1.1 Introduction
Market survey reporting helps businesses identify consumer needs and wants so a company can develop and promote products more successfully. Such research also provides the information upon which important advertising and marketing decisions are based. Market survey is a pivotal part of the marketing process. By referring to studies of prospective buyers’ needs, wants, and tastes, providers of goods and services can tailor their marketing programs. The results of marketing studies suggest to sellers not only what they should sell or provide but also where to offer particular goods and services, how to advertise them, and how to set prices.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Marketing concentrates primarily on the buyers, or consumers. After determining the customers’ needs and desires, marketers develop strategies that are designed to educate customers about a product’s most important features, persuade them to buy it, and then to enhance their satisfaction with the purchase. Where marketing once stopped with the sale, today businesses believe that it is more profitable to sell to existing customers than to new ones. As a result, marketing now also involves finding ways to turn one-time purchasers into lifelong customers. Marketing includes planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the decision-making regarding product lines, pricing, promotion, and servicing. In most of these areas marketing has overall authority; in others, as in product-line development, its function is primarily advisory. In addition, the marketing department of a business firm is responsible for the physical distribution of the products, determining the channels of distribution that will be used, and supervising the profitable flow of goods from the factory or warehouse.
The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, the inefficiency and lack of effectiveness in focus group and individual market research or survey methods by developing a windows based application that uses qualitative (also called subjective or judgmental) survey techniques to report consumers behavior or reaction towards particular product(s) and/or service(s) of company over a reasonable period of time.
There are two types of research: qualitative and quantitative. To gain a general impression of the market, consumers, or the product, companies generally start with qualitative research. This approach asks open-ended rather than yes or no questions in order to enable people to explain their thoughts, feelings, or beliefs in detail. One of the most common qualitative research techniques is the focus group in which a moderator leads a discussion among a small group of consumers who are typical of the target market. The discussion usually involves a particular product, service, or marketing situation. Focus groups can yield insights into consumer perceptions and attitudes, but the findings cannot be applied to the whole market, because the sample size is too small. Focus group results, then, are suggestive rather than definitive.
The insights generated by a focus group are often explored further through quantitative research, which provides reliable, hard statistics. This type of research uses closed-ended questions, enabling the researcher to determine the exact percentage of people who answered yes or no to a question or who selected answer a, b, c, or d on a questionnaire. One of the most common quantitative research techniques is the survey in which researchers sample the opinions of a large group of people. If the sample group is large enough and is representative of a particular group, such as executives who use cell phones, statisticians consider the findings statistically valid, which means that if all consumers in that particular category could be surveyed, the findings would still be the same. This means that quantitative findings are conclusive in a way that qualitative findings cannot be.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Investigation reveals the problems of the existing Market Survey Reporting System which entails that, the existing system is inefficiency and lack of effectiveness in focus group and individual market research or survey methods by developing a windows based application that uses qualitative (also called subjective or judgmental) survey techniques to report consumers behavior or reaction towards particular product(s) and/or service(s) of company over a reasonable period of time.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement a Market Survey Reporting System that will report and evaluate market survey to enhance company status in a competitive marketing. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:
- Deliver quality goods required by the customer the target of achieving maximum customer satisfaction at minimum possible cost.
- Provide important information to identify and analyze the market size, consumers behaviour and periodic sales evaluation.
- Ensure maximum utilization of any available resources in a production process to meet-up with consumers’ needs and specifications.
- Eliminate the bottleneck at all stages of production and to solve problems related to market research deficiency.
1.5 Significance of Study
The project reports consumers’ reactions and how their responses will affect production and sales of the company’s products. Basically, it is helpful for the organization to improve the quality of its relationship management with their customers. This software can organize a comprehensive survey profile of respective products and can use customer information collected into database for effective decision-making. Other benefits of the application include:
- Quality and efficiency in service delivery
- Decision support for effective managerial functions
- Enterprise agility
- Customer attention
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of Market Survey Reporting System which will allow sales and marketing managers, finance managers and general managers to work cooperatively on their components of the forecasting, planning and review process, within a common, shared but secure systems environment.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
- Internet: The Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world.
- Business: A business is defined as an organization or enterprising entity engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities.
- Virtual Store: The virtual store is an online store that displays merchandise and an order form.
- Marketing: Marketing is the process of teaching consumers why they should choose your product or service over those of your competitors, and is a form of persuasive communication.
- Promotion Channels: In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue.
- Customer Relation: Customer relations describe the ways that a company will engage with its customers to improve the customer experience.
