Watch Your Health <Course Name,

Watch Your Health

To check the viability of a product named "Watch Your Health" which is designed to monitor heart beat to serve as an "electronic coach" for medical patients and fitness conscious population.

General Nutrition Centers or GNC is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based American commercial enterprise which has in past mostly focused on the retail sale of health and nutrition related products, including vitamins, supplements, minerals, herbs, sports nutrition, diet & energy products. Founded by David Shakarianin 1935 GNC has tremendously expanded since then from a mere two stores to a public limited company that has a market capitalization of millions. GNC stores mainly deal with products that focus on weight loss, bodybuilding and nutritional supplements whereby both in-house brands as well as third party brands are displayed and sold in their franchises and corporate owned stores worldwide. They have also expanded beyond their core business and have entered into ventures with Pepsi and Petsmart. As the leader in the health and wellness industry, focused on science and innovation, GNC continuously innovates in an effort to build on the highly valued brand their by granting them a competitive edge in the market and also enabling them to enhance their financial leverage. Given the innovative nature of the organization it is now moving towards launching a watch that is designed to inform consumers of their current state of fitness while also enabling them to see what improvements can be made to increase their fitness.

The watch would observe average heart rate over exercise period, time in a specific heart rate zone, calories burned, breathing rate, built in speed and distance. It would include calorie count, expenditure and a more graphical display of a person's heart rate. It would also calculate the heart zone of a person automatically based on age. It also has watch functions for time of day and date (Frances, 2000). The watch is designed in a new manner whereby a touch sensitive screen is incorporated for input of data.

The primary aim of the organization is to make profit and this aim would be supported by the launch of this product. The likes of this product are currently available in the market and the basic difference between this watch and those available in the market is its very appearance. In order to ensure that its clients are satisfied with the product, it is imperative for the company to find out what their clients are looking for in the ideal heart beat watch (Edmund, n.d).

Discussion:

Information from this research will be important in determining the success of the new product. This is largely because the company is likely to include this information in launching their product into the market. It is predicted that most of the consumers are likely to consider this as a one-off purchase; consequently, prices of this commodity would tend to be a bit on the high side. Moreover the existing competition in the market means availability of many substitute products which is likely to affect pricing and promotion decisions. The purpose of this research is to find out the needs of the target market segment and the feasibility of the product.

Action:

Identifying research objectives:

The following research objectives have been identified and agreed regarding the brand "Watch your health":

To identify the right target audience for heart beat watch.

To identify the internal and external features that consumer will look for in the watch.

To explore the market psychology of the consumers prior to purchasing the commodity. Market features such as price will be considered (Smith, 2001).

To determine what features make the competitors currently operating in the market does well.

To check the technical feasibility of the product.

Intended Target Market:

The intended target audience for this product is the people who are generally conscious about their health either due to previous medical conditions or due to their need to keep a fit body. Medical patients would be essentially targeted. A heart rate watch is also a great tool for monitoring the intensity of training, making sure that a person is not training too hard or too easy and is training safely. Training at the right intensities can result in faster progress with ones fitness and less wasted time and efforts (Edmund R. Burke). Everyone can benefit from using a heart rate watch: runners, cyclists, cross-country skiers, people training to keep fit and healthy, people exercising to lose weight and other casual exercisers.

Timeline:

A period of eight weeks for the completion of the research regarding this project has been set out. Consequently, all the tasks in the research will be distributed evenly within this period. Allocations will be done depending on the weight of the task and how many parties will need to be involved in the process (Len, 2000)

Information coverage:

Information for this research will be collected according to the following hierarchy of needs:

Focus group information:

The focus group will be essential in determining the factors that consumers consider when making decisions about the purchase of heart beat watch. (Holliday, A.R. 2007)Besides this, they will also reveal information about sources of information that they rely on before choosing to buy a heart beat watch.

Heart beat watch information:

This part will dwell on how the Heart beat watch is regarded by clients in terms of its appearance. Information such as the watch's exteriors design will be looked into for example color, design and thickness (Young, Charles E. 2005). Information about the interior features of the watch will also be imperative. Things such as display, memory, touch sensitivity, main board and other features will be examined

Competitor's information:

Information about the kind of features that make competitors successful within the market will be sought. This is especially because the market has become relatively competitive today with brands such as Polar Heart Rate Monitor and Bayer's self check. Special emphasis will be given to price offerings in this particular industry segment as it is a serious concern for GNC.

The most critical feature of a heart watch is the method of its heart detection. Most of the watches available in the market attempt to detect heart rate at the earlobe or fingertip using in accurate photo-optic techniques. Unfortunately, pulse detectors of this type are very sensitive to body movement and do not give accurate readings during exercise. The research would also involve an analysis of the features of the competitor's product that are valued by the consumers and those that are disregarded by them. (Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation 2008)

Methodology:

A budget of two thousand pounds allows one to do more secondary than primary research. The information sought during the research will represent both quantitative and qualitative portions of the paper. Quantitative aspects will cover the numerical elements of the research such as price. Additionally, qualitative aspects of the research will be reflected by looking into consumer experiences especially with regard to the decision making process (Procter, 2000). These two aspects govern exactly the kind of product the company should launch if it intends the watch to be a successful one.

Desk research:

This part of the research will entail an examination of data sources that may have contained information about related topics to the one under consideration. Here, their methods or processes and their results will be thoroughly being examined in order to ascertain that the right procedure is being followed. Additionally, related health websites will be consulted so as to seek information from e-forms. Competitor information will also be obtained from this segment of the research. A head-to-head comparison of the price of our product to the competitor's product would be made (Bradley, Nigel 2007).The key here would be to compare net prices, not just the list (or published) price. This information could come from phone calls, secret shopping and published data excreta.

Questionnaire:

The latter portion of the research will entail structured online questionnaires. This is because of the fact that they can reach greater numbers of people at any one time. On top of that, they save on time and allow greater room for data analysis. E-forms are also particularly useful in this research because they will allow collection of more research information. (Creswell, J. 2003). E-forms would be placed on different health related sites (Patton, 2002). Online structured questionnaires have a format that will be applied in the depth interviews thus saving on time and crucial resources. It should be noted that the issue of time is also particularly important because the research is to be completed in a given deadline. By questionnaires the company can explore the market and segment the potential customers very granularly by demographics, by what they buy, by whether they are price sensitive excreta.

Depth interviews:

Depth interviews will be carried among members of the focus group. These individuals will represent the new market segment that GNC will be targeting i.e. medical patients and fitness conscious population. There will be ten representatives from each section and each interview shall last for a period of twenty to thirty minutes depending on how well respondents understand the questions and how they respond to them. This means that the entire interview process will take a period of one month. It should be noted that an allowance has been given for the differences in geographical areas as each interviewee will represent a different city.

Participants will be expected to answer questions derived from the information already gathered in the desk research. On top of this, the staff members hired for the research will also come up with special questions designed to address issues that had not been fully covered in the primary research such as personal preferences.

Respondents could possess knowledge about GNC as a company and its health products or they may not. However, it will imperative for these participants to have at least used a heart beat watch or to have purchased once so that they can have adequate knowledge about it.

The research will be done through random probability sampling. However, the sample population will be such that fifty percent of the respondents will be medical patients while the remaining will be health conscious people engaged in daily training and exercise. Selection of the twenty participants will then be randomly done. Numbers will be generated automatically through a computer and names will then be numbered and listed alphabetically. The participants will be chosen through the random numbers appearing on the computer screen. (Holliday, A.R. 2007).

Ensuring technical feasibility:

The watch is designed to offer measurements of heart rate variability, activity, and breathing rate to assess parameters relating to a subject's fitness. Sensor fusion algorithms would allow the monitors to detect core temperature and dehydration. This watch would employ electrocardiograph techniques that would transmit heart rate to the wrist worn unit telemetry. The heart rate watch measures the cardiovascular and physiological stress during different measurement periods. The presence of microprocessor would ensure continuous monitoring of EKG and calculating the heart rate, and other parameters (Marks, 2000). These may include accelerometers which can detect speed and distance eliminating the need for foot worn devices. The complete watch would be tested on a panel of 10 participants over a period of a month to ensure that the watch works as prescribed above and does not transmit signals inaccurately. Results would be noted on a daily basis of these participants at different levels of physical activity such as at times of exercise, daily routine work excreta.