ROLE OF MARKETING RESEARCH IN GAININGMARKET SHARE.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Marketing managers often commission formal marketing studies of specific problems and opportunities. They may request a market survey, a product preference test, a sales forecast by region, or an advertising evaluation. It is the job of the marketing researcher to produce insight into the customer’s attitudes and buying behaviour. Kotler and Keller(2006)
Marketing research department play crucial roles within the organization especially when it comes to gathering and dissemination of vital information that would in the overall be of immense assistance to the marketing goals and objective of the organization.
According to Abu Zekeri(2008), It is very important to note that marketing embraces different activities such as: finding out what consumers needs and wants are, planning and developing suitable products or service that will satisfy those needs and wants, determining the best wayto price, promote and distribute the want and satisfying product or service without hurting the organization.Marketing research is very needful for us to carry outthese activities.
Marketing mix elements has several activities or decisions to be made under it. These decisions are product decisions, pricing decisions, distribution decisions and promotion decisions, this decisions could be effectively made with the aid of authenticate information which could only be gotten from marketing research.
An important task of marketing research is to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing activities. According to Kotler and Keller(2006), there are complimentary approaches to measure marketing productivity, they are; marketing metrics to access marketing effect and marketing mix modeling to estimate causal relationship and how marketing activity affects outcome. Further discussions in the course of this project willgive us clear insight to the approaches to measure marketing productivity. Marketers frequently asked questions that warrants the need to imbibe the use of an effective marketing research to answer these questions. Questions such as:
(1) How can we spot and choose the right market segments?
(2) How can we differentiate our offering?
(3) How should we respond to customers who buy on price?
(4) How can we compete against lower-cost, lower- price competitors
(5) How can we grow our business?
(6) How can we build stronger brands?
(7) How can we keep our customers loyal?
(8) How can we measure the payback from advertising, sales, promotion and public relations
All the above questions are culled from Kotler and Keller (2006).
Market Share is an indicator of the success of a company’s marketing policy, the company that has the largest share for a geographical market is said to be the market leader in that market, the importance companies attach to market share varies accordingly to business culture. In UnitedState of America (USA), Canada and many European countries, companies tend to focus on profit although market share is a key factor to determinant of profit. In Japan on the other hand market share can be more important than profit. Encarta ® 2009.
According to Kotler and Keller(2006) company sales do not reveal how well the company is performing relative to competitors. For this purpose, marketing management needs to track its market share.
However, market share is the proportion of total sales of a product or type of product by a company in a given market.It can be calculated in terms of value or units sold. Encarta ® 2009.Further discussions in the course of this project work will reveal in detail the relationship between marketing research and market share as well as the role of marketing research in gaining market share.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The research is undertaken in assessing objectively how organizations have been utilizing marketing strategies and programmes in gaining market share.
The study makes to attempt to answer the question often posed to organizations on how they have used their existing and new product to effect the ever changing business environment.One of the fundamental problems that prompt my interest to research into this project topic is the challenge of market penetration i.e. Why does new organizations with same product find it difficult to penetrate into the market? What are the reasons for the difficulty in market penetration?
Another fundamental problem that prompted my interest to research into this project topic is the question of Why some organizations have more market share than other organizations in an existing market. However, this research study is also to give answers to questions usually possed to marketing managers in organizations. Answers to questions like how true is it that marketing research is responsible for high market share?
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The research work is designed to achieve the following objectives:-
1. To identify the purpose and effectiveness of marketing research in an organization.
2. To identify the impact of information on organization’s marketing decision making.
3. To determine the different forms of marketing information available to an organization.
4. To examine the effect of marketing research on sales volume.
5. To investigate the relationship between marketing research and gaining market share.
6. To determine the cost and benefit of marketing research.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Some of the questions that led to this research work can be highlighted as follows:
1. Why the need for effective marketing research in an organization?
2. In what manner do marketing research affects a company sales and profitability?
3. How can an organization improve upon the effectiveness of its marketing research?
4. How justifiable is the cost of marketing research in an organization?
5. To what extent is marketing research reliable in gaining market share?
Therefore, for organizations to remain in business and more profitable, they must be more aggressive in their marketing promotional mix strategies.
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following tentative statement can be related to the work study and will be tested later.
1. Ho = Marketing research do not increase sales volume.
H1 = Marketing researchincrease sales volume.
2. Ho = Marketing research do not lead to increase in market share.
H1 = Marketing research lead to increase in market share.
3. Ho = The cost incurred by most organization on marketing research does
Not justify its purpose.
H1 = The cost incurred by most organization on marketing research justify
its purpose.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Effective marketing research to a marketing manager as well as an organization cannot be disregarded or over-emphasized for these enable, proper decision to be made in order to achieve the aim and objective of the organization.
Among the significant benefits derived from effective marketing research includes the following:-
· The basic purpose of marketing research is to provide information of data for the purpose of assisting the management in making better and reasonable decision within the domain of their responsibilities.
· It also provide a chance for the marketing manager to widening his existing level of knowledge by providing such vital information which is required for investigation.
· The essence of this research study is also to provide relevant information that give an insight into the relationship between marketing research and market share
· This research study will also produce an insight to customer’s attitude and buying behavior and how marketing managers can channel it towards maximizing market potential.
The contribution of this research to the advancement of academic knowledge is that it will be a foundation for further research studies into the relationship between marketing, marketing research and market share. This research study will also be of use to future researchers wishing to use information gathered in the course of this research for further research study.
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This project work is designed to be a wide range of activities as related to marketing research in an organization. It will go a long way to look at how effectively marketing research is being conducted by marketers in Globalcoms Ltd.
The project work coverage area for this research study is at Globalcom’s corporate Headquarter, Mike Adenuga’s Tower, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
The scope will also cover the reasons for studying marketing research, application of marketing research and marketing research process.
In conclusion, the scope of this research project is how effective marketing research is used to achieve profitable consumer response. This research will cover applicable strategies and the possible impact of effective marketing research on consumer response. Information will be sought from past literature (like textbooks and related topic project) and field work (like questionnaires, personal interview etc)
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
In carrying out this research work, some difficulties were encountered which are listed below:-
(a) Unwillingness on the part of the Globalcom Ltd Nigeria. Management t
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