Business research methods and advanced applications

Business Research Methods

Determining the target market of a product or service is just one of the key stages that companies must overcome to successfully create not only preference and loyalty for the product or service, but to also strengthen its (product's or service's) brand equity. Strong brand equity requires not only delivering the functional qualities and emotional connection between the product/service and the consumer, but it also entails overall customer satisfaction. Thus, strong brand equity is characterized by a strong product or service positioning combined with customer satisfaction, resulting to brand preference and loyalty.

In determining these concepts contributing to brand equity (i.e., identification of target market, brand positioning, and customer satisfaction), it is critical determine if indeed, the product or service being marketed is indeed performing in all these metrics contributing to brand equity. To accomplish this, market or business research must be conducted. In launching a business research project, it is important to identify the objectives of the project first to determine the appropriate research design and methodology that will be implemented. Identifying the correct and appropriate design and methodologies in business research ensures that the end-users of information will be using the correct information and data, and in effect, develop recommendations and decisions that correctly respond to the business issues and needs of the company and its product/service offerings.

The proposed research design for Starbucks can be either qualitative or quantitative, or mixed (both qualitative and quantitative designs). For the purpose of this study, a quantitative research design is recommended because it will provide decision makers and end-users with data and information that can generally describe the profile and buying and consumption patterns of its target market. Specifically, the recommended methodology is survey research targeting Starbuck's target market as the primary sampling units or responds of the survey.

The survey will be held in-store, and respondents will be customers who come in selected Starbucks stores/branches. The recommended sample size should be no less than 300 respondents, to ensure that the sample can indeed be called a representative of the brand's target market. These in-store surveys are actually intercept surveys, and specific number of respondents must be interviewed every hour, number of respondents per hour to be determined based on the store's average sales for the day.

Another approach to the survey study is to launch an online survey site for Starbucks customers. Qualified respondents will be randomly selected through a program integrated in its POS system, which will identify which customer will be randomly picked for the survey. To encourage 100% response from customers, these randomly selected customers will receive a "gift" or token for their participation in the online survey, to be claimed after they have completed the online survey. This approach ensures completeness of information from randomly selected Starbucks customers. This approach also makes this survey an anticipated activity for customers because of the gift or token s/he will receive after participating in it.

After data collection (the survey should run for a specific period only to capture information about the customers and their behavior/patterns in a timely manner), data analysis will be conducted, wherein important information shall be generated and uncovered. The survey questionnaire will cover questions asking about the following categories of information considered important to decision-makers/Starbucks marketing and other end-users: customer profile, buying behavior, consumption behavior, brand image, and customer satisfaction. These five (5) information categories all contribute to provide a complete diagnosis of Starbucks as a brand, product and service.

The recommended data analysis format for the study, then, categorizes all questions in the survey according to the mentioned information categories. Note that the questions in the online survey need not follow the order of these information categories; questions are organized based on the logic of questioning or re-arranged specifically to prevent respondents from taking "guesses" and providing responses or answers that they think would be "socially acceptable" to the survey proponents (i.e., Starbucks management).