You are the lead marketing researcher or a marketing research consultant for HP.

Question

You are the lead marketing researcher or a marketing research consultant for HP. To become familiar with the situation at HP, review the information on pages 570 through 574. Then do the following:

1.  Discuss and compare the various survey methods for conducting the HP survey (see pages 570 - 574).

2. The HP survey was administered by posting it on a Web site and sending e-mail invitations to respondents. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of this method. Do you think this was the most effective method? If yes, provide conclusive support for this being the most effective method. If no, make a recommendation and provide support for another method.

3. Is causal research necessary to determine consumer purchasing habits of personal computers? If yes, which experimental designs would you recommend and why? If not, describe a scenario in which it would be. Can the latter experimental design be implemented in social media? Why or why not?

Running Case with Real Data Case 1.1 Hewlett-Packard (HP) Using Marketing Research to Gain a Competitive Edge The Hewett-Packard Company (HP) is known worldwide for its printers, personal computers, and related services. With Headquarters in Palo Alto, California, it has a global presence in the fields of computing, printing, and digital imaging. It markets products such as printers, cameras, and ink cartridges to households and small businesses. It also provides software and services (www.hp.com). The company once catered primarily to engineering and medical markets but spun off that line of business as Agilent Technologies in 1999. Founded by Stanford graduates William Hewlett and David Packard in Palo Alto in 1934, Hewlett and Packard started HP with an investment of $538. The company incorporated 15 years later and went public in 1957. Not until the 1960s and 1970s did HP recognize the market for information technology products. As a consequence of meeting this need, HP introduced the computer industry to Silicon Valley. At the time, products from Silicon Valley were limited to calculators, converters, and semiconverters. In the 1980s, HP began to develop industrial laser printers for desktops and prospered. In the 1990s, HP expanded its computer-product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business customers, to consumers. Later in the decade, HP launched hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; the store was rebranded "HP Home & Home Office Store" in 2005. HP also grew through acquisitions, buying Apollo Computer in 1989, Convex Computer in 1995, and Compaq in 2002. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees) and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy, HP became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. HP posted $91.7 billion in annual revenue in 2006 compared to $91.4 billion for IBM, making it the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales. In October 2006, HP gained the number one ranking in worldwide personal computer shipments, surpassing rival Dell. The gap between HP and Dell widened substantially at the end of 2006, with HP taking a near 3.5 percent market share lead. In 2007 the revenue was $104 billion, making HP the first IT company in history to report revenues exceeding $100 billion. HP posted $114.6 billion in annual revenue in 2009 and $127.16 billion in 2010, continuing its growth trajectory SPSS Data File Excel Data File As of 2011, HP is a global technology company. It generates net revenue and earns its profits from the sale of products, technologies, solutions, and services to consumers, businesses, and governments. HP's portfolio includes personal computers, handheld computing devices, home and business imaging and printing devices, publishing systems, storage and servers, a wide array of information technology services, and software solutions. HP has a dynamic, powerful team of 150,000 employees with capabilities in 170 countries doing business in more than 40 currencies and more than 10 languages. According to Computer Industry Almanac Inc., in 2005, in the first 30 years of the PC industry worldwide-from 1975 to 2004-cumulative PC sales have surpassed 1.4 billion units, reaching nearly 130 million units in 1990, and more than 1.6 billion units in 2005. As seen from Table 1, the leading PC companies have changed considerably in the last 20 years. Apple and IBM were the worldwide leaders in PC unit sales until the early 1990s. Since 1994, Compaq, Dell, or HP has been the leader in PC unit sales. Marketing Issue and Marketing Research

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

1. For any survey to be conducted, there are 2 aspects to it. It can be broadly classified into Primary and Secondary Research.

Secondary research is simply the act of seeking out existing research and data. Secondary data could be US Census data, Twitter comments, journals, and much more. The best thing about secondary research is that is it often frees and it usually can be done quickly. Your job as a secondary researcher is to find existing data that can be applied to your specific project. It is possible that you might not be able to find secondary data that is suitable for your research needs. If that’s the case, you’ll need to conduct your own primary research.

In this scenario of HP Survey, or Research, we are focusing on Primary Research only.

Primary Research can be done by the following ways:

1. Surveys:

Surveys are perhaps the most widely known and utilized method when it comes to market research. Surveys come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from that little “feedback card” on the table at your favorite restaurant to those never-ending web surveys that make you want to punch your computer.

Surveys make a lot of sense when the following conditions are true:

-You want to measure something objectively (or quantitatively).

-You have something specific to measure. In other words, you are beyond the exploratory portion of your research and you now want to test more specific questions.

-You have a relatively large sample to query.

-You have the resources (time and money) to conduct a survey.

2. Focus Groups : Focus groups involve getting a group of people together in a room (usually physically, although technology is making virtual, or online focus groups more feasible). These people fit a target demographic (e.g. “mothers under 40 with an income over $50k”, “college males who play 8 or more hours of video games a week”, etc.) depending on the product or service in question. Participants are almost always compensated in some way, whether it be a money, coupons, free products, etc. A moderator will guide the discussion, with a goal of getting participants to discuss the topic among themselves, bouncing thoughts off of one another in a natural group setting. Professional focus group rooms will have a one-way mirror on one wall, with a team of observers on the other side. The company or group that commissioned the study can sit-in on the meeting, along with members of the research team who can take notes without disrupting the participants.

Focus groups are excellent for exploratory, qualitative research. In the “new mouse trap” example, a focus group can reveal all sorts of important mouse trap attributes that might not have been considered otherwise. Focus groups are great tools to use prior to a survey, because it will inform your survey questions to be more specific and targeted. Focus groups can also be beneficial after a survey, as a way to dive very deep into a topic that came up in the survey

3. Interviews:

Like focus groups, individual interviews are a qualitative market research method. To simplify things, think of individual interviews as focus groups with only one participant and one moderator (interviewer). There is a wide spectrum of interviewing formats, depending on the goal of the interview. Interviews can be free flowing conversations that are loosely constrained to a general topic of interest, or they might be highly structured, with very specific questions and/or activities (e.g. projective techniques such as word association, fill in the blank, etc.) for the subject.

Like focus groups, interviews are useful for exploratory research. Use this market research method when you are interested in digging into a specific issue very deeply, searching for customer problems, understanding psychological motivations and underlying perceptions, etc.

4. Experiments and Field Trials : Experiments and field trials involve scientific testing, where specific variables and hypotheses can be tested. These tests can be conducted in controlled environments or out in the field (natural settings). This form of market research is always quantitative in nature.

5. Observation: Observational research can come in a different shapes and sizes. In general, there are two categories: strict observation with no interaction with the subject at all, or observation with some level of intervention/interaction between the researcher and subject. The greatest benefit of this technique is that researchers can measure actual behavior, as opposed to user-reported behavior. That’s a big deal, because people will often report one thing on a survey, but behaves in another way when the rubber hits the road. Observational research is a direct reflection of “real life,” so these insights are often very reliable and useful.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse Y
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.