Market Research
1. Lets say you have developed a new, all natural granola style cereal. You want to see the reaction of a range of people to the product, so you dedde to set up focus grots to sample the cereal. In one to two pages (singlespaced), describe how you would carry out a focus group review of the cereal.
a How many people would be included in the focus group?
b. How would they be selected?
c. How would the taste test be carried out? Design a smart taste test eg., have attendees sample a total of three cereals, only one of which Is your own brand.
d. What questions would you ask of the focus group rnerrters after they have sampled the
e. How would you use the information you gathered through the focus group exercise to guide you in moving the product forward (or killing the product. if appropriate)?
2. Lets say you work In an airline that wants to determine how satisfied flyers are with the airlines overall service. You decide to obtain feedback on passenger satisfaction by distributing a 5-8 question questionnaire topassengers.
a. Design the questionnaire. It should fit on one page. Provide a short rationale for the study, brief instructions, and 5-8 questions. Your questionnaire should look very dose to the questionnaire that wouldactually be distributed.
b. Who would you target to respond to the questionnaire?
c. How would you distribute and collect the filled out questionnaire?
d. What kind of information would you derive from the distributed questionnaire?
e. How could you use the information?

In the wake of this globalization era, firms are competing for market share across the world of various dimensions. Open economies have significantly reduced monopoly and consumers are exposed to variety of goods and services. It is important to give an analysis of this text in respect of the increasing competition that has put all the producers on toes. One of the critical departments in various companies now is market. There has been a major transition from the idea of random and mass production without the stress of overstocking. In the contemporary world, marketing has become a critical aspect of business success (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 145). Various organizations have reconstructed the marketing management to accommodate the socio-economic changes that are attributed to the issue of globalization.
Marketing requires thorough planning that makes it sound more of scientific. In other words, the surveys presented in this case expose an important aspect of marketing referred to as research. This is a scientific process that involves exploration, survey and data collection of the various behaviors of a given target market. It forms the basis of sound market strategies and explains the outcome of a firms market command after the inception of a given product or service. It is important to note that market research is done even for an existing product so as to rejuvenate its sales and expand the market horizon. This process is therefore wide in scope as it captures various factors. Taking the case of a new product in market, it would require sound analytical skills and research methods to achieve the goals of the survey. As Lamb (154) puts it, various marketing concepts must conform to the research findings so that the set target can be gauged on feasibility assessment.
Several firms have always failed to attain their set goals in terms sales and revenue due to inaccurate market research findings. In this case the question would be; what went wrong. To get an answer for this problem the management needs to undertake a critical research methods procedure used since this reflects some errors. Various factors need to be captured for the findings to remain valid, reliable and feasible (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 147). The social factors dictate the better part of consumers consideration when purchasing products or seeking services. It is therefore important to capture the social class, cultural affiliations and general beliefs that dictate the behavior a given group of people. This would be important since it gives hint on the expected reaction towards a given product or changes to an existing one. Economic empowerment is a critical aspect of the living standard measures and need to take care of by any market research. Distribution of income will significantly contribute to consumption behavior and hence need to underline it during research survey. Political factors influence behavior and can substantially sway people towards or against a given product. This means that an exhaustive investigative market research must include such variables.
Every company understands that effective market research helps to determine the need of services, market gaps and even store locations that are desirable. The first step in undertaking market research is to define the problem and set objectives as these will act as the guide for other procedures. Where most firms have failed is data collection methods. Owing to several circumstances under which data is carried out and the method used, it is common to end up with a non-representative finding that backfires when put into practice. In most cases firms uses questionnaires to capture data on the characteristics of a given market base. Some critical issues that are omitted during this excise significantly compromises the decision made by the managers. Questions structures of the questionnaires contribute significantly on the overall outcome and reliability of the data.
The flow should be from simpler to more sensitive questions to minimize cases of interviewer effect. Gender divide should equally be considered since products and services are different across this aspect. In the event that some demographic aspects like tools and population dispersion is not taken into consideration then the research is likely to yield inaccurate results. Market research has taken another dimension with the increasing adoption of e-commerce where questionnaires are sent online and after filling immediate feedback is obtained for analysis (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 146). However, the sample population need to be representative of the target market as this has always yielded skewed results that cannot be converted to more sales if used as the blueprint to better marketing strategy.
It is worth to note that there are some people who are loyal to some brands and would simply give haphazard responses to the interviewer or questionnaires. In this case, it would be advisable to use open ended questions in some sections to exhaust the views of the respondent which may explain a given observation on a specific population. Research design is an important aspect of market research and need to be given serious weight by the investigators (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 149). There are cases where probability sampling method would be achievable while in some cases random sampling depending on the nature of the product and population dispersion in terms of socio-political and economic background.
Primary data is preferable for a new product since the consumer behavior may not have been established towards it. It is equally more current; less distorted and represents the situation as it is on the ground. In the contemporary business society, a lot of secondary information can be uncovered from the online data while focus group almost substitute sample population when carrying out market research (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 148). Market trend articles form basic source of literature review that can be used in forecasting the future consumption behavior on a particular product. Moreover, they equip the organizations with some of the techniques to employ in some research sections.
The role of market research goes beyond mere market share but provides an avenue of interacting with prospective customers and creating a lasting relationship. This may help in boosting the public relations of the firm and get a boost in terms of company image. Exploration of target market through research is the most important pre-requisite for market segmentation (Lamb, Charles, Hair, and McDaniel 151). Diverse market characteristics are responsible for varied reactions of people towards product nature and the prevailing socio-political and economic climate. It is therefore fundamental that even during the research; methods of collecting data may be varied to suit each section of the overall population. For instance, differentiated products are meant for different people and this calls for different approaches to interviewing them or collecting data.
There are various research firms that are credible and non-partisan in their services and it is important for firms to assign them for this duty since they have necessary tools and professionalism.

Work cited
Lamb, Charles W, Joseph F. Hair, and Carl D. McDaniel. Mktg 7. Mason, Ohio: South-Western, 2014. Print.