Question

Imagine that the Point Brewery actually had a person in charge of market research, and you were that person. The brewery is trying something really radical and launching a line of hard (11% alcohol) kombuchas. Describe your plan for using qualitative and quantitative research to determine how successful the launch has been. You must use both methods.

You are in charge of market research for the small, independent cruise line MSC Cruises. Put on your competitive-intelligence hat and give me five pertinent (and real) facts on the cruise industry that would help you determine how big the market is and how big your share might be.

Answer 1

Q1. For quantitative or objective analysis i would like to go with the option of questionnaire and personal interviews and for qualitative or subjective analysis i would like to go for focus group interviews and depth interviews. First step to this process would taking the help of a market research company to lay the groundwork required for carrying out the above analysis.

Qualitative-

1. Questinnaires- For questionnaires i would like to create a comprehensive questinnaire. the objective of the questionnaire will be to target a cluster of various households in the locality and hand out these questionnaires to them in order analyse their drinking habits and preferences and then asking them if theyhave heard about the newly launched hard kombuchas and Point Brewery.

2.Personal Interviews- Personal interviews or door-to-door survey. In this method we will be targeting the households within 5-10 kms radius of the brewery. The personal interview will cover the areas about what they think about this new launched hard kombuchas and how often do they visit the point brewery.Their prefrences when the go to the brewery and there favourite drinks on the menu and if tthey would like to replace that with the newly introduced drink.

Quantitative-

1.Focus group discussion- In focus group discussions there will be batches charecterised as per their ages. First batch of teenagers, then middle-aged group and then the seniors.Focus group discussion will mainly focus on their perspective and expectations from the new drink and how can they rank it in forms of value for money and recommend to their friends.

2.Depth interview- it is similar to the focus group except that instead of groups of people individuals are interviewed.An expert will be hired to conduct these in-depth interviews. the candidates will consist of those people who are catually aware of the product.Then their first experience with the product will be asked and analysed after that if they wiould like to see any further changes in the product and whether they will recommend the friend for the same. in case of unsatisfaction they expectations will be focused upon.

Q2.

1.First step that i will take is to undersatnd the share of cruise industry in the overall travel and tourism industry in the regions my cruise line will be operating in.This will help me a catch an overview of the actual potential of the business.

2.Secondly, If there is not much competition in the market then we can go solo and approach travel agents to put our cruise name in the their itenary lists of choices beacuse the travel agencies are the main route to attract the foreign crowd.In case there are already too many competitors in the market we can initially start with a collabortaion of 2-5 small cruising companies to capture comparitively a larger share of the market collectively.

3. Next,i will mark out the potential areas where my cruise line can have a first mover advantage and will pay special heed to the small potential points because these points are often ignored by big cruise companies and can help the MSC cruise to have a stable foot in the local market while at the same time funding the operating costs for the initial stages or years.

4. After having captured a considerable percentage of the market share we can go forward with collaborations with hotel industry by including small cruise packages along with the hotel stay packages.

5.Keeping an close eye at the rivalry cruise comapnies to be on the same page as they are and try to modify and introduce better and effective techniques keepig aside the cash benefits and focusing more on non-monetory benefits for the consumers. And from time -to-time having surveys regarding the brand performance and awareness among the local and foreign crowd.