitative research for collecting data directly from the customers and their feedback for Beaver’s Corn Flakes. This method involves preparing a questionnaire with predetermined options provided by the researchers and involvement of large number of customers in providing proper feedback for the prepared questionnaire. The target is to collect data from as many researchers as possible. This quantitative research process involves a proper combination of structured as well as open-ended questions so that the customers can provide their response easily. One of the major concerns of the research process is that the client is introducing new range of Beaver’s nutritious food products for the first time in UK market and hence, it is very important to study different aspects of the market that may affect the success of the campaign. The exploratory research process is used to identify the major issues that may arise in front of the client and conducting surveys and using questionnaire is an important part of the process. Some of the major problems that may arise in launching Beaver’s Corn Flakes in UK market will be discussed in this proposal report. 5. Issues for Inclusion In The Research Beaver’s Corn Flakes is a new product for UK market and it is important to consider some important issues that may arise in introducing this product in the market. The first part of the process is to clarify the purpose of the research conducted before carrying forward any further studies. Beaver’s Corn Flakes is a relatively new product in UK market and it is important to consider every aspect of the market for successful launch of the product. There are different types of research methods carried out to answer multiple concerns regarding the launch of the product. Some of the main points to be considered are: a) Market competitors for Beaver’s Corn Flakes b) Target customers for nutritious product range from Beaver’s c) Average income group and average expenses on nutritious food products d) Best price for the product to compete with other brands The research process is carried further by conducting test research for Beaver’s Corn Flakes. A group of consumers will be selected for testing the product and give their advice for further improvement of Beaver’s nutritious products. It is very important to develop an effective strategy for communication between customers and research team. At the start of the consumer participation stage, it is important to consider ethical issues and confidentiality of the customers (Creswell, 1994). Customers should willingly participate in the process rather than being forced to. There should not be any kind of pressure on the customer to answer all the questions or taste the product without their will. All the nutritional products from Beaver’s should be provided free of cost and should be safe for use. A team of researchers should ensure the confidentiality of the customer information and it is advised to be aware of the local laws and practices in this respect. Some of the most important issues that need to be focused on are given below: I. What is the satisfaction level of clients after testing Beaver’s Corn Flakes? II. What are the demands of UK market and how to meet these demands? III. What are the suggestions for further improvement of the product? All of these aspects should be discussed in meetings and researchers should find a possible way to find solutions for these issues. 6. Methodology The research process should include use of qualitative as well as quantitative techniques (Creswell, 1994). Qualitative technique is based on one-to-one interaction between the consumers and researchers of the products. Beaver’s Corn Flakes is introduced for the first time in UK market so it becomes really important to do proper qualitative research. There are various methods used by researchers to conduct qualitative research. One of the methods that should be used in this research process includes discussion groups (Kervin, 1992). It will allow the researcher to identify the emotions and feelings of a collective group of customers at the same time. The researcher should prepare proper notes from the discussion including the features of Beaver’s Corn Flakes that are liked by the customers, some important dislikes and further improvements that can help in improving the quality of the product. Another approach that should be used is to interview individual customers and ask them to answer a questionnaire after tasting the product. Customers should provide their suggestions and feedback on the quality of the nutritious products that the client is planning to introduce in the market. Quantitative method is equally important in this research process as it will allow researchers to gather data from large number of customers (Kervin, 1992). Under this process, questionnaires are distributed in bulk quantities and the user can provide appropriate answers for every question. Generally these questions multiple-choice type questions so that the user can easily answer the questions without consuming much time. Some open-ended questions should also be included in the questionnaire so that customers can answer according to their will. This process will allow gathering of feedback from large number of customers and this data can be further analyzed for important conclusions. The research process will be using questionnaire as the initial stage of testing Beaver’s nutritional range of products. These questionnaires are carefully designed by researchers with careful attention towards the content, time required and location of the major distribution of questionnaires. After the initial stage of product testing, the researchers should follow-up the customers by email, telephone call and conduct surveys to monitor proper feedback from the customers. 7. Analysis After the data collection stage is completed, the next process of the research conducted for Beaver’s Corn Flakes is to analyze the data. The data should be organized into proper format using Excel or any other formatting software. All the questionnaires should be analyzed and their answers should be stored in excel files. The best method to represent collective data is to prepare charts, graphs and tables for the data (Kervin, 1992). The data obtained after UK market research for Beaver’s Corn Flakes should be represented in form of charts and graphs. The final analysis process should be divided into two different categories. First category should list data according to the gender of the customers and second category should include customers according to their age. The main output of the analysis should answer some important issues given below: a) What is the customer satisfaction level after using Beaver’s Corn Flakes? b) Proper understanding of the origin of product, client history, price, brand, and taste of the product c) What are the suggestions offered by customer to improve the demand of Beaver’s Corn Flakes in UK market? The research should answer all of these questions and it will help the client in further improving of the product. The report should highlight important factors that should be improved including price, packing, taste and available flavours of Beaver’s Corn Flakes. The analysis process should: I. Discuss major risk factors and quality improvements required in product II. Discuss the response of customers and feedback III. Provide suggestions for improving the demand and quality of the product. The report should also answer the question that whether the customers are ready to accept Beaver’s Corn Flakes nutritional food in UK market. This kind of analysis is important for the client and should help the client in improving the quality of the product. 8. References Bryman, Alan. (2006). ‘Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Vol.6, No. 1, pp. 97 – 113 Sage, London Creswell, J.W. (1994). Research Design: Qualitative & Quantitative Approaches, London: SAGE Publications Kervin, J. B. (1992). Methods for Business Research, New York: Harper Collins Publishers Read More