Executing Marketing Research Assignment

Executing Marketing Research Assignment

1- Marketing Research Project Part 2: Executing Marketing Research

You as a Marketing Research Manager have been assigned to conduct a small marketing research study. You have identified the problems that you want to solve, came up with the research questions, and planned research design in your research proposal in week 3. (I UPLOADED THE WEEK 3 PROPOSAL) Please discuss and prepare the following items:

Data collection methods (Chapter 8 -10) — How would you collect your data, quantitative (i.e., survey) or qualitative (i.e., interview, observation) or mixed (i.e., survey and interview)? What are the different means and techniques you will use to collect data, online survey, in-person interview, or observation, etc.?
Sampling design (Chapter 14) – Who will be your sample? What would be your sample size and how would you determine the sample size?
Questionnaire design (Chapter 11 & 13 & 15) — You have to develop questionnaires and collect data (i.e., through the survey or interview, etc.)
Instructions for Assignment:
2-3 Pages in APA 7th format excluding cover and reference pages
Use a minimum of 3 references: Don’t forget to cite them.
Submit in a Word format, not the PDF file.
JCPenny Marketing Analysis

Giulia Seabra

Southern Status University

07/30/21

Real problem being solved

The problem with JCPenny emanates from lack of an effective sales and marketing strategy by the company. This notion is attributed to the fact that the company has not turned profits since 2010. The decrease in profits is as a direct result of loss of sales whereby its annual sales have exhibited continuous decline as from 2016. This notion is attributed to the lack of an effective marketing strategy that aligns with the changes in the preferences among different demographics. It is noteworthy while most of retail companies within the United States have adopted online retail stores.

Apart from lack of a cohesive business strategy, the company also faces challenges in the development of a sustainable strategy to facilitate changes within the organization. This problem is based on the long challenges the company has had trying to boost the sale of the company ever since the sales became stagnant in 2006 under Mike Ullman. It is noteworthy that stakeholders and customers were not consulted during the changes. It is noteworthy that customer engagement plays a vital role during the production processes in the company where the products and services are made to satisfy the consumer needs (John & Devilliers, 2019, p.497). As a result, the company has since been closing a lot of stores as a result of lack of loss of sales that makes sustainability of the business hard due to high expenses as compared to profit levels (Tyko, 2020).

Management dilemmas

The current management dilemma involves lack of an effective brand strategy whereby the company fails to identify, and subsequently implement effective brand identification strategy to identify the company with. Additionally, the management faces a dilemma in adopting to effective business strategies within the organization. Within the contemporary society, changes in the business are usually inevitable for business aiming to remain competitive within the current market. However, the company has over the last decade rotated its management chair among different individuals with different ideologies and principles, for example, Rob Johnson from Apple’s management that sought to change the organizational functioning and business strategy by rebranding it as a discount outlet to a nicer destination for physical shoppers. As a result, the company ended up losing in online sales in 2012 from 50 percent to 26 percent total sales (Lisicky, 2020). The company thus has since then experienced a dilemma in establishing a sustainable business strategy with which it can associate itself with.

Research Questions

What is the impact of the change of business strategy towards online retailing and marketing?

What is the impact of ineffective change management on organizational performance?

Research Design

The research to be conducted will involve a mixed research design involving both a qualitative and quantitative research approach to the problem. Data used for the study will be outsourced using both survey and use of secondary spurces from trusted resources. The empirical analysis will involve the exploring the relationship between incorporation of new and more effective sales and marketing strategies and the propensity to attract more consumers. Additionally, the qualitative analysis will be used to analyze the relationship between engaging employees and the consumers in the change process and the success of the changes effected in the organization. Thus, consumer data will be obtained from different preexisting, and existing loyal consumers to the company’s products since 2016 to identify the flaws to the current business strategy that the company adopts. This research aims at establishing the relationship between lack of a cohesive business strategy and change management processes and the current situation with the company. Both inputs from online, and physical stores consumers will be regarded in the research so as to have a wide overview over the prevailing issue that involves plummeting sales.

References

John, S., & De Villiers, R. (2019). Role of customer engagement and involvement in changing social media marketing landscape. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337649351_Role_of_customer_engagement_and_involvement_in_changing_social_media_marketing_landscape

Lisicky, M. (2020). After Six Decades Of Constant Change, JCPenney Needs To Define Itself. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellisicky/2020/05/03/after-six-decades-of-constant-change-jcpenney-needs-to-define-itself/?sh=36df07eb60eb

Tyko, K. (2020). J.C. Penney closing more stores after exiting bankruptcy. Will your store close in March 2021? See the list. USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2020/12/17/jcpenney-stores-closing-march-2021-list-coronavirus-bankruptcy/3940925001/