Question

Café Amazon was founded in 2002 from the vision of executives of PTT (Public) Company Limited who are aware of opportunities to enhance marketing competency of PTT gas station. As a result, the concept was set to be the business in PTT gas station which generates income to PTT gas station and meet the lifestyle of consumers and travelers. "Café Amazon" brand awareness starts from the concept that Brazil is the origin of coffee and the land of Amazon forest, which is the world’s best natural rainforest, abounding with charms of the great nature, plants, trees, streams and wildlife. It is also the source of clean air. Such concept is applied to create a coffee shop with shady atmosphere surrounded by trees and water. Throughout the years, Café Amazon has been developed to be the meeting area and recreation for travelers. It is decorated with green tone, presenting natural image by using gardens and fountains to create cozy, relaxing and shady atmosphere. This is the unique identity of Cafe Amazon, like an Oasis of travelers. With its unique and rich taste of coffee, it becomes the slogan, “Taste of Nature". (source: http://www.cafe-amazon.com/about.aspx?Lang=EN&PageID=1)
Café Amazon’s Store Design Department contacted you, a Marketing Research Consultant, to do research and help their future plans. They are interested in investigating and planning an expansion into large shopping mall stores in Thailand. Currently Cafe Amazon coffee chain has 2,800 stores across Thailand and 200 branches in Singapore, China and Oman (source: Nasdaq.com). They know, however, that customer demand is going to be different in the large shopping mall stores. In the gas stations, they serve many people that are merely passing by and filling their gas tanks. This is not the case in the large shopping mall stores plans, where they serve more at-leisure people. They want to create a new product basket that is more relevant for this group of people. Therefore, what they are interested in finding is what is the best product basket and service range for people who will spend a lot of time in their shopping mall stores. Your contribution will impact their future expansion strategy.
The marketing department has thus, contacted you, Stamford Research and Consultant to conduct marketing research to find out the reason/s and actionable solutions to this situation.

1. What seems to be the problem here? Is there a problem that can clearly be defined now? If there is a problem that can be determined now, please, construct a problem statement. If not what can we do? (5 points)

2. What type of research design/s would you recommend and why? If you choose more than 1 type, please, state clearly the various designs you choose for each phase and the reasons. Please, specify reasons. (5 points)

3. Would you recommend quantitative or qualitative research (or both) for the design/s or phase/s you have chosen? Please, specify reasons. (5 points)

4. Which research technique/s would you recommend for the design/s or phase/s you have chosen? What tool/s would you recommend for such method/s? Please, specify reasons. (3 points)

5. After devising the entire research project, what is your main impression about the situation – the fact that in shopping malls they expect product baskets to be different? This refers to your feelings, your pointers, and previous knowledge to explain the situation (2 points).

CASE study, business research

Answer 1

Answering first 4 questions as HOMEWORKLIB's guidelines.

1. Problem statement : To identify the different and diverse customer requirements of the new prospective market base in shopping malls and craft the existing product offering to them .

The problem is that the current product offering - products designed for travelers in gas stations, quicker options, fast food, take-away options etc. need to be restructured to suit a different customer profile - someone who goes to malls in their leisure time, wants to take time to savour their coffee, would likely prefer to sit down and enjoy a cup slowly rather than take away the coffee. The key things you need are to identify this new customer profile and target audience, revise the products accordingly, market the products to the new target base (pricing, promotions etc.), devise how best to launch the stores/products.

2. A mix of qualitative and quantitative research designs would be the best way to gauge the customer profile and requirements.

Qualitative research would help to understand what type of customers they can target, and what these customers want/need from their products - as in 'why' a customer might walk into cafe amazon in a mall e.g. mum and child might stop in just to rest their legs and to order a coffee and milkshake. This will help to understand the customer profile they should target and how they should structure their products and marketing accordingly.

Quantitative research will help to gauge what type of products will be preferred by customers e.g. men might prefer espresso while women might prefer cappuccino. Identifying # of customers and the products they might opt for will be a way to refine the product range and gear it to the customers for maximum sales/profit.

The different phases for the research project would be - data collection, measurement and analysis, all of which will need to be put through quantitative and qualitative cycles.

3. Both qualitative and quantitative research is needed for the phases to ensure all requirements are sought and obtained from customers and the relationship between the requirements is understood.

Data collection - Ensure the right details are being collected to analyse and used in decision-making.

Use descriptive design to reach out to customers to show them why they are being interviewed/asked for feedback. This will help the customers provide more clear inputs.

i.e. ask customers why they like cafe amazon, what they like to drink, when and how;

Use experimental design to get inputs on what would make customers walk into their stores - would they come in if there was air-conditioning or free wi-fi

Measurement -

Use Survey research to collect data from various sources to get a more statistical view of what customers might want and how best to get it to them.

Causal research is a way to identify possible triggers that will prompt prospective customers to make sales.

Analysis - Use a mix of quantitative methods such as SWOT and Text analysis

SWOT - Knowing who the prime competition is on the same floor/mall will help them know what location to select.

Text - Knowing if customers will order more coffees on colder days or if the music volume is lower in the store will help to design the store and products to customers' tastes from their social media posts.

4. Techniques/tools

Data collection

- Use Random sampling to collect data from existing visitors to the mall, existing customers in other stores

- Use interviews to collect qualitative data

- Use surveys or polls to collect quantitative data

Measurement

- Measure customer satisfaction

- Poll results to know how many customers like/dislike a product/service

- Survey results on what the top 5 favourite products are, what new products customers would like, why they love/hate cafe amazon or their closest competitor

Analysis

SWOT to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that their new stores might face.

Text analysis of social media posts, interview content, body language etc. to understand the unspoken requirements of a customer