James Cook University Marketing Research Learning Challenges Journal

This reflective journal details a student's experience with marketing research challenges encountered while researching the target market for Pogoro, an e-bike sharing service in Singapore. The assignment identifies four key challenges: the time-consuming process of creating an effective questionnaire, limited respondent diversity, lack of team member cooperation, and financial constraints. The journal then focuses on the challenges of marketing research and lack of team cooperation, analyzing the importance of market research for new ventures and the impact of teamwork on marketing success. The author reflects on their performance in addressing these challenges, self-assessing their skills in marketing research, communication, and conflict management. The journal concludes with a discussion of how these experiences have shaped the student's professional development, emphasizing the need for improved communication, conflict management, and thorough preliminary market research to enhance future performance.

Running head: LEARNING CHALLENGES
Learning Challenges
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...........................................................................................................................2
Challenges encountered in marketing research task and team activities:..............................2
Took time to come up with good questionnaire:....................................................................2
Marketing research:................................................................................................................3
Lack of cooperation from a member:.....................................................................................3
Lack of finance:......................................................................................................................3
Reflection on two challenges experienced:................................................................................4
Lack of cooperation from team member:...............................................................................5
Self assessment of performance in these two challenges:..........................................................5
Ways to improve performance for the future:............................................................................6
Marketing research challenge:...............................................................................................6
Communication and conflict management:...........................................................................7
Role of the research experience in making me more informed professional researcher:..........7
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................8
References:.................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
Reflective journals enable people to reflect on their learning during research activities
and how they would the learning in future. The paper is a reflective journal in which I have
reflected on the four challenges I encountered during executing research on target market for
an arbitrary product Pogoro, an e-bike sharing service in Singapore. I have identified four
challenges among which I have recognised two challenges from which I gained a lot of
experiences. I can reflect that the two challenges would contribute towards making me a
successful marketing professional.
Challenges encountered in marketing research task and team activities:
I can identify and describe the following four challenges which I encountered while
participating the marketing research task and team activities:
Took time to come up with good questionnaire:
The first challenge my team mates and me encountered while conducting the research
on the target market of Porogo, the electrical bike (e-bike) sharing venture in Singapore is
that it took a long time to come up with a questionnaire. There were several reasons for the
challenge. Our aim was to ask minimum questions so as to take minimum time of the
respondents but to obtain answers to sufficient questions to carry on with the research. This
required us to spend a lot of time doing researches to come up with effective questions. The
second factor was that the topic of electric bike sharing is a very new concept in Singapore
and the people have limited knowledge about the product (Bright, Akomea & Owusu-Ansah,
2017). It was evident by the graph which showed that about 68 percent people in Singapore
use public transport, followed by 27 percent and 21 percent people who use taxi and car
respectively, all of which cause environmental pollution. Thus, the most of the people are not
concerned about environment but about their comforts. We approached many people for the

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survey but most of them did not show any interest towards Pogoro. This lack of interested
people to take the survey on the topic of e-bike sharing led to elongation of background study
which in turn prolonged the period which we took to form the questionnaire (Padon & Rimal,
2017).
Marketing research:
The biggest challenge my team members and me faced while conducting the
interviews of the respondents’ views on e-bike sharing is that the number of respondents who
expressed interest to take the interview was very limited. They were mostly students of the
James Cook University and staff members working over there. This lack of diversity in the
attributes of the respondents led the survey to have very limited expanse. For example, had
the respondents been employee professionals engaged in diverse professions, the answers
regarding the aspects like transport modes of choice would have been diverse as well. This
would have given the survey a broader primary source to gain knowledge regarding the
survey (Karunarathne & Jing, 2017).
Lack of cooperation from a member:
An internal challenge which our team faced while conducting the market research to
recognise the target customer profile of Pogoro was lack of cooperation from a team member.
There were ego clashes and conflicts between two of the team members which led to one of
the members absent on the days of conducting the surveys. This put pressure on the other
members as each of them had to interview more number of people to be able to gain
maximum number of responses for the research. It also put pressure on them to compile the
feedbacks and analyse them statistically (Cortez & Johnston, 2017).

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Lack of finance:
The scarcity of finance was one of the challenges we faced while conducting the
market research on Pogoro. The concept of e-bike sharing was new and there were not
enough reading materials available in the university library. That required us to buy articles
and books both from stores and online. That required lot money which we did not have. This
lack of financial resources led us to conduct the research on the basis of the limited reading
materials which we could obtain (Hall, Foxon & Bolton, 2017).
Reflection on two challenges experienced:
The two challenges which helped me to gain a lot of experience were the marketing
research challenge and the lack of cooperation from a member.
Marketing research challenge:
The aim of the marketing research was to recognise a target market in Singapore to
launch Pogoro, e-bike sharing system. I can point out that according to the segmentation,
targeting and positioning (STP) theory of marketing management; the companies should
first identify the relevant customer segments tell whom they can offer their products to earn
revenue. The companies should consider the preference of recognised segments of customers
to form their marketing mix to earn high profits. Therefore, these two theories required us to
study the consumer behaviour to recognise the target customer to launch Pogoro. We faced
challenge in convincing people to give us the interview. I could analyse that the lack of
awareness about new products like e-bike sharing services among the customers hinder
successful launching of such products (Cramton, 2017). This failure to launch products in the
market and earn profits causes entrepreneurial ventures to face severe loses and often leads to
the close down of business. Thus, I could reflect from the analysis of this experience that

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conducting market research is very important for new firms to identify the appropriate target
customers before launching their products in the market.
Lack of cooperation from team member:
The second challenge which I experienced and learnt from was lack of cooperation in
the team. I can reflect that the marketing teams in organisations play significant role in
obtaining market information through various ways like surveys and interviews. The
teamwork in the marketing teams contributes towards obtaining accurate market information
which in turn helps the apex management to form business strategies. This information form
the base to conduct PEST analysis and SWOT analysis by companies to study the market and
the internal strengths and weaknesses before launching new products (Bataineh & Zecca,
2017). Lack of cooperation between the members of the marketing department would hinder
in acquisition of vast reserve of knowledge on which the companies can base their decisions
strongly. I can also reflect form my experience that cooperation and coordination among team
members boosts motivation which ultimately translates into high team performance. Thus, I
can analyse from these concepts and theories and point out that the lack of cooperation in our
team did impact the motivation level and the team performance in conducting market
research. I can opine that I learnt from this experience that cooperation within team members
plays very important role in high performances of professional groups like departments
(Caselli & Gatti, 2017).
Self assessment of performance in these two challenges:
I can opine upon self assessment of my performance in these two challenging
situations that I performed averagely and managed to deal with these two challenges. I
managed the first challenge of conducting marketing research very efficiently and got
positive feedback from my professors and team members. I can recall that I kept on trying to

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speak to people to gain information on their transport habits to recognise target customer base
for Pogoro. I motivated the other team members when they felt discouraged after many
people did not give their consent to take the survey (Pansiri & Yalala, 2017).
I can reflect upon self assessment regarding my performance in motivating the team
members and managing the pressure when one of the team members did not turn up was
average. The uninformed absence of the team member put a lot of pressure on the existing
members to interview a large number of people to gain data on their transport preferences. I
motivated my team members and worked for longer hours to gather information for the
research. I however faced difficulty in compiling the vast amount of data which had to be
analysed. Upon analysis of my performance and feedbacks from the team members I realised
that I needed to improve my communication and conflict management skills (Paul,
Parthasarathy & Gupta, 2017).
Ways to improve performance for the future:
The following are the ways in which I would improve the performance in handling the
two challenging situation if confronted with them in the future:
Marketing research challenge:
I would improve my marketing research skills to gain deal marketing research
skills more efficiently. I have learnt that marketing research involved a detailed study of the
market conditions to be able to make an effective questionnaire which can help to obtain
maximum information about the target customer segment. For example, the target customer
segments for Pogoro e-bike sharing services would be working people and students who
require commuting daily. I have learnt that to improve the quality of marketing research, I
should first study the macroeconomic conditions like social preferences for eco-friendly
transportation in Singapore and then set the questions according (Finne et al., 2017). Thus, in

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future I would conduct a thorough preliminary research of the market before launching
marketing research.
Communication and conflict management:
I would enhance my communication and conflict management skills to be able to deal
with the conflict among team members and subsequent absence of one member more
efficiently. I would read books on communication and conflict management. I would also
attend seminars to conflict management to learn ways t mediate between conflicting team
members and to lead the team towards achievement of the goals. This would also enhance my
leadership skills that would help me manage marketing teams more efficiently. I would also
read books on cultures to enhance my cultural intelligence. I can reflect that upon enhancing
my communication and conflict management skills I would even be able to lead teams
dealing with new business concepts like Pogoro (Gummerus et al., 2017).
Role of the research experience in making me more informed professional researcher:
I can reflect that the experiences of facing these two challenges namely, marketing
research and team management challenges have made me a more informed professional
researcher. I have gained knowledge about the challenges which marketing managers can
encounter while conducting market researches like lack of cooperation among a few team
members and lack of interest shown by the customers during surveys. I would motivate my
juniors to interview as many people possible to gain marketing information especially for
new products like Pogoro. I would motivate them to be confident and maintain smooth
communication amongst themselves. This would help me to reduce chances of conflict with
the team (Sheth & Sheth, 2017). Thus, I can reflect that the research experience have
contributed in making me a more informed professional researcher.

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Conclusion:
I can conclude upon reflecting upon the experience I have gained during conducting
the marketing research would contribute towards making me a more capable professional.
These challenges would help me develop the skills required to handle similar situations like
conflict within team in the future more effectively. I can also opine that after recognising
these challenging situations one must take steps like taking trainings to improve their
professional challenge management capacities.

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References:
Bataineh, A., & Zecca, F. (2017). Challenges and Potential of Future Agricultural
Development in Jordan: Role of Education and Entrepreneurship. Academic Journal
of Interdisciplinary Studies, 5(3 S1), 11.
Bright, A., Akomea, S. Y., & Owusu-Ansah, W. (2017). Assessment of the Production,
Technology and Marketing Challenges Facing Starch Producing Companies in
Ghana. Open Journal of Business and Management, 5(03), 532.
Caselli, S., & Gatti, S. (Eds.). (2017). Structured Finance: Techniques, Products and Market.
Springer.
Cortez, R. M., & Johnston, W. J. (2017). The future of B2B marketing theory: A historical
and prospective analysis. Industrial Marketing Management, 66, 90-102.
Cramton, P. (2017). Electricity market design. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 33(4),
589-612.
Finne, Å., Finne, Å., Grönroos, C., & Grönroos, C. (2017). Communication-in-use: customer-
integrated marketing communication. European Journal of Marketing, 51(3), 445-
463.
Gummerus, J., Gummerus, J., von Koskull, C., von Koskull, C., Kowalkowski, C., &
Kowalkowski, C. (2017). Guest editorial: relationship marketing–past, present and
future. Journal of Services Marketing, 31(1), 1-5.
Hall, S., Foxon, T. J., & Bolton, R. (2017). Investing in low-carbon transitions: energy
finance as an adaptive market. Climate Policy, 17(3), 280-298.

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Karunarathne, E. P., & Jing, Z. (2017). Effect of call-clubs to institute local network effects
in mobile telecommunication and its′ implications on brand loyalty. Management &
Marketing, 12(1), 61-77.
Padon, A., & Rimal, R. N. (2017). Towards a global policy against alcohol marketing to
youth: Challenges and recommendations for research. Journal of public health
research, 6(2).
Pansiri, J., & Yalala, A. T. (2017). The Evolution of Entrepreneurship and Small-to-Medium
Business Development in Botswana. Botswana Journal of Business, 10(1), 53-82.
Paul, J., Parthasarathy, S., & Gupta, P. (2017). Exporting challenges of SMEs: A review and
future research agenda. Journal of World Business.
Sheth, J., & Sheth, J. (2017). Revitalizing relationship marketing. Journal of Services
Marketing, 31(1), 6-10.
Vernuccio, M., & Ceccotti, F. (2015). Strategic and organisational challenges in the
integrated marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision. European
Management Journal, 33(6), 438-449.