Quantitative Market Analysis - Research Paper Example

Introduction Research design is a very important consideration especially in market research. The actual decision-making process could rely on the results of the actual study. Research design plays a crucial role in the determination of appropriate results that would make sense (Creswell 215; Marczyk, DeMatteo and Festinger 77). In this paper, the proponent tries to elaborate the significance of a survey and questionnaires in a situation that requires market research and employment of motivated respondents. Concerning this, the inclusion of their advantages and disadvantages are highlights of the discussion prior to their actual assessment. Background of the problem Home Entertainment’s (HE) turnover is declining over the 24 months. The managing director is concerned with this alarming indicator of the downward sales trend of the firm. While HE is still in control when it comes to the level of profitability they experience amidst prevailing competition and existence of other potential market key players, the firm requires additional meaningful understanding of the prevailing market segment formed in the industry. The key is to understand, if there is any, the expectations of the two groups of customers they are serving, the DVD rental customers and the game rental customers. According to the claim, these groups of customers form a different market because of their expectations. Concerning this, the managing director would want to justify this by conducting a market research. However, a certain issue they need to face prior to its implementation is the appropriate research design that they should employ. One particular consideration in order to address this concern is to initiate a survey with HE’s customers as the respondents. Below are the important points that the managing director should understand concerning the implementation of a survey to their customers or target respondents. Criteria for consideration There are important criteria for consideration prior to the implementation of the actual move to initiate the appropriate research design that HE should take on. The collected data should represent the entire population of sample. Thus, it should consider sampling those actual customers engaged in their actual product or service offerings. This is for the firm to see to it that they would acquire the information they want to obtain. As they are also after of profitability, then they have to consider an option that will not lead them to spending more with their market research. The firm should consider whether the use of a survey and questionnaires could address these two generic criteria or not. Advantages of a survey Survey could be a fast and inexpensive way of gathering information from the sample’s beliefs, attitudes or behaviours (Mitchell and Jolley 286; Zikmund and Babin 147). In other words, based on the case of HE by which it wants to gather information from the customers about their specific expectations, a survey would make sense, as it simply would allow the respondents to give the necessary information that the proponents want to gather from them. The good thing about the implementation of survey in the case of HE is that they could integrate it directly with their customers, implying further that they do not need to invest additional expense in market research particularly in the gathering of data. It would ensure them of a cost-effective approach while giving them the opportunity to generate actual information coming from their customers. For example, they can just ask for a little time from their customers who would pay them a visit in their branches for a period of two weeks as one of the store managers suggested. Thus, if 10 to 20 customers would pay a visit during the whole day, there would also be at most 10 to 20 respondents for the survey for that day if all of them would agree with the idea that the firm would be asking some important information from them. If the firm has to initiate a survey, it would automatically acquire information from these respondents without further need to spend more. On the part of HE the availability of information from its actual visiting customers and saving are its ultimate advantages by employing a survey. Disadvantages of a survey As mentioned, survey has significant advantages on the part of HE. Now let us look at the major drawbacks of using a survey especially in the gathering of information. While it is true that a survey is reliably cheaper and could become available at the most convenient time and set up of the proponent, there are also significant issues that one should understand about it if they have to be most concerned of the validity of the information. According to some experts, a survey together with its construct validity has a strong link with the participants’ self-reports (Mitchell and Jolley 286). There is a very important implication concerning this point of view. One could simply put it this way. If the chosen respondents are giving inaccurate data, the survey could have a greater chance of obtaining poor construct validity. In fact, if the samples are bias on certain issues, a survey on that issue may have poor external validity. There is no way to justify that a certain research would have considerable outcomes or results if the chosen respondents in a survey have certain bias on the issues or are not positively responsive to engage themselves in the study. Respondents’ motivation is hard to develop in survey (Donsbach 263). This is going to be challenging on the part of HE if they have to consider survey as their ultimate means of gathering information from their respondents. For this reason, the management should create a substantial research design that would guarantee achieving of exact information even if they have to employ a survey. In addition, a survey on the other hand could not reveal information that could explain why something happen (Mitchell and Jolley 286). Knowing the point that the level of engagement of the respondent in the actual survey has no full guarantee, there is no reason to rely on it in the first place if the ultimate goal is to understand cause and effect. For this reason, there are other reliable research designs that could address this specific concern. Although HE would not be creating a thorough investigation why their customers might have certain expectations, their goal is to prove that certain expectations exist. This could help them further provide a better value for their customers if it would happen that their respondents would have full engagement with the market research in order to generate the right information. Therefore, aside from the need to create a strategy of increasing the customers’ attachment when the firm initiates a survey, the questions should be straightforward, enough for the customers to understand the actual point of the study. The firm considers the possibility of using questionnaires with their survey. The following are important information that HE should understand about the questionnaires prior to the actual use of them in their study. Advantages of the questionnaires At this point, it should be clear on the part of HE on what to choose among the three available types of questionnaires: self-administered questionnaires, investigator-administered questionnaires, and psychological tests (Mitchell and Jolley 286). Each of these types has certain advantages and disadvantages. Self-administered questionnaires allow anonymity and fast distribution to a large number of people (Mitchell and Jolley 286). Unlike the self-administered questionnaires, the respondents with the use of investigator-administered questionnaires would fill out in the presence of the researcher (Mitchell and Jolley 289). Like the first type of questionnaire, the investigator-administered questionnaire would ensure fast distribution to a large number of people and even ensure anonymity. The best significant advantage of a psychological test is to acquire great amount of information from an individual in just a short span of time, with efficiency and objectivity (Urbina 259). This is most likely behavioural in detail, but is capable of telling relevant information concerning the respondent. In general, all these three types of questionnaires could generate the respondents’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviours at a lower cost. In other words, questionnaires could also help HE to generate relevant information concerning their customers’ actual expectations without spending that much for their actual marketing research. However, these questionnaires have also linked up disadvantages as stated below. Disadvantages of the questionnaires Self-administered questionnaires should be self-explanatory (Lewis-Beck, Bryman and Furing 1012). All other types of questionnaires are actually had to be the same. However, in the event that the respondents got confused in the given questions, there is a tendency that they would not mind about it especially if there is a remarkable presence of not being totally engage in the survey. The response rate could be low (Moore 27). One important implication of this is the achievement of results that may not be too reliable on the ground that the chosen respondents may not have given their best shot to engage themselves totally in the survey or study. Respondents’ motivation is therefore necessary (Lewis-Beck, Bryman and Furing 1012). However, in reality, it is harder to achieve respondents’ motivation. In fact, other surveys with the use of questionnaires are offering incentives or reward systems just to guarantee full participation from the chosen respondents. This may now turn out costly while taking into consideration of the use of questionnaires in the actual gathering of data. In whatever types of survey questionnaires, the proponent should be able to ensure strong motivation of the respondents to fill out and give the necessary information. Questionnaires should therefore must consist of questions that are not vague, but easy to understand and not that long. The length of the questionnaires should also be a fundamental consideration. This means the proponent should be able to consider the number of questions on the questionnaire while taking into account of addressing the essential data or information they would want to generate. Alternative course of actions As stated in the above discussion, there are significant advantages associated with the use of survey and questionnaires. However, some drawbacks are also remarkable. For this reason, it is important to consider whether or not the use of survey and questionnaires adhere to what the HE would want to achieve. What they just want to obtain in general is the information from their customers concerning their inquiry. However, as stated in the discussion, one could not totally guarantee a degree of reliability of information obtained from the use of survey and questionnaire. For sure, there is a need to enhance respondents’ motivation to be part of the survey and fill out the questionnaires. Survey and questionnaires are not that costly, but at some point risky when one relies on the results these would generate for the actual decision-making knowing that the information has something to do with the level of engagement of the respondents. Survey and questionnaires are therefore good choices in the actual research design considering their potential advantages and based on the prevailing case of HE. However, the firm has to consider remarkable employment of additional actions in order to enhance the respondents’ participation in the actual survey. Recommendation A good recommendation is therefore integrate a motivational reward or incentive together with the actual survey in order for the chosen respondents to develop motivation to fill out the questionnaires. The respondents should have the assurance of the confidentiality of their responses, by giving them the freedom to preserve their anonymity. The samples should also have the chance to raise probable concerns in the event that some questions might have certain level of vagueness for them. The respondents should also have orientation concerning the point that they should answer honestly, even if they think their answers might be negative. Thus, the proponent should make a clear point from the start that it does not matter whether the answer might be negative or positive, but the most important is for the respondents to answer with honest intention. A reward system could definitely help ensure the achievement of this objective. In survey, as stated earlier, respondents’ motivation is necessary. Conclusion Survey and questionnaires as integral components of the research design are having advantages and disadvantages. However, one could still transform them as positive through the inclusion of additional effort in order to guarantee high motivation to engage in the survey or study on the part of the chosen respondents. References Creswell, John W. Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2003. Donsbach, Wolfgang. The SAGE handbook of public opinion research. London: SAGE, 2007. Lewis-Beck, Michael S., Alan E. Bryman, and Tim Futing Liao. The SAGE Encyclopedia of social science research methods, Volume 1. London: SAGE, 2004. Marczyk, Geoffrey R., David DeMatteo and David Festinger. Essentials of research design and methodology. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Mitchell, Mark. L., and Janina M. Jolley. Research design explained. 8th ed. Belmont: Cengage Learning, 2012. Moore, Stephen. Sociology alive! 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Nelson Thomes, 2001. Urbina, Susana. Essentials of psychological testing. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Zikmund, William G., and Barry J. Babin. Essentials of marketing research. 4th ed. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2009. QUESTIONNAIRE ___Respondent number _________Date Instruction: Thank you for participating with us! We intend to conduct this survey for us to serve you better. Please fill out every item with all honesty and sincerity. It does not matter whether your response is negative or positive, but what we would appreciate is for you to tell us the truth. Your information given to us would help us determine how we could further serve you with the best product or service offerings you deserve. You are rest assured that we treat all information you give with outmost confidentiality. Please check the space provided for your answer or fill out the blank with the exact and necessary information. We also appreciate multiple answers if applicable. After you have successfully filled out the necessary information, kindly claim our token of appreciation at the service counter for the time you gave for this survey. Thank you! 1. Do you rent films? ___No ___Yes 2. Do you rent games? ___No ___Yes? 3. How often do you rent films? ___once a week ___twice a week ___thrice a week ___others (specify) 4. How often do you rent games? ___once a week ___twice a week ___thrice a week ___others (specify) 5. Who are you renting for? ___your self ___your children ___others (please specify) 6. Do you rent online video rental services? ___No ___Yes 7. If your answer is ‘Yes’ in item number 6, how often do you rent online video rental services? ___once a week ___twice a week ___thrice a week ___others (specify) We appreciate your time for this and look forward to serving you with our best! You may now claim our token of appreciation for the time you spent for this survey. Thank you! The Management Read More