Is your National VP Sales shy about getting involved in production?

Name: Patrick Darnell, Charter Member RED Team

Task Detail: “Julie Hogan is JavaJoy's National Sales Manager, and is in the process of rolling out JavaJoy's first non-coffee brewing system - a tea brewer. While the sales channels are the same as for the coffee brewing equipment, the end users (tea drinkers) are certainly different. Julie is desperate to know how the new product is being received because she needs to give the manufacturing department a production forecast for the coming quarter - and the forecast is due in two weeks! Assuming some time to work on this project:” (CTUOnline; Nov 2006)
1. What information can you develop for Julie in the time frame available?
Of the six market research rationales listed here, the first four can be somewhat achieved with some elegance in the next two weeks. The last two require more effort, and will be difficult to wrap up without quantitative research or refined interpretation for additional qualitative research. Marketing will pursue these objectives:
1) Clarifying Research Question
2) Proposing Research
3) Designing Research Projects
4) Attempting Data Collection and Preparation
5) Attempting Data Analysis and Interpretation
6) Reporting the Results (Cooper, D; 2006)
Assumption: Julie Hogan is a live wire with 500 amps of persuasion at her finger tips, as National Sales Manager. She can weld the project shut with just a little more marketing information. Moreover, if we read ahead in the task list -- the mind of Sanchez-- she is headed toward becoming the international sales manager.
The information needed is: How many units TeaJoy Brewers will we produce in production cycles following roll out? For a “congealed” data standard, hurry up method is not the best way to go. But, supply chains in manufacturing wait for no one.
At last measure Julie Hogan is 94% of the way to unleashing the new tea brewer. She is only 1/8 of an inch away from welding the deal closed. However, Mrs. Hogan, without a production estimate is at the farthest point from her marketing goal as a person can be. So she must ask key questions of key persons, soon. Sitting on the production estimate will make the TeaJoy trial a short-run.
2. What you would say to Julie. Submit 4 – 5 paragraphs which describe a type of marketing research she can use to gauge the consumer’s response to the tea brewer.
We must not lose face. Therefore we look at this opportunity to incorporate a time line of events. Two weeks is ten working days, or fourteen days when including weekends. To hit upon the most pertinent research question most apt, is to promote. Guidance for production quantities depends on resources that are hidden in end-user customers’ opinions, and vendors’ inputs who sell the equipment. To contact busy people during their work day is nearly impossible, unless the surveyor has a lure. The actual lure is right under our noses, in the form of the internet.
Proposing a type of research that is last minute and relates to work schedules we consider the various time frames. The manpower hours needed to find reliable numbers for this last minute decision is more or less 10 days x 8 hrs = 80 hours available in the traditional work-a-day. In contrast, internet is available 24 hours at seven days or a total of 24 hrs x 14 days = 336 hours available. Why not multiply our TeaJoy exposure to the maximum?
Much greater hours, 4 to 1 more, on the internet suggests immediately go to a free web business log site, known as Blog, and write a new, free Tea Sippers’ ‘Blog. On your new TeaJoy web Blog site. Advertise free tea-related prizes for entering preference surveys, or promise a door prize such as the newest Play Station, for how many, how much and when is tea preferred as an end-user or as a reseller. Sounds easy? It is. As national sales manager Mrs. Hogan has a large e-mail list she can invite to visit new TeaJoy Blog site, over and over, 24/7.
Moreover, since production predictions calls for extreme marketing research that exposes benchmark cases correlated to TeaJoy roll out, that is concurrent task to pursue. For instance, Julie Hogan might have a teenager at home who can type in some keywords to browsers, and activate some secondary sources for starters. That is not because Mrs. Hogan is not comfortable with the net, it is because her own child will work more cheaply than others, and probably has some web technique, and empathy for her mother’s task. This action could enhance the roll out in several ways, to make an educated production turn round: as in “Customers Seven Steps in the Benchmarking Process” (1-HBR; Nov 06).
3. Include the information that could be obtained.
A quick visit to Harvard Business Review publishing website revealed some favorable Key words. No doubt clear evidence in secondary research can be gathered from efforts online and from regional business agents, using incremental planning approach:
1 “Functional areas within JavaJoy to be benchmarked
a) partners that will benefit most from benchmarking
b) based upon cost, importance and potential of changes
2 “Identify key factors and variables with which to measure functions
a) financial resources
b) Product strategy.
3 “Select best-in-class companies for each area to be benchmarked
a) lowest cost
b) highest degree of customer satisfaction
c) can be direct competitors, foreign and domestic
d) parallel competitors with replacement or substitute products or services
e) latent competitors which might backwards- or forwards-integrate into your market
f) Out-of-industry firms with whom do not compete such as FedEx or Wal-Mart logistics
4 “Measure performance of best-in-class for each benchmark considered
a) SEC, Government
b) Companies themselves
c) Trade associations, Articles in press or trade journals
d) Analysts in the market
e) Credit reports
f) Clients and vendors
g) Interviews with other organizations willing to share their prior research or ‘swap’..." (2-HBR; Nov 06).
In this comprehensive and helpful outline form HBR Five, Six and Seven headings relate to data analysis.
“...5. Measure [TeaJoy Brewer] performance for each variable; begin comparing the results in an ‘apples-to-apples’ format; determine the gap between your firm and best-in-class examples.
6. Specify those programs and actions to meet and surpass the competition [to enhance] potential areas discovered...
7. Implement these programs”
(Paraphrased; 2-HBR, Nov 26 2006)
The last increments of our hurry up tasks include careful analyses leading to descriptions of very speicialized:
• Marketing analysis: A major un-met need among certain groups of customers, or target markets
• Product description: Ideas for a product to meet the need
• Competitor analysis: Major competitors to the product
• Advertising plan: How the target markets will be informed of the new product
(4-HBR, Harvard Business Review, Nov 2006)

4. Discuss your thoughts on the accuracy of whatever information you are able to gather in two weeks.
Accuracy will be low, but best practices will have been used. In context of the first four stages of qualitative data collecting, from the above discussions that introduced six major stages of marketing research: TeaJoy will be unable to prepare a unified production schedule for the manufacturing departments at the end of 336 hours.
The first four increments can be pursued quickly and possibly resolved in qualitative analysis. The final two analysis stages require the attention of those who are very busy, and hard to track down, owners and executives. Our research will entail "How to Mobilize the Executive Team for Strategic Change" to create the proposal that is due in two weeks or sooner (4-HBR, Harvard Business Review, Nov 2006).
Costs of producing it over the course of the year, Julie Hogan’s TeaJoy Brewer will be produced in a manner that reflects demand. In any new venture the cost accounting management is vital to establishing the price the consumer will pay for our product.
Julie Hogan will be very busy doing her regular tasks, and her related follow up duties of coordinating final promotions, printing and sales reps for the two weeks up to roll out. The final data analysis is up to the marketing department. A TeaJoy task team could be appointed to follow through with the best-case demand percentages most expected. Accuracy remains in the data analysis, as to how many units to produce next year. So let’s get cracking on the internet, and e-mails.
Working in this framework we will build on JavaJoy qualitative market statement, and make a benchmark with new products for our customers. Working to improve the management of TeaJoy division we see “...there a variety of views, formats and content regarding business [marketing opportunities and research] plans” (5-HBR; 2006). “The firm can choose from a few different approaches -- from simply trying harder, to emulating the best-in-class, changing the rules of the industry or leapfrogging the competition with innovation or technology from outside the industry.
In an ideal world the marketing research could answer all the pertinent questions for a production model and the price structure. Best practices in market research will justify financial resources and product strategy. Learning and understanding can often be used to simplify framework of analysis. Therefore at the end of the promotion sound advice to TeaJoy’s Mrs. Hogan is “...Always feel free to estimate results, as exact measures are usually disproportionately difficult to obtain and often do not significantly add value to the [end result]” (3-HBR; Nov 2006)

References:
Cooper, D, & Schindler, P, (2006) Marketing Research, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin

CTUOnline; (Nov 2006) Session: MKT 350 Phase 2 Discussion Board 1, Task List

1-HBR, Harvard Business Review, (Nov 2006) Various Approaches to Building Products and Services Approaches to Product development, Adapted “Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development” managementhelp org misc product-devapproaches and authenticityconsulting, 11/27/06, Harvard Business School Publishing

2-HBR, Harvard Business Review, (Nov 2006) Approaches to Market Research, managementhelp org mrktng mk_rsrch needs, 11/27/06, Harvard Business School Publishing

3-HBR, Harvard Business Review, (Nov 2006) Approaches to Competitor Market Analysis, managementhelp org mrktng cmpetitr cmpetitr, 11/27/06, Harvard Business School Publishing

4-HBR, Harvard Business Review, (Nov 2006) Approaches to Marketing Intelligence, marketing-intelligence co uk sitemap, 11/27/06, Harvard Business School Publishing

5-HBR, Harvard Business Review, (Nov 2006) the Mechanics of pricing, short term pain for long term gain, Approaches to Marketing Management bullet point com archives market BP3806, 11/27/06, Harvard Business School Publishing