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Primary and Secondary Research Methods for Business Expansion

   

Added on  2019-09-30

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CASE STUDY CONTEMPORARY THEMES ASSIGNMENTCASE STUDY 1Primary research Debenhams is one of the leading department stores of the United Kingdom with a turnover of around £2bn with over140 departmental stores and also has 40 franchised stores all over the world. The company enjoys a considerableonline presence. The original Debenhams store is based in London and was founded in 1913. The company still usesit for their communications and press activities. In 1928, the acquisitions of the Harvey Nichlos and Brown stores wereseen to follow and the company was listed on the stock market. The department store was seen to expand rapidly andwas bought by private consortium in 2003. Debenhams is seen to have top four markets share in men’s wear,women’s wear and an estimate of ten shares in children’s wear. Further, it is a pioneer in the market of premiumhealth and beauty. Today, Debenhams is available in almost 70 countries is considered to be the eleventh biggest UKonline retailer on the basis of the traffic volume. The organization is looking forward to extend their business and looking out for ways that can enhance their revenue. But, Debenhams is a department store that sells mainly home ware and clothing. They should look into opening a fooddivision of their shop in order to boost profits. I would suggest that Debenhams creates a food department, whichshould hopefully ensure they remain competitive in the same way that it helped M&S. The following is a suggestion onhow Debenhams could conduct their market research if they planned to open a food division in their departmentstores.First of all, Debenhams should employ primary research methods. The primary market research can prove out to bean important method for gathering information regarding the service idea and the views of the customers (Glass, G. V.(1976). The organization will get the perspectives from the customers and can easily determine the demand of theproducts and the customers. The organization should carry out focus groups with participants that reflect diversesections of society. Although it is expensive to carry out a focus group, as it involves having to give participants afinancial incentive to attend, focus groups are very useful in that they provide rich data: they reveal unexpected needsand suggestions by potential customers that the researcher may not have thought of. The focus groups can easilyhelp in obtaining the detailed information regarding the group and personal feeling, their opinions and perceptions.The focus group also helps in saving time and money as compared to the interviews on individual basis that are beingconducted. The focus group will be beneficial in providing a broader range of information from all the participants(Kitzinger, J., 1994). Furthermore, Debenhams should design a questionnaire for their current clients. The questionnaire is practical andhelps in accumulating a large amount of information from a larger number of people in a very short span of time. Thewhole process is highly cost effective. This method has a limited affect to the reliability and validity. Furthermore, theresults are quantified easily using the software software package or by the researcher. This method will allow them toobtain relevant and current data which will help with planning the development and marketing strategies for the fooddivision.The following questions should be asked in the department stores by sensitive and polite interviewers who wouldensure that all of the participants give their consent prior to completing the questionnaire.1

Questionnaire1.1. How often do you shop at Debenhams?a.Once a weekb.Once a monthc.Once every 3 monthsd.Occasionally2.2. Would you be interested in buying your groceries at Debenhams?a.YESb.NO3.3. What type of food products would you like to buy at Debenhams?a.Everyday groceriesb.Healthy food for busy peoplec.Specialities from around the worldd.Other (please specifye.__________________________________4.4. How much would you be ready to spend on weekly groceries in Debenhams?a.Under 50 poundsb.50-70c.70-100d.Over 1001.5. Would you be willing to spend more money for...a.YESb.NOEthical concerns with primary research Other ethical issues Debenhams would need to consider are anonymity, objectivity in their interpretation of data, andsensitivity in which groups they target. The people who would be studying the research and are involved with it mustbe taken prior permission. Nothing that would cause emotional or physical harm to the subjects would be practiced.The sensitivity or the difficulty of the questions would be controlled. The research must be fair and will considerpersonal biases and personal opinions.Secondary research Apart from the questionnaire, Debenhams should invest some time into conducting secondary research. They shouldanalyse the groceries market by looking at case studies, and financial reports published by leading supermarkets.Additionally, they should observe CCTV footage collected by market research companies that analyse consumerbehaviour. The organization can also look out in the successful organizations and their successful stories. Variouscases and findings will assist the organization to look into the matter. The organization can look into company website,marketing research reports, magazine articles and other sources. The organization can gather information fromsources that are external to the marketer and can easily access material from the market research carried out bysome other organization and from old sales report. The organization can also look into the accounting records of thecompanies so as to look at their growth after expansion (Stewart, D. W., & Kamins, M. A., 1993). 2

To conclude, Debenhams needs to conduct primary and secondary research methods before they plan the launch oftheir food division. This way they will have all the necessary information which will inform their decisions. The primaryand secondary research methods will help in assisting towards the gaining the market information and perspectivefrom the customers. And – they will be able to choose the correct segment of the market share, decide on the range ofproducts, and ensure the new venture will yield a return and be profitable. CASE STUDY 2SWOT analysis of FacebookFacebook’s strength as a marketing platform is primarily its integration with other applications and websites:everything users want to post can easily be shared onto this social networking platform, including advertisements ofproducts they have purchased and liked. They can also ‘like’ products, which will show up on their friends’ pages,which is a personalised way for products to be seen by potential new customers. The social networking site has morethan a billion monthly users who are highly active. The organization further understands the need and behaviour of itsusers and comes up with new and creative ideas to engage them. Furthermore, the social networking site enjoysexcellent users’ experience (Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C., 2007). Facebook’s weaknesses are its attitude towards privacy, its weak protection of users’ data, and the fact that too manyadverts have saturated it. There is only one source of revenue for Facebook that is the advertisement. Users havecomplained that their pages have been used for market research without their consent, there have been stories aboutFacebook making users appear to have ‘liked’ a product when in fact they haven’t (e.g. a vegan supposedly ‘liked’McDonalds, which appeared on her friends’ feeds and made them ask her if she was eating meat again!), and thereare now so many adverts on there that its users are less likely to pay them any attention. Further, the socialnetworking site has a weak CTR of advertisements and also lacks the website customization. Most of the users ofFacebook have complained of spending a considerable amount of time on the website. These users want the socialmedia website to reflect their personalities. However, they are unable to customize the website as per the needs of theusers and a uniform template is forced for all their users. As compared to the Facebook, the Google+ is seen to allowfor much more personalization of the social network account (Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S., & Passerini, K., 2007).Facebook’s main opportunity, which still attracts many advertisers, is that the sale of smartphones is constantly on theincrease, meaning users are constantly plugged in to the site via these small, portable computer screens. Constantexposure attracts marketing revenue, so Facebook has benefitted from this increase in smartphone sales that isexternal to itself. Furthermore, the website relies heavily on the advertising as one of the major source of income, withover 1 billion active monthly users; the website is seen to exploit other opportunities for attracting the money. Thewebsite is in a strong position to open a Facebook marketplace, in case it is successful, the Facebook would be ableto bring more revenues as compared to advertising which will boost the future prospects and growth of the company(Stumpel, M., 2013). Another area that is beyond Facebook’s direct control, but that affects is negatively, is related to technologicaladvances that enable users to block ads. This threat means users can use the free social networking platform withoutbeing exposed to those who pay for it to exist, i.e. advertisers. The model of Facebook has been threatened due togrowing adblocks as the users are not able to see the advertisements and unintentionally click on them. Furthermore, the identity thefts are very common due to which Facebook is facing bad reputation due to its inability ofprotecting the private information for its users. 3

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