Bellboy Case free essay sample

This will give you also a more realistic view of the price elasticity. In addition, the structure of questionnaire (from general questions to more specific ones) narrowed down the choices in the questions 5 to 9 significantly and considering that communication staff was answering the questions, they most probably were giving very conservative estimates to avoid any future â€Å"attacks† of overexcited supplier. The comparison with a â€Å"candy bar† is not very appropriate for a business environment which could have discouraged serious professional people from use of a device.Results of Q. 2 reflected in Table 2 and 3 show that the questionnaire was not well designed to provide comprehensive information on specifics and benefits of the service as well as obtain detailed information about the negative opinion about the service even when companies were not familiar with it (no explanation on why exactly companies are not interested in the service), which shows an addition al great potential in the market (50% of companies which are not familiar with the service and are not interested in purchasing it, Table 2). The fact that 62% companies are familiar with this type of service and still are interested in acquiring it indicates significant unmet demand. Analysis. Only 50% of â€Å"maybe† responses are taken into account. Immediate acceptance by 25% respondents from the phone survey of the product which was not described in great detail and without detailed description of all benefits and advantages, is a good indication of significant demand in the market. Negative responses (Table 3, p. 24) weren’t analyzed properly to inquire about reasons for lack of interest (24% of responses are significant number and general comment should not have been accepted, respondents should have been asked â€Å"why† and clarify their statement). Such details could lead to hidden potential demand in the market which was not reflected in the survey. The results of the survey did not reflect clearly on the already existing need for the service in the market and non-existing need, which in case of a positive conclusion would increase potential demand. In Tables on â€Å"Projected Monthly Revenues† (p. p. 419-420) the average number of employees for companies with the size over 75 people is 100, however this is a rather conservative estimation and the number of potential users could be much higher. Conclusions. The survey was rather generic and more explorative and as such reflects general situation which already demonstrates significant demand. Moreover, the approach taken by research company underestimates actual true demand due to research design and its implementation. Part II. Argumentation Two Small Companies; the survey overstates the demand The Two Small Companies reacted negatively on the conducted survey since they believe there is no substantial unmet demand in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for a new product and they try to argue that the demand is overestimated in their survey for the following reasons; Collection of samples. Systematic random sampling from SWB’s own database could give more positive results about demand in the market as the database consists mostly of SWB clients who are more loyal to the company.The use of primary and sub-sample lists gave overstated figures since a too wide range of companies were included which normally would not be interested in the service however the generic description made them to believe they could be interested. The compilation of the prime list from people who managed communications at companies did not allow the survey to obtain information directly from people who will use SWB services and the surv ey basically gives a perception of the demand in the market by communication departments.Since the communication departments are professionally more interested in actively using communication services, they represent a biased sample. The quality of information obtained from subsample listing is questionable as there is no description of the procedure of selecting people who represent this list (in contrast to primary listing, which aimed to contact communication departments, respondents from the subprime list could have been people who have no knowledge on discussed topic (eg. the receptionist) ). Research design adopted and procedure. The objective of this research is stated incorrectly as the real objective is to demonstrate substantial unsatisfied need for the service. In other words, SWB should show that the demand is still not covered by SWB or its competition. However the current research includes the market share already owned by the competition of SWB and therefore shows a demand which is already covered. This nullifies the results of the entire survey!The collection of data was limited to telephone interviews only, which is a method used primarily in exploratory research and aimed at the collection of fast and rather general information. People don’t have a lot of time to spend on the phone (considering the business people who were contacted) and can provide very generic data which also can be wrong and misleading. In addition to that, buyers sometimes could give socially accepted answers. Also people who did agree on answering the questionnaire by phone have most probably a more positive attitude in eneral as opposed to those respondents who refused to talk and whose opinion would be important for more balanced results. This could influence the results in a more positive way. The research company of SWB conducted a very unstructured and unreliable survey with confusing results. First of all, they combined exploratory research with descriptive quantitative design without a clear distinction of one phase from another and as a result obtained information which is very general and misleading.Secondly, contacting communication people in companies only through short phone interviews put time pressure on them so that they would give largely positive responses just to finish the interview faster and be polite. In addition the survey obtained information on jobs in which people would be most interested in obtaining Bellboy service (Table 4 on p. 424), however this information was never used further in the research and this would most probably narrow down the final results on the demand due to a more focused and specific analysis of interested people. Thirdly, the percentages in Table 4 are summed up in excess of 100% and are not benchmarked with other results which gives no value to these percentages and the outcomes are misleading. The information on the types of jobs that might be interested in the service could be used as the primary basis for further more focused research through direct contacting the people from these jobs (Table 4) in order to avoid generalized overstated results. Further, as mentioned in the legal report, prices are not just and reasonable and must be under accepted common carrier standards; proposed services could not be offered at those prices.This means that not only researchers were using lower range of prices than currently accepted for this type of services in the interviews, which made demand numbers go up, they also were using fixed/set numbers to create future perception of the service as a cheaper one to motivate potential customers to move from SWB’s competitors to their services. And thi s goes directly against the objective of the entire survey! The psychology of respondents in choosing the cheaper price examples is logical and normal, however it leads to a much higher results of demand.To find the real price elasticity curve, SWB should have chosen three separate sampling sub-groups to assess the reaction to different prices. Questionnaire. Disclosure of the name of SWB and its new service in the questionnaire creates a positive bias at the respondent’s side: since the contact details have been taken from SWB’s listings the companies contacted, and in particular people from communication departments, were likely to respond in more positive and enthusiastic manner giving excessively positive responses.The mentioning of a â€Å"new service† in the questionnaire is misleading to the customers and since the communication department managers were the primary sampling unit and sensitive for new communication services, they would be more inclined to react positively towards the new services. The questionnaire does not contain the response â€Å"maybe† whereas all results are analysed based on this category. This leads to the conclusion that final results are not precise and misleading and the reliability of entire survey is questionable. Analysis.The research company of SWB cannot take into account the â€Å"maybe† responses and present them as potential interest as there is no justification for them in the questionnaire and no certainty that such results will represent potential interest. Projections of the future demand cannot be based on such answers due to their uncertainty and too many underlying assumptions. Based on the management summary, the percentage of respondents who are not interested is 77% and with some of â€Å"maybe† answers it comes up to over 80% (Table 1, p. 423). This is a clear indication that there is no sufficient or unmet demand for the service in the market.If prices are even higher than mentioned, and within the approved ranges, the demand will go down even more. This is further supported by Table 2 (p. 424) which states that 62% of companies that might be interested in the new service already know the product. This means that these companies might be using similar products already and hence might be (at least partially) covered by SWB’s competitors. In the Table â€Å"Potential usage by price† (p. 418): 1% of companies in the category â€Å"Over 75† number of employees is not reliable as it represents less than one company from the statistics sample (out of total number 29).