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Unit 4: Research Problem

Self Assessment Notes

Fill in the blanks:
4. A good topic should be small enough for a ..........................investigation.
5. The research problem undertaken for study must be ....................... selected.

4.3 Understanding Problem

Once the problem has been selected, the same has to be understood thoroughly and then the
same has to be reframed into meaningful terms from an analytical point of view. The first step
in research is to formulate the problem. A company manufacturing television sets might think
that it is losing sales to a foreign company. A brief illustration aptly demonstrates how such
problem can be ill-conceived. The management of a company felt, a drop in sales was because of
the poor quality of product. Subsequently, research was undertaken with a view to improve the
quality of the product. But despite an improvement in quality, sales did not pick up. In this case,
we may say that the problem is ill-defined. The actual reason was ineffective sales promotion.
The problem thus needs to be carefully identified. Marketing problem which needs research can
be classified into two categories:
1. Difficulty related problems
2. Opportunity related problems, while the first category produces negative results such as,
decline in market share or sales, the second category provides benefits.
Problem definition might refer to either a real-life situation or it may also refer to a set of
opportunities. Market research problems or opportunities will arise under the following
circumstances: (1) Unanticipated change (2) Planned change. Many factors in the environment
can create problems or opportunities. Thus, changes in the demographics, technological and
legal changes affect the marketing function. Now the question is how the company responds to
new technology, or product introduced by the competitor or how to cope with the changes in
life-styles. It may be a problem and at the same time, it can also be viewed as an opportunity. In
order to conduct research, the problem must be defined accurately.
While formulating the problem, clearly define:
1. Who is the focus?
2. What is the subject-matter of research?
3. To which geographical territory/area the problem refers to?
4. To which period does the study pertains to?

Example: “Why does the upper-middle class of Bangalore shop at Life-style during the
Diwali season”?
Here all the above four aspects are covered. We may be interested in a number of variables due
to which shopping is done at a particular place. The characteristic of interest to the researcher
may be (1) Variety offered at life-style (2) Discount offered by way of promotion (3) Ambience
at the life-style and (4) Personalised service offered. In some cases, the cause of the problem is
obvious whereas in others the cause is not so obvious. The obvious causes are the products being
on the decline. Not so obvious causes could be a bad first experience for the customer.

4.4 Necessity of Defined Problem

Defining a research problem properly is a prerequisite for any study and is a step of the highest
importance. A problem well defined is half solved. Defining the problem is often more essential
than its solution because when the problem is formulated, an appropriate technique can be applied

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