1. Theme 1: Marketing & People
This theme enables students to understand how businesses identify opportunities and to explore how businesses focus on developing a competitive advantage through interacting with customers. Students develop an understanding of how businesses need to adapt their marketing to operate in a dynamic business environment. This theme also considers people, exploring how businesses recruit, train, organise and motivate employees, as well as the role of enterprising individuals and leaders.
1.1 Meeting customer needs
Subject content
1.1.2 Market research
What students need to learn:
a) Product and market orientation
b) Primary and secondary market research data
(quantitative and qualitative) used to:
identify and anticipate customer needs and wants
quantify likely demand
gain insight into consumer behaviour
c) Limitations of market research, sample size and bias
d) Use of ICT to support market research:
websites
social networking
databases
e) Market segmentation

2. Fill in the gaps…
Market research means gathering data from actual and potential ____________________. This can be achieved face-to-face, by telephone or using ICT. Many websites automatically generate customer ____________________. They might target everyone through the home page, or focus on a subgroup such as browsers of John Lewis online interested in baby products. Although this seems a great way to get ‘free’ research data, there are many negatives. Setting up the programme and the automated data collection takes man hours, and there are important questions to ask about the ____________________ of the findings. Who answers web questionnaires? There could be a _____________ towards those with time on their hands (OAPs?) or towards those who think particularly highly of the product/company.
Missing words from: bias, questionnaires, customers, validity

3. Discuss: Is market research vital for a firm’s success?
Steve Jobs founder of Apple said in 2008:
‘We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. The only consultants I've ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyse Gateway's retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products.’
In contrast consumer good giant Procter and Gamble, maker of a wide range of famous, successful products such as Ariel, Daz, Duracell, Gillette, Oral B and Pampers, are one of the world's biggest  spenders in market research. In 2012 it spent $350 million. 
Discuss: Is market research vital for a firm’s success?
Beth: Insert picture of Steve Jobs, Apple logo, P&G logo and products if possible

4. Market research
Marketing is the process of anticipating and satisfying customers’ wants in a way that delights the customer profitably.
Market research is the collection, analysis and evaluation of data to inform decision-making.

5. Why might firms carry out market research?
Discussion
Why might firms carry out market research?

6. Reasons for market research
Identifying trends in consumer tastes and fashions
To gain consumer views and opinions on existing products or potential new products
To discover and predict future trends in the market and/or economic conditions
To analyses the existing market e.g. sales growth, market size
To analyse existing rivals e.g. market share, products offered
To identify a gap in the market
To research potential costs
To investigate labour market conditions and availability of staff

7. Rob Law's tips for success "Our real competitive edge comes from a good understanding of design, the power of design and what design can do for your business. We portray our products in the best possible light and invest heavily in whole marketing side of things. You must create a great image for your brand."
"Persistence is key. Despite receiving knock backs you've got to keep going. If you genuinely believe in your product and you've got market research proving it, you've got to keep going."
Law’s key advice to entrepreneurs doing similar is to know the local cultures. For UK businesses entering international markets, cultural howlers are commonplace and Trunki is no exception. "We launched a Trunki that was purple as it’s the most popular colour for children's products in the UK," Law explains. "But it's seen as a funeral colour in northern Europe so they wouldn't touch it with a barge pole."
But the issue was flagged up by a distributor when they were shown the early concepts and a green product was launched instead.

8. Product vs Market Orientation

9. How would you carry out market research?

10. Methods of primary market research
Surveys – Gathering people’s opinion and views through one-to-one, postal, internet/ or telephone questionnaires.
Focus groups – Gathering groups of people together to understand more in-depth views, opinions, behaviour, beliefs and attitudes towards products and firms.
Observation and experimentation – Analysing in-store CCTV, monitoring shopper behaviour and responses, trials and tests of products.
Loyalty card data on buying habits
Test marketing

11. Methods of secondary market research
Many organisations carry our research and reports for their own specific purposes. These can be used by other firms to help support their own decisions and planning. The sources of secondary data may include:
Government publications e.g. The Office of National Statistics data, census data
Industry research and reports e.g. by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) or the Bank of England, trade unions or other organisations
Newspapers e.g. FT, The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent
Trade journals and magazines e.g. Marketing magazine, The Grocer, The Economist, Business Week, Forbes, etc.
Company accounts and reports of rivals – only likely available for plc’s
Market research organisation reports e.g. Mintel and Keynote. These firms gather regular research on a wide range of different industries and sell access to the reports to firms and other interested organisations who are willing to pay the fee. It can be expensive to purchase reports from these firms, especially for small firms.
Charities and voluntary sector research
Other internet sources

12. Primary market research
Market research task
Task: Create two spider diagrams, one for primary and one for secondary market research.
Write a description of each in the middle and how it would be done
Add the advantages on one side
Disadvantages on the other
Primary market research ?
Dis.
Adv.

13. Primary market research
Advantages
Relevant and up to date information
Specific to the firm’s actual scenario and situation
Only available to the firm who has collected it therefore providing a competitive advantage
Disadvantages
Can be costly and time consuming depending on the methodology and sampling method
Poor questionnaire design or methodology may bias the results, e.g. leading questions, poor sampling
May find it difficult to ask enough people to represent the population accurately

14. Secondary market research
Advantages
Already gathered so may be quicker to collect
May have been gathered on a much larger scale than is possible by the firm
In some cases can be very cheap or free to access
Disadvantages
Information may be outdated and therefore less accurate
The data may be biased and it is hard to know how the information was collected and if it is accurate
Data was not gathered for the specific purpose the firm needs so may not be completely relevant or in the same context
In some cases can be costly, e.g. marketing firm reports

15. Analysis of research findings
Analysis of research findings. Look at this bar chart then answer the questions that follow.
3.1 Which age group seems to spend the most on confectionery? _____________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
3.2 Outline one way in which a producer of sweets might use that information. ___________________________