netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Calpine Corporation (NYSE: CPN) is a Fortune 500 power company founded in 1984 in San Jose, California.
Calpine's headquarters were permanently moved from San Jose to Houston, Texas in 2009. The company's stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CPN until it was delisted on December 5, 2005 due to low share price. On 1/31/08, Calpine emerged from bankruptcy and now trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CPN. The company is headquartered in the Calpine Center in Downtown Houston.[1]
uying Behavior). The firm should have an alternative approach to this by giving product warranties, after sales communication, etc. Cognitive dissonance can be reduced when the firm provides communication with the consumer after the purchase.
Product/Service Target Market and Competition
While it is very important that the target audience and competition should be clearly defined, it is also essential to identify the distinctive attributes and advantages of the firm’s offer to the marketplace. Every individual has the capacity to learn and this acquired learning can change a person’s behavior caused by information and experience. Therefore new information on the product should be established in order to change the consumer’s behavior product. This is where the application mix is applied like promotion, press release, advertising, etc. It is a fact that organization do exist to satisfy customer needs, for that reason everyone must be concerned with customer satisfaction. For example when introducing a new line of product in the market, like an orange juice, the target market audience should be the young ones, children aging from 3 -12 years old and the young adults from 13-21. The first goal is to create an impact to the minds of these young people about the quality and unique packaging of the product. Communication can be directly catered through advertising and promotion. Competition should also be identified in order to know the influences, at the same time knowing the prospects. If the competition does create the same product line, a strategy that will create unique packaging, dynamic promotion and advertising, and an additional offer of warranties as a way of reducing cognitive dissonance can be established.
The need for marketing research arose to deal with two types of demand stimulation: primary demand stimulation, demand for a product category or type such as computers, dishwashing liquids or disposable diapers; and selective demand stimulation, demand for a specific vendor or brand within a product category.
Existing Chinese institutions were inadequate to fulfill the information needs. A few organizations attempted to "go commercial," but they generally lacked professional marketing research backgrounds. They tended to equate marketing research with public opinion polling, which itself was not highly developed. Several were originally non-profit organizations that couldn't or wouldn't make the leap into the commercial world. Examples: China Social Survey Institute in Beijing and Soft-Science Company, established by the Guangzhou Social Science Academy in 1985.
China's first professional marketing research service, Guangzhou Marketing Research (GMR) was founded in 1988. Many followed. South China Marketing Research (SCMR) was started in 1990. In 1993, Far-East and SRH launched what is now called Survey Research Group (SRG) China, the first joint venture.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) supported the start and development of China's marketing research industry. P&G provided, and continues to provide, training and funding of research projects to such respected marketing research firms as Guangzhou Marketing Research Company and East Marketing Research Institute (EMR) in Guangzhou and All-China Marketing Research Company (ACMR) in Beijing.
The marketing research industry experienced a growth spurt since 1993. Now, approximately 100 marketing research companies exist. However, the pioneering companies remain busy and are concentrated in three cities: Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Types of marketing research organizations
Chinese marketing research organizations are classified into three categories:
(a) State-owned organizations that are outgrowths of government science research departments, statistical bureaus, and universities.
(b) Joint ventures between foreign and Chinese companies. Examples are Survey Research Group and Gallup's branches in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai.
(c) Indigenous marketing research organizations such as EMR.
Joint venture firms tend to be better capitalized, can cover larger geographic areas with consistent methodologies, and have access to superior hardware and software.
Indigenous marketing research organizations are usually better able to conduct business-to-business research, customize research, continuously exercise quality controls, and adapt the research to local and regional economic, social and cultural environments. They also have lower fees.
As the volume of business grows, these marketing research organizations tend to build their own networks of branches in other cities. No more than 10 are able to cover the larger cities throughout China.
Individual organizations have become more interested in considering merging or forming alliances in order to meet clients' demands for broader coverage, particularly for large scale projects.
Clients
Marketing research organizations that have only a local presence tend to have one or two main clients that account for most of the business volume and many smaller clients. These research organizations often do subcontracting work for joint ventures or China branches of transnational -- particularly European and American -- marketing research companies. The next largest client group are manufacturing and service corporations that plan to invest in China.
Chinese-owned corporations, especially state corporations, rarely use marketing research, largely because they are not comfortable with the consistency and systematic approaches that are characteristic of marketing research. Indeed, Chinese companies don't highly regard marketing research. They believe that they already have knowledge of the market, see marketing research as something that slows them down and conflicts with the intuitive approaches that they believe have served them well. They feel that structured research simply doesn't and can't take into account highly important -- but hidden -- personal relationships and highly complex political and social networking.
However, these attitudes are likely to shift as distribution strategy shifts more to "pull" from "push."
Procter and Gamble is not only the largest single client for many marketing research services, it has set the standards of excellence and introduced methodologies and analytic frameworks that have been universally accepted. Perhaps more important has been its training and support of marketing research organizations. These beneficiaries have become the professional pillars within China. We predict that Chinese corporations, witnessing the values of the research that P&G pioneered, will become much more receptive to the more standardized approaches and quantification algorithms.
Respondents
In the late 1980s, when marketing research first emerged in China, people generally did not hesitate to be interviewed. Highly curious and welcoming fresh experiences, they cooperated with interviewers. The refusal rate was very low.
In recent years, however, the fear of crime has grown, particularly in such large commercial and industrial cities as Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Citizens are suspicious of strangers coming to their doors. Many have installed security systems -- including alarms and expensive locks -- that make it more difficult for interviewers to gain access. Combined with the drop in curiosity and growth in boredom, this factor has led to an increase in refusal rates.
From a large scale study, we calculated these refusal rates, which include both refusing to open the door and refusing to be interviewed:
Guangzhou, 32.4%
Beijing, 21.8%
Shanghai, 10.0%
Chengdu, 4.8%
Wuhan, 21.3%
Successful methods for increasing cooperation rates include employing only those interviewers who can speak the local dialect, avoiding using male interviews, and strengthening training and supervision.
Sample design
China's population is about 1.2 billion of which 350 million are in urban areas (622 cities and scores of thousands of towns). Of the cities, 32 have populations of at least 1 million, 42 between 500,000 and 1 million, and the remaining 548 less than 500,000.
Almost all marketing research has been concentrated in the 74 cities having populations of at least 500,000. These cities are classified into two types:
-- National trade centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. Almost all national surveys include these four cities.
-- Secondary cities such as Wuhan, Chongqing, Kunming, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Jinan, Shengyang, Dalian, Xi'an, and Tianjin.
Sample sizes range from 200 to 400 per city, with a mode of 300.
Few marketing research surveys are conducted in smaller cities. Two exceptions:
1. Qualitative and small scale quantitative research in developed areas in such provinces as Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang, but almost never in inland areas.
2. Business-to-business projects. For example, EMR has recently completed a petroleum products project in 20 cities in Guangdong and Fujian provinces.
Almost no small towns or rural areas are included in marketing research projects. An exception is qualitative surveys occasionally conducted in suburban areas of the larger cities. These small towns and areas generally have primitive economies and are not attractive to manufacturers and service providers. Large distances between residences, low educational and literacy levels, and poor transportation are barriers.
Sample selection
Simple random sampling is not feasible because no well defined sampling frames exist for including all in the relevant population. Address lists are not readily available, and even if they were, the high rate of moving render them invalid.
The most popular sampling method is multi-stage random sampling: city area, street, neighborhood committee, household, person. For example, Guangzhou consists of eight geographic areas of which one is unsuitable because of its small, widely dispersed population and high mobility. The second level are streets within one or more areas. Every street has between 10 and 30 neighborhood committees, which comprise the third level.
Calpine's headquarters were permanently moved from San Jose to Houston, Texas in 2009. The company's stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CPN until it was delisted on December 5, 2005 due to low share price. On 1/31/08, Calpine emerged from bankruptcy and now trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CPN. The company is headquartered in the Calpine Center in Downtown Houston.[1]
uying Behavior). The firm should have an alternative approach to this by giving product warranties, after sales communication, etc. Cognitive dissonance can be reduced when the firm provides communication with the consumer after the purchase.
Product/Service Target Market and Competition
While it is very important that the target audience and competition should be clearly defined, it is also essential to identify the distinctive attributes and advantages of the firm’s offer to the marketplace. Every individual has the capacity to learn and this acquired learning can change a person’s behavior caused by information and experience. Therefore new information on the product should be established in order to change the consumer’s behavior product. This is where the application mix is applied like promotion, press release, advertising, etc. It is a fact that organization do exist to satisfy customer needs, for that reason everyone must be concerned with customer satisfaction. For example when introducing a new line of product in the market, like an orange juice, the target market audience should be the young ones, children aging from 3 -12 years old and the young adults from 13-21. The first goal is to create an impact to the minds of these young people about the quality and unique packaging of the product. Communication can be directly catered through advertising and promotion. Competition should also be identified in order to know the influences, at the same time knowing the prospects. If the competition does create the same product line, a strategy that will create unique packaging, dynamic promotion and advertising, and an additional offer of warranties as a way of reducing cognitive dissonance can be established.
The need for marketing research arose to deal with two types of demand stimulation: primary demand stimulation, demand for a product category or type such as computers, dishwashing liquids or disposable diapers; and selective demand stimulation, demand for a specific vendor or brand within a product category.
Existing Chinese institutions were inadequate to fulfill the information needs. A few organizations attempted to "go commercial," but they generally lacked professional marketing research backgrounds. They tended to equate marketing research with public opinion polling, which itself was not highly developed. Several were originally non-profit organizations that couldn't or wouldn't make the leap into the commercial world. Examples: China Social Survey Institute in Beijing and Soft-Science Company, established by the Guangzhou Social Science Academy in 1985.
China's first professional marketing research service, Guangzhou Marketing Research (GMR) was founded in 1988. Many followed. South China Marketing Research (SCMR) was started in 1990. In 1993, Far-East and SRH launched what is now called Survey Research Group (SRG) China, the first joint venture.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) supported the start and development of China's marketing research industry. P&G provided, and continues to provide, training and funding of research projects to such respected marketing research firms as Guangzhou Marketing Research Company and East Marketing Research Institute (EMR) in Guangzhou and All-China Marketing Research Company (ACMR) in Beijing.
The marketing research industry experienced a growth spurt since 1993. Now, approximately 100 marketing research companies exist. However, the pioneering companies remain busy and are concentrated in three cities: Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Types of marketing research organizations
Chinese marketing research organizations are classified into three categories:
(a) State-owned organizations that are outgrowths of government science research departments, statistical bureaus, and universities.
(b) Joint ventures between foreign and Chinese companies. Examples are Survey Research Group and Gallup's branches in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai.
(c) Indigenous marketing research organizations such as EMR.
Joint venture firms tend to be better capitalized, can cover larger geographic areas with consistent methodologies, and have access to superior hardware and software.
Indigenous marketing research organizations are usually better able to conduct business-to-business research, customize research, continuously exercise quality controls, and adapt the research to local and regional economic, social and cultural environments. They also have lower fees.
As the volume of business grows, these marketing research organizations tend to build their own networks of branches in other cities. No more than 10 are able to cover the larger cities throughout China.
Individual organizations have become more interested in considering merging or forming alliances in order to meet clients' demands for broader coverage, particularly for large scale projects.
Clients
Marketing research organizations that have only a local presence tend to have one or two main clients that account for most of the business volume and many smaller clients. These research organizations often do subcontracting work for joint ventures or China branches of transnational -- particularly European and American -- marketing research companies. The next largest client group are manufacturing and service corporations that plan to invest in China.
Chinese-owned corporations, especially state corporations, rarely use marketing research, largely because they are not comfortable with the consistency and systematic approaches that are characteristic of marketing research. Indeed, Chinese companies don't highly regard marketing research. They believe that they already have knowledge of the market, see marketing research as something that slows them down and conflicts with the intuitive approaches that they believe have served them well. They feel that structured research simply doesn't and can't take into account highly important -- but hidden -- personal relationships and highly complex political and social networking.
However, these attitudes are likely to shift as distribution strategy shifts more to "pull" from "push."
Procter and Gamble is not only the largest single client for many marketing research services, it has set the standards of excellence and introduced methodologies and analytic frameworks that have been universally accepted. Perhaps more important has been its training and support of marketing research organizations. These beneficiaries have become the professional pillars within China. We predict that Chinese corporations, witnessing the values of the research that P&G pioneered, will become much more receptive to the more standardized approaches and quantification algorithms.
Respondents
In the late 1980s, when marketing research first emerged in China, people generally did not hesitate to be interviewed. Highly curious and welcoming fresh experiences, they cooperated with interviewers. The refusal rate was very low.
In recent years, however, the fear of crime has grown, particularly in such large commercial and industrial cities as Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Citizens are suspicious of strangers coming to their doors. Many have installed security systems -- including alarms and expensive locks -- that make it more difficult for interviewers to gain access. Combined with the drop in curiosity and growth in boredom, this factor has led to an increase in refusal rates.
From a large scale study, we calculated these refusal rates, which include both refusing to open the door and refusing to be interviewed:
Guangzhou, 32.4%
Beijing, 21.8%
Shanghai, 10.0%
Chengdu, 4.8%
Wuhan, 21.3%
Successful methods for increasing cooperation rates include employing only those interviewers who can speak the local dialect, avoiding using male interviews, and strengthening training and supervision.
Sample design
China's population is about 1.2 billion of which 350 million are in urban areas (622 cities and scores of thousands of towns). Of the cities, 32 have populations of at least 1 million, 42 between 500,000 and 1 million, and the remaining 548 less than 500,000.
Almost all marketing research has been concentrated in the 74 cities having populations of at least 500,000. These cities are classified into two types:
-- National trade centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. Almost all national surveys include these four cities.
-- Secondary cities such as Wuhan, Chongqing, Kunming, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Jinan, Shengyang, Dalian, Xi'an, and Tianjin.
Sample sizes range from 200 to 400 per city, with a mode of 300.
Few marketing research surveys are conducted in smaller cities. Two exceptions:
1. Qualitative and small scale quantitative research in developed areas in such provinces as Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang, but almost never in inland areas.
2. Business-to-business projects. For example, EMR has recently completed a petroleum products project in 20 cities in Guangdong and Fujian provinces.
Almost no small towns or rural areas are included in marketing research projects. An exception is qualitative surveys occasionally conducted in suburban areas of the larger cities. These small towns and areas generally have primitive economies and are not attractive to manufacturers and service providers. Large distances between residences, low educational and literacy levels, and poor transportation are barriers.
Sample selection
Simple random sampling is not feasible because no well defined sampling frames exist for including all in the relevant population. Address lists are not readily available, and even if they were, the high rate of moving render them invalid.
The most popular sampling method is multi-stage random sampling: city area, street, neighborhood committee, household, person. For example, Guangzhou consists of eight geographic areas of which one is unsuitable because of its small, widely dispersed population and high mobility. The second level are streets within one or more areas. Every street has between 10 and 30 neighborhood committees, which comprise the third level.