IBM Market Performance - Case Study Example

MARKET RESEARCH REPORT FOR IBM TABLE OF CONTENT Executive summary 2 1.0Background Information 3 2.0 Data analysis 4 2.1Sample description 4 2.1.1 Overall characteristics of respondents 4 2.1.2 Descriptive statistics of key overall measures 4 2.2 Chi-square test 5 2.3Differenses 5 2.3.2 T-TEST 6 2.4 Chi-square 8 2.4.1 Overall satisfaction 8 2.4.2 Overall quality 8 2.4.3 Total cost of ownership 8 2.4.4 Value 9 2.5Regressions 9 2.5.1 Regression for value offered 9 2.5.2 Regression for \“continue the purchase\ 10 2.5.3 Regression for Recommend Company 10 2.5.4 Regression purchase from company under investigation 11 2.6 Reduced factors 12 2.7Conclusions 13 2.8 Recommendations 14 Executive summary This is a market analysis research proposal prepared for IBM. The proposal identifies challenges faced by the company when competing with other IT companies. In order to maintain and even improve its market performance IBM should ensure that its customers are satisfied with its hardware and software products. IBM therefore conducted a survey based study of decision makers in different roles in various companies. The descriptive survey research design was used as information was obtained from the study participants in their natural environment, concerning their attitudes or beliefs on certain issues of the study. The problem faced by IBM management is to increase market share of the company. The MRP is: What are the factors that determine IBM market performance. The MROs were To determine the overall characteristics of the respondents To determine customers rating of IBM based on overall satisfaction, overall quality, total cost of ownership and value offered To investigate the level of satisfaction offered by other companies and IBM To establish the inter-relationship between overall measure variables. In the process of the study the following analytical techniques were put into use Chi-square analysis Paired sample T-test Regression analysis Factor analysis The results indicated that the level of satisfaction of the customers played at great role in determining companies’ market performance. 1.0Background Information IBM is one of most successful international companies which provide IT equipments and associated services, having 50% 0f the $103.63 billion revenues in 2008 being outside the US. The company is the top provider of computer hardware, software and services. The hardware products made by IBM include mainframe and servers, storage systems and peripherals. The company’s services arm is the largest in the world, it is in the second position in softwares sales and also it is among the leading in semiconductors provision. In order to improve and compete effectively IBM has made numerous changes in its operations. The changes have been in terms of merging with other companies, selling part of her business and buying new businesses. In order to maintain and even improve its market performance IBM should ensure that its customers are satisfied with its hardware and software products. IBM therefore conducted a survey based study of decision makers in different roles in various companies. The descriptive survey research design was used as information was obtained from the study participants in their natural environment, concerning their attitudes or beliefs on certain issues of the study. The problem faced by IBM management is to increase market share of the company. The MRP is: What are the factors that determine IBM market performance. The MROs were To determine the overall characteristics of the respondents To determine customers rating of IBM based on overall satisfaction, overall quality, total cost of ownership and value offered To investigate the level of satisfaction offered by other companies and IBM To establish the inter-relationship between the overall measure variables. 2.0 Data analysis 2.1Sample description 2.1.1 Overall characteristics of respondents Part of the research involved establishing the characteristics of the respondents. The respondents were asked the role they played in the company with the results being as shown in Table 1. From the table it is observed that most of the respondents were IT staff (61.8%) followed by IT Influencer who were 25.7% of the respondents. The respondents were also asked about the number of employees in their organization with the results being as in Table 2 where those from organizations with more that 1000 employees had the highest number of 20.8%. The results in Table 3 gives a summary of the results obtained when the respondents were asked about the industry their organization belonged to. Table 4 on the other hand show the respondents who selected IBM and those who did not. 2.1.2 Descriptive statistics of key overall measures The respondents were asked to respond to 4 questions which were to be used in establishing descriptive statistics of key overall measures. The response to the questions were coded with numbers 1-5. Question 4 asked the respondents about their overall satisfaction with the response option from 1-5 being very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied and very satisfied respectively. The results of the response to the question is given in Table 5. Question 5 was an investigation on the role played by quality the response option from 1-5 being poor, fair, good, very good and excellent respectively. The summary of the responses obtained for the question is given in table 6. The response to question 6 which investigated about total cost ownership is given in Table 7. In the question the coding 1-5 stands for very low, low, moderate, high and very high respectively. In question 7 which investigated about value the coding 1-5 stands for poor, marginal, good, very good and excellent respectively. The result of the investigation is as given in Table 8. 2.2 Chi-square test The chi-square test was used to test if there is any relationship between the company chosen by the respondent and the level of satisfaction. The results of the test are summarized in Appendix 3 and Table 9 and Table 10. The chi-square test show that there is a statistically significant difference in the identity of the company and the level of satisfaction as p0.05). However IBM had significant high performance when compared to the other companies in terms of the following: Total cost ownership Highly ethical company Company has advertisement I really like Increase current purchases from this company Overall quality training Overall quality of technical support 2.3.2 T-Test A study sought to find out how IBM differ on rating of the overall measure (Q4, Q5, Q6 and Q7). This was done by using paired samples t-tests to check whether there are statistical differences in each pair of variables: (Q4:Q5, Q4:Q6, Q4: Q7, Q5:Q6, Q5:Q7, Q6:Q7). The results of the test are as in Appendix 6 (Table 13 and Table 14) and Appendix 7 (Table 15). From table 11 show that pair 1 variables have a high correlation of 0.8 with p= 0.000 followed by pair 3 with a correlation of 0.671 at p=0.000. From table 13 it is clear that there is highest difference in means is in pair 3 where t value is 6.277 at p Read More