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Quantitative Techniques-II

Notes Time Pressure

Marketing research must be conducted and completed within a given time-span. If more time is
consumed in conducting the research, competitors might enter and capture the market. The
research is concluded in a hurry, leading to lack of credibility due to the pressure exerted by the
clients on the researcher.

Testing of Hypothesis

Any hypothesis formed in M.R must be tested. Thus, experimentation has to be resorted to. In
marketing research, it is almost impractical to carryout experiment due to many factors which
come in the way. For instance, while measuring the impact of advertising on sales, it may so
happen that competitors have also advertise, resulting in lesser volume of sales. Also, it is
impossible to reproduce the same experiment. The reliability of research suffers on account.

Complexity of the Subject

The subject becomes very complex, due to the fact that it is human beings, who interact with the
researcher. Human reaction varies from time to time. Different individuals react differently for
a given stimuli. Added to this are the environmental factors and peer influence adding to the
complexity. Ads or promotions campaign held at different times yield different results due to
changed perceptions and reactions by audience. Due to all these reasons, we can say that marketing
research is complex.
Market researchers are subjected to pressure. The research is to be completed quickly before
competitors enter the market. Due to this pressure, reliability might suffer and face difficulty in
testing the hypothesis. Testing the hypothesis is the core in scientific research. In marketing, it
is very difficult to control external factors in the field.

Example: Measuring the effect of advertising on consumer behaviour. Here, the
advertising factor cannot be isolated from other factors such as change in the taste of customers
or action taken by competitors.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

7. ………….is the ability of a measuring instrument to measure what it is supposed to.
8. ………….implies that we must obtain similar result again when measured.
9. ……….....of measurement separates scientific and unscientific methods.

2.8 Research Process

Research process is the main content of marketing research. It defines marketing research and
describes the skills required to identify the problem, the decision alternatives, and the client's
needs, which are critical components of a research activities. The marketing research is expected
to understand the market information needs of decision makers, and on the other hand expected
to follow the proper processes and procedures for obtaining that information. Marketing research
process involves a number of inter-related activities which overlap and do not rigidly follow a
particular sequence. A researcher is often required to think a few steps ahead, because various
steps in research process are inter-woven into each other and each step will have some influence

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