Research Project

Research Proposal Investigating the challenges and opportunities of Ben Trounce Candy and suggesting applicable strategies for future development of Dong A Company-owner of Ben Tree brand August 2012 1. Introduction This research is conducted in a short time, so obviously it will have limitations. The research actually focus on evaluating, collecting data and information about how prices of coconut influence on Ben Tree Coconut Candy and also on Ben Tree people. Besides, the elements such as source of materials, quality of coconuts, quantity will also be considered.The researcher is particularly interested in how company can transfer challenges to opportunities. In business, company needs to maximize profit, but it also must make sure the development can be maintained sustainable. Using analysis techniques the researcher wants to point out what company needs to do and what strategies can help company. The researcher chose to study this topic because he is aware of the importance of s ustainable development when Ben Tree province wants to maintain and develop this traditional products. 1. 1 Research background 0 General information a bout product/service linked to RESEARCH According to theOfficial Site of Ben Tree province (2012), it currently has over one hundred coconut candy enterprises, making up thirty percent of local enterprises. Altogether, they churn out (produce much more and not focus on quality) about 1 5,000 tons of products a year and dominate the local market compared to other provinces. Research Proposal-prepared by DON page 10 0 General Introduction about Market of designated products/service In domestic market, coconut candy of Ben Tree is sold in provinces and cities all over the country and it is also exported to other countries includes Asian countries, China, Australia,Europe and North America. 0 Market of the designated organization in research Ben Tree Coconut Candy is a well-known brand which is a specialty of Ben Tree. This brand was nam ed by DONG A General Production and Trading Company. The company, established in 1980, has gone through decades of development to become one of the leaders in the business of coconut candy. Starting from a staff of only 50 employees, Dong A now has over 1000 people. Ben Tree Coconut Candy is distributed to over 200 retail outlets in Vietnam and many export markets. General information about the challenges that the market and organization are acing Ben Tree is currently facing with a wave of cutting coconut. This threatens to a lot of coconut manufactures. However, there is not much study to evaluate effects of these problems. So, studying on this research is quite useful and important. It will provide fundamental assessment of current situation in Ben Tree province, some theories related to strategy for Dong A Company can apply, awareness of people in Ho Chi Mini city to assess the brand name of Ben Tree Coconut Candy. 1. Statement of problem Ben Tree, currently, has to deal with so me knotty problems. The price of dry coconut, n Ben Tree province is now VEND 12,000 – 14,000 a dozen, meaning a coconut is worth only VEND 1,200. It is only 10 per cent of the price last year and early this year, each dozen of coconuts have lost VEND 120,000 – 125,000 (Saigon Time, 2012). This leads to a result that many palms is losing as farmers cut them down to grow other trees. If company does not consider carefully, it is Research Proposal-prepared by DON Page 1 1 easy to conclude that Ben Tree Coconut Candy will have a big advantage.This is not completely right. It might also be problem because business can be lack of material n near future or even the price of coconut will be high later on. Coconut trees are not like orange, mango or panama, it cannot Just be cut down and then planted for a short time. It will take from 7 to 8 years before providing coconut fruits. So, it is like to be a threat for business, as it might increase the cost of production where is a shortage of raw materials. The second point is the threat of copyright. Recently, Ben Tree Coconut Candy must compare with other products which breach the copyright of Ben Tree.A lot of fake products are named as Ben Tree Coconut Candy. This makes customers to be infused on quality of candy from Ben Tree. Moreover, the company is also lost revenue. The threat of substitute products is now increasing. There are a lot of international companies investing into Vietnam and they bring high quality candy with famous brand. Ben Tree Coconut Candy needs to ensure the quality will always be remained at high level. 1. 3 Research objectives 1. Investigating and evaluating how price of coconut in Ben Tree province at the present effect to the Dong A Company as well as Ben Tree Coconut Candy. . Evaluate factors which will effect to the source of materials of company in the present and future. . Define purpose of customer when buying coconut candy: teenager and adult, from this apply applicable strategies to attract more customers. Page 12 4. Conduct a survey in Ho Chi Mini City to evaluate the awareness of customer as well as evaluate the brand name of Ben Tree Coconut Candy in this market. 1. 4 Research questions The following are questions which are used to define and evaluate the effect of main factors to Dong A Company as well as its product – Ben Tree Coconut Candy. . How does price of coconuts effect to price of Ben Tree Coconut Candy? What should company do to remain the price of raw materials? . What do coconut farmers act with current situation in Ben Tree province? 3. What do competitors react when the sources of material change? How do compassionateness tong A company? 4. What is main purpose of customariness buying coconut candy? 5. How many percent do customers know Ben Tree Coconut Candy brand? How do they know? 6. What are main expectations of customer toward coconut candy? 1. 5 Research methodology 1. . 1 Research approach In this research, the res earcher considers the deductive approach to analysis data. The researcher uses existed theories which will be described in â€Å"intended literature† section in order to analyses the data. Page 13 1. 5. 2 Research strategies The research focuses much on using survey. The aim of a survey is to obtain information that can be analyses in order to extract patterns and make comparisons (Bell, 1999). Describe (1998) states that the use of a survey is a research strategy rather than a research method.The strategy can include methods such as 0 questionnaires, 0 interviews, 0 documents and 0 observation. These methods will be described detail in data collection method. Source: BP Professional Education, 2010, page 39 Page 14 1. 5. 3 Research design QUANTITATIVE DATA In this research, quantitative analysis of data will be strongly focused. This design can help the researcher to be easy to evaluate, compare and present results in tables, charts or diagrams. The questions in the question naire survey will be designed as quantitative questions so that the researcher can use quantitative analysis.There are three important techniques which can be applied in the analysis: 0 Personalization: there will be a measurement scale. For example, the answer of one question will be ranked an attribute between 1 and 5 with 1 for poor and 5 for good. 0 Measurement: For example, the respondents might be asked to assess the quality of Ben Tree Coconut Candy. 0 The collected data can be broken into parts to analysis. QUALITATIVE DATA However, to make the research more accurate and effective, qualitative research is also used. Qualitative analysis is the analysis of data in a non-numerical way (BP Professional Education, 2010).The qualitative analysis is based on information from interviews. It is an unlimited number of non-standard responses. O QUANTITATIVE / QUALITATIVE DATA page 15 The follow diagram shows a brief of how problems can be analyses: Qualitative analysis Identify proble m (from survey) Suggesting solutions & making decisions Quantitative Data collection methods There are many methods to collect data. Data can be collected in a variety of way, in different settings and from different sources (Seeker, 2000). However, there are two mains categories of data: primary and secondary.Primary data The researcher uses method to collect primary data through 0 interviews and 0 questionnaires Interviews As the limitation of time, the researcher cannot conduct many interviews. There are two objects of people: coconut farmers and owner of coconut shops 0 Group 1: For coconut farmers: 0 The researcher is going to interview about 5 people. 0 They are in Bin Dad District. The interview is prepared as fully structured. It means all five people are asking the same questions. 0 The wording of the questions and their order are set.Page 16 0 Responses from coconut farmers are recoded on a standardize schedule. 0 Before going to interviews, the researcher will prepare a l ist of questions. These questions are focused on the awareness of farmer about current coconut price, what they expect and what they would like to do with their coconut palms. Group 2: For owner of coconut shops: 0 The researcher is going to interview 4 owners: 2 owners of Than Long Coconut Candy shop and 2 owners of Ben Tree Coconut Candy shop in Chaw Than District, near Reach Mime Bridge. 0 The type of interview being used is semi-structured.Questions are prepared in advance, but depending on the situation of the conversation, the researcher can adopt the schedule from interviewee such as asking explanations, omit particular questions which seem inappropriate with interviewee. Questionnaires Questionnaires have two categories are self-administered and interviewer administered. However, as the limitation of time, the researcher uses interviewer administered. Following with that, the type of questionnaire being used is face to face questionnaire. 0 1 . Face to face questionnaire 0 T he researcher comes to meet respondents.During asking, the researcher can explain what respondent might confuse and might also obtain in-depth answers. This method makes the response rates to be obtained. It is easy for researcher can summaries the survey and evaluate results. 0 2. Sample size page 17 The researcher is going to survey the idea of 45 respondents who are of age from 16 to 45 in Ho Chi Mini City. The researcher comes to three main supper market: Maxima Congo Ho, Big C (Hang Van HTH Street) and Coop Mart – Unguent Kim. In each supper market, the researcher chooses 15 people to do the survey.Designing the questionnaire 0 There are two main parts in the questionnaire. They are the questions included and the overall appearance. The questionnaire includes 20 questions. 0 With the appearance, the researcher writes an introduction which shows information about the survey, the introduction points out that the research will not harm respondents such as personal informati on, ideas, and honor. Besides, the questionnaire also has a clear instruction. 0 Types of questions: There are main types of question being used in the questionnaires: 0 closed question, 0 list question, 0 category question and 0 open-ended question.Secondary data The researcher also uses second data which was collected by someone else for their own purpose or for general use. The main sub-group of secondary data being used in this research is documentary data. Documentary include: written materials and non-written materials. With written documentary data, there are sources which will be used: 0 Books: there re books related to research project such as: HON./HAND Business course books which are published by BP Learning Media Ltd. Research Proposal-prepared by DON page 18 0 Newspapers: for example SAA Goon Times. Journal and magazine articles: for example Donna Nan SAA Goon – Entrepreneur With Non-written sources of documentary data: 0 pictures; 0 television programmed, for ex ample, Ben Tree channel, VIVID, VT. 0 Source of second data from internet is important for researcher to conduct the study. Name Internet address Tool Tree http://territories. Van/ News Dona h Nan SAA Goon Online Ben Tree Official Vietnam The Saigon Times http://paper. Admonishingly. Van/ http://English. Bent. Gob. Van/ Comment Up-to-date resource. The website is very famous.It includes several areas such as Business, Politics, Society and etc. Up-to-date resource. Main area is business and financial information The official site of Ben Tree province. Http://Vietnamese. Vengeance. Com. Van/ The national English language daily http:// English. Testimonies. Van/ The business newspaper. It updatability information in business, banking, and finance. Page 19 2. Intended literature This research focuses on how to help Ben Tree Coconut Candy to be developed sustainable by analyzing challenges and opportunities.Following with Porter's five forces, Dong A Company can analyses the business to take advantages as well as reduce threats. 1 . Five forces are: Supplier power: for example, this can impact to inputs on cost. If Dong A has little suppliers, they supply almost input for company, so if they do no supply, company might face problem. Threat of substitutes: challenge from substitute products such as banana candy, chocolate, or marshmallow. Business needs to evaluate this factors as it increase the competition as well as threatens the sales of product.Buyer power: wholesales who are major customers of Dong A Company can have high power of bargaining as they buy a large amount product from company. Threat of new entrants: new coconut manufactures might impact to revenue as well as market share of Ben Tree Coconut Candy. Competitive rivalry: Dong A can know what advantages that company has so that it can against the strength of competition in the candy industry. 2. The interrelation between building the success branding of product and brand loyalty of customer Moreover , to build a strong brand in business, a business needs to satisfy customers.Meghan (1995) states that there is an interrelation between page 20 building the success branding of product and brand loyalty of customer in consumer purchasing patterns. This requires company needs to always remain and develop its quality to meet customer expectation and then to make the brand of product to be stronger. 3. Four As in marketing E. Jerome McCarthy (1960) proposed a four As in marketing which has since been used until today. This theory focused on how to analyses a strategy when business does marketing. Four As includes: product, price, promotion and place.The term â€Å"product† is related to features of product such as brand name, packaging, warranty, quality and support. 0 The term â€Å"price† is likely to be a main factor which attracts customers. It refers to the process of setting price for product, pricing strategy or price discount. 0 Promotion includes advertising, sa les promotion and refers to various methods of promoting product. 0 The term â€Å"place† or distribution refers to how product is sold to customer such as distribution channels. It is clearly that, if Ben Tree Coconut Candy wants to develop and attract more customers, it must build up suitable strategies.Hawkins and Motherboards (2007) states that: â€Å"all marketing decisions are based on assumptions and knowledge of consumer behavior. † One â€Å"official† definition of consumer behavior is â€Å"The study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society (Lars Peeper, 2011) Research Project Research Methodology Analysis of factors affecting Online Shopping Submitted by -: Pranav Sood 400907018 Amity Anand 400907031 Mehul Shukla 400907034 Research Methodology Introduction Indian consumers as a whole spend about 55% of the total consumption expenditure on food items. According to a survey conducted by ORG , the expenditure on non-food items has recorded large growth that the expenditure on food items. Consumers decide whether , what, when, from whom, where and How much to buy. They can avail various mediums to buy the products.But currently we are living in the age of internet. According to a study , â€Å"About 44 percent students use Internet in India and overall 72% of young people access Internet on regular basis. Due to the vast usage of Internet, the buying patterns have been changed. It has changed the way goods are purchased and sold, resulting to the exponential growth in the number of online shoppers. However , a lot of differences concerning online buying have been discovered due to the various consumers’ characteristics and the types of provided products and services.Attitude toward online shopping and goal to shop online are not only affected by ease of use, usefulness, and enjoyment, but also by other factors like consumer individuality, situational factors, product distinctiveness, previous online shopping understanding and faith in online shopping. Therefore, understanding who are the ones consuming and why they choose to use or keep away from the Internet as a distribution channel, is a critical matter for both e-marketing managers and consumer thinkers.There are lots of companies which are providing the platform to consumers to buy the products through online. Online consumers tend to be better educated. Higher computer literacy makes internet shopping smarter. Their awareness about the internet also makes them better positioned to identify and take decision for products and services. By the internet, consumers find that th ey no longer have to accept fixed prices for the products and services and through the click of a few buttons the lowest priced, highest quality product can be found.The concept of online shopping developed gradually, after the launch of the World Wide Web. Charles Stack was the first person to create an online book store in 1992. Even Pizza Hut opened an online pizza shop, whereas eBay and Amazon took the concept of online shopping to an entirely new level. Online shopping began in full swing since the year 1996. 1 Research Methodology Overall, 71 million users accessed Internet in year 2009, with 52 Million â€Å"active† users who accessed it atleast once in a month.The first benefit that a customer derives from e-retailing is convenience as it saves time and efforts for today’s time starved customer at the same time providing a plethora of choices for wide category of items and also the luxury of comparing the offerings from different vendors – all at the cli ck of his mouse. Another most obvious benefit of online shopping is the significant discounts that most of these e-retailers provide to attract the customers. Also online stores are usually available 24 hours a day and not limited by global time differences.Searching or browsing an online catalog can be faster than browsing the aisles of a physical store. Along with information about a company and its products, buyers can also have better access to product review and rating systems. However, many people still locate information on the internet and purchase products offline at traditional stores, conversion rate being very low. Research shows that between 65% and 75% of consumers that initiate an online tran saction fail to complete the transaction. Online shopping is the process consumers go through when they decided to shop on the Internet.The Internet has developed into a â€Å"new distribution channel (Hollensen. 2004) and the evolution of this channel has been identified by Smi th and Rupp (2003) to be the most significant contribution of the information revolution. Using the Internet to shop online has become one of the primary reasons to utilize the Internet. Combined with searching for products and finding information about them (Jomes 2003). Smith and Rupp (2003) also state that the consumers have never had access to so many suppliers and productiservice opinions. 2 Research Methodology ProblemAt any given time there are millions of people online and each of them is a potential customer for a company providing online sales. Due to the rapid development of the technologies surrounding the Internet, A company that is interested in selling products from its web site will constantly have to search for an edge in the fierce competition. Since there are so many potential consumers, it is of the out most importance to be able to understand what the consumer wants and needs. The importance of analyzing and identifying factors that influence the consumer when h e or she decides to purchase on the Internet is vital.Since the Internet is a new medium for there have been new demands set by the consumer. That is why it is crucial for the online retailers to know what influences the online consumer. Objectives of the research ? To determine the factors affecting consumer behaviour towards E- Shopping. ? Of the determined factors identify that have major impact on consumer purchase intent. ? To study the product segments preferred during online purchase. Research Approach There are two most commonly used research approaches, the inductive and the deductive method.The inductive research method attempts to set up a theory by using collected data, while the deductive research approach attempts to find the theory first and then test it to the observed data. We chose a deductive research approach for our study as we would move from the more general to the specific. 3 Research Methodology Methodology Initial Phase ? The first step towards our research was to decide on the factors which we will consider for our study. With the resources and the time available we decided to go ahead with the following factors: ? Experience on computers Comparison with Offline channel ? Security of Information ? Money Savings ? Convenience ? Variety ? Previous Experience ? Service of Website ? Product Availability The above factors are made the independent variables and the purchase intent is the dependent variable which would be explained by: ? Online shopping intent. ? Overall perception of online shopping. Hypothesis Formulation ? After determining the factors we made the hypothesis for our research which would be mentioned in the later section. 4 Research Methodology Data Collection Phase ?The next step was to develop a Questionnaire (Annexure-1) that asks questions to the respondents on the above mentioned parameters and also on the products they prefer for online shopping. ? The Questionnaire was designed on the Google docs and the survey was started. Analysis Phase ? After the collection of data (Annexure-2), each factor was tested for normal distribution. ? The process of testing the hypothesis was based on the regression model. Interpretation Phase ? The results from analysis were interpreted and relevant factors were drawn out. ?The research is concluded with the findings. 5 Research Methodology Hypothesis The following are the hypothesis made by us for our research, the model would be based on the assumption that independent variable has a linear relationship with the dependent variable : Null Hypothesis for all tests: H0: Variable has no relation with online shopping intent. Alternate Hypothesis: H1: Security of Information will affect the online purchase intent. H2: Variety of Products affects the online purchase intent. H3: Web Site Quality affects the online purchase intent.H4: Money Savings affects the online purchase intent. H5: Convenience affects the online purchase intent. H6: Discounts Available affects t he online purchase intent. H7: Time Savings affects the online purchase intent. 6 Research Methodology Analysis The first task is to prepare a questionnaire that asks questions to the respondents and on the basis of their responses we can accept or the hypothesis. The detailed questionnaire is given in Anexxure-1. At the last of our questionnaire, we have a question measuring the online shopping intent.The responses would be used to measure dependent variable. Reliability: Since the Cronbach’s Alpha is >0. 7 the data is reliable. Normality: The output sheet (Normality. spv) attached with this report contains the histogram and the normal distribution curve One Sample T-test: One sample T test was conducted to know the significance of these factors and results are shown in the table . And it is evident that p value (0. 000) is less than significance level of 0. 05 for all the factors. 7 Research Methodology Hypothesis Testing:H0: Variable has no relation with online shopping in tent. H1: Security of Information will affect the online purchase intent. Since sig. value < 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. The null hypothesis is rejected, hence online security has a significant relationship with online shopping intent. 8 Research Methodology H2: Variety of Products affects the online purchase intent. Since sig. value > 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. We fail to reject null hypothesis , hence product variety has no significant relationship with online shopping intent.H3: Web Site Quality affects the online purchase intent. Since sig. value < 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. The null hypothesis is rejected, hence web site quality has a significant relationship with online shopping intent. 9 Research Methodology H4: Money Savings affects the online purchase intent Since sig. value < 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. The null hypothesis is rejected, hence web Money saving has a significant relationship with online shopping intent. H5: Convenience af fects the online purchase intent Since sig. value > 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables.We fail to reject null hypothesis , hence Convienence has no significant relationship with online shopping intent. H6: Discounts Available affects the online purchase intent 10 Research Methodology Since sig. value > 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. We fail to reject null hypothesis , hence Discounts and offers has no significant relationship with online shopping intent. H7: Time Savings affects the online purchase intent Since sig. value < 0. 05, as confirmed by above tables. We reject null hypothesis , hence Time saving has no significant relationship with online shopping intent. 1 Research Methodology Demographics Analysis What are the category of products most preferred by consumers during online purchase ? This shows that majority of consumers purchase Electronics goods followed by Books and Apparels. How often do consumers go for online shopping (Frequency) ? This concludes that majorit y of consumers shop once in a month followed by once in six months. How much consumers spend in online shopping ? 12 Research Methodology 13 Research Methodology Annexure-1 14 Research Methodology 15 Research Methodology 16 Research Methodology 17