This paper presents an applied market research in a company in the steel-mechanical industry. The objective of the same is to know the needs of the clients in order to contribute to the increase in the level of service provision.
For the development of the work, the Market Research Methodology designed by Philip Kotler was applied. A set of empirical methods and instruments of scientific knowledge were used. Based on the background that was affecting market satisfaction, the problem and the hypothesis to be demonstrated were defined, obtaining favorable results.
ABSTRACT
This work presented an Investigation of Markets who was carried out in an enterprise belong to the sidero-mechanic industry. The objective is to know the needs of the clients to contributing to increment the organizational acting. The work was developed applying the Methodology of Investigation Market designed by Philips Kotler. It was applied to a group of methods and empiric instruments of the scientific knowledge. Starting from the study of the antecedents that were affecting the amplification of the market, it was defined the problem and the hypothesis to demonstrate, obtaining favorable results.
KEY WORDS: INVESTIGATION, MARKET, DESIGN, KEYWORDS SERVICE: INVESTIGATION, MARKET, DESIGN, SERVICE INTRODUCTION
Currently, business activities have been perfected, due to the increase in new methods and techniques that allow progress with the gradual development of science and technology, giving a revolutionary twist to the knowledge of the business system to face the technological contributions of man in the search for efficiency and effectiveness in the contemporary world and, in turn, promote competition, the quality of services, products and commercial activities.
Companies are challenged to work efficiently without neglecting the human component of production, the main factor in their social project, based on an adequate production or service system that allows the levels of efficiency and competitiveness necessary to meet current needs. from customers. For this, among other elements, it is necessary to break paradigms and develop logical strategies and models to influence and achieve success in the environment, also increasing creativity, speed, efficiency, confidence, security and intelligence. Currently, services are the predominant sector in the world, which is why it is necessary to pay high interest to them since they have a significant relevance in the economic sector.
This difficult context is the entity under study, giving way to the present investigation. The organization presents a lack of opportunity in the service of customers' boilers, fundamentally those that are not geographically close to it, since it is the only service station in charge of serving the entire province. There is a growing market demand for the organization's services, but it does not have the necessary conditions to satisfy it, so it is in a scenario of greater demand than supply. This results in a delay in meeting customer needs, non-compliance with maintenance contracts and a low capacity to respond to unforeseen events, all of which translates into quantitatively and qualitatively dissatisfied customers.
To revert this situation, the entity raised the need to carry out a market study to evaluate the feasibility of creating service delivery units that allow achieving customer satisfaction with the required quality and opportunity, thus increasing performance and prestige. of the organization.
MARKET STUDY FOR THE DESIGN OF A UNIT OF TECHNICAL SERVICES 1. Characterization of the entity under study
The company belongs to the iron and steel industry, it is a leader in its market, with only two competitors in the province, it serves clients from more than a dozen municipalities from the same unit, all of them are state organizations, in their Most with different dependencies called base units.
The entity under study provides the wide range of services shown below:
- Provide diagnostic services, assembly, commissioning, repair, maintenance and recovery of spare parts and accessories to steam generation and refrigeration systems, thermal fluid boilers, waste and water treatment plants, cooling towers, swimming pools and accessories, technological networks and pressure vessels, assembly and installation of kitchens, laundries and their technological networks, both steam and thermal oil. Produce and commercialize, in a wholesale manner, boilers, equipment and associated parts for technological assembly, as well as well as chemical formulas and reagents for water treatment.
The entity's mission is defined and expressed as follows:
"Provide services to thermoenergetic and industrial facilities that achieve the satisfaction of our clients, starting with having the appropriate technology, and a high technical level and experience of the personnel, in a way that allows us to achieve a high participation in the internal market. "
The organization is made up of a total workforce of 49 workers, which, in correspondence with market demands, is made up of almost 90% of the same in the occupational categories of technicians and operators. This staff did not cover the needs of the market, not only of its formal clients with whom contracts had been signed, but it was no longer serving potential clients who expressed interest in receiving the company's services.
Market segmentation
We proceeded to divide the market into well-defined groups of consumers, carrying out a geographic segmentation, based on the size of the company's reach to the market and the amount of demand from customers in those geographical areas for the services of the entity under study. Reaching a stipulation of the possible places where the different service units in charge of said market segments would be located.
As a first step, we proceeded by analyzing the geographical distribution of clients to group them in four areas: northeast (I), northwest (II), southeast (III) and east (IV). From them, service requests from the last 4 years were collected from all clients.
Then we proceeded to classify the services through a matrix that measures the profitability of the product (figure 1), attending to three essential variables that characterize them. The first was the service execution time, which was classified into three categories:
| Classification | Criteria |
| Length (L) | More than 1 week |
| Medium (M) | Between 3 days and a week |
| Short (C) | Less than 3 days |
Table 1. Classification of the variable: Time
Source: self made
The second variable selected for analysis was the number of times that clients requested each of these services for a period of one year. The classification criterion determined by the work team was that it should correspond to the execution time of the same by which established the following classification:
| Classification | Long time period | Average time period | Short time period |
| High (A) | ≥ 10 times / year | ≥ 24 times / year | ≥ 36 times / year |
| Low (B) | <10 times / year | <24 times / year | <36 times / year |
Table 2. Classification of the variable: Quantity
Source: self made
Finally, the third variable was classified: Profit margin (MU) in the categories of high (a) and low (b). Once the classifications of the variables and the necessary criteria were defined, the results were processed in the profitability matrix of the services (Figure 1), where the variables studied for each service offered by the company are listed:
| Attributes | characteristics | |||||||||||||
| Quantity | high | high | high | high | high | high | Low | Low | Low | Low | Low | Low | ||
| MU | Tall | Low | Tall | Low | Tall | Low | Tall | Low | Tall | Low | Tall | Low | ||
| Weather
Correlations |
Long | Medium | Short | Long | Medium | Short | ||||||||
| I | II | III | IV | V | SAW | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | |||
Figure 1. Specific matrix of profitability of services
Source: Adapted from Robbins, SP (1996)
On the basis of the specific matrix, its 12 correlations were located and based on them, the services offered by the organization under study were classified (Annex 1) and their relationship is located in the generic matrix (Figure 2). The latter consists of the following quadrants:
Maximum profitability: It is located in the upper right part, it contains the products that, as its name implies, generate the highest levels of profitability for the company, since they are highly demanded and give a high profit margin. Five products that the entity offers are located in it, which have generated 48% of total revenues during the last 4 years (Annex 2). The strategy adopted for these products is to maintain their own characteristics and not make sudden changes that may affect their image in the market.
This characteristic is highly correlated with the variable: Degree of complexity of the service. His regression analysis is not shown, considering that what is fundamental is the result of this correlation for the classification of the variable: Time
The classification criteria for this variable are not published by request of the organization under study.
Generic matrix of profitability of services
Figure 2. Generic matrix of profitability of services
Source: Adapted from Boston Consulting Group
Consecrated profitability: The services located in the upper left quadrant are those that are in high demand but do not generate high profit margins for the company. The organization has five services in this situation that generate a third of the company's income. The strategy outlined for them was to identify and exploit the productivity reserves that they may contain, carry out analyzes in order to add value to them and also seek their efficiency so that it is reflected in the profits that they can provide.
Potential profitability: Services with a low market share but that generate a high contribution margin. The company owns six products in this quadrant, representing almost a fifth of revenue. The strategy designed for them was to increase their participation in the market, through advertising and some promotional actions that make the market or certain important segments of it known, the offer of these services and the benefits they provide.
Minimum profitability: The services are located with a low participation in the markets and that offer a low profit margin, they exhibit a poor performance so they generate very low profits and sometimes they only become affordable. The company has two services of this type, which only pay 3% of the entity's total cash. Two courses of action were proposed to the organization under study. One is to discover a niche that the service can master to increase its profitability to the maximum possible. The other is to try to modify and (or) improve the service to increase its acceptance in the market.
Once the organization's services are classified, a diagnosis of the level of service offered by the organization is carried out to find out how it was being projected in the market. The level of service offered (NSof) was calculated, to determine the possibility that the company has to operate for a given time without affecting the quantity, opportunity and quality. The variable quantity reflects the relationship between the total requests for services made by customers and those that were actually met by the company; the opportunity denotes the link between the real requests that were attended by the entity and those that were made within the agreed term; and the qualityrefers to the number of customer complaints and claims that are documented in the company by each of the four segments initially declared, which are indicated as failures, among the total number of services offered by the organization (Annex 3).
It is considered valid to summarize the difference between the segments. For this, it must start from the analysis that the company is located in the northeast area (I) of the province, and that also the northwest area (II)It is an area of high income for belonging to the tourism sector with a high demand for the services of the entity, the other segments are those that are farthest from the company which influences that its service level is 39.3 and 25.53 % for the southeast and east segments respectively, caused by the low opportunity of the services offered by the organization under study, whose results are only 45 and 30% respectively in relation to that variable. This reaffirms the need to create service units to help improve the performance of the company with its clients.
Due to the unequal share of income of the different segments, it was decided to divide the northwest (II) area into two, leaving a segment called northwest (II) and another that was named Tourist Destination (v), therefore, according to geographic segmentation in relation to the income share and the volume of work they require, five market segments were defined.
Application of the methodology
Based on the foregoing, the market research methodology designed by Phillip Kotler, 1987 is applied; to the eastern market segment (IV), it consists of the 9 steps shown in figure 3.
Step 1. Establish information needs
This is a critical and difficult phase in the process, as managers often react to hunches rather than clearly defined situations. The researcher must attend conscientiously for what the information is required, it is important before establishing the type of information that would facilitate decision making.
In order to carry out this work, the need for management to obtain ordinary and coherent information for decision-making regarding the feasibility of the design of new service units and its predicted effect on the entity's performance was taken into account. Taking into account two very important aspects, customer satisfaction and market expansion. So it is necessary to carry out a market study in order to increase the profits of this organization as well as the relationships with its clients, that is why it is raised as a problem:
Insufficient knowledge of the company's real market affects compliance with customer demand
Market investigation procedure
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Kotler, P. (1987)
Figure 3. Market research procedure
Source: Adapted from Kotler, 1987
Step 2. Specify the objectives of the investigation
These answer the question why this project is going to be carried out, they are usually written before doing the research..
After posing the problem to be investigated, the goal or objective on which the research process will be developed must be drawn, so the following has been drawn as a general objective :
Carry out an investigation into the real market with the objective of knowing if the creation of technical service units is able to meet customer demands and in turn contributes to improving the entity's performance.
In accordance with the aforementioned research elements, the following specific objectives were established:
- Determine the main dissatisfactions with the service provided Identify possible improvements Determine according to customer requirements if the creation of technical service units is feasible
Step 3. Determine the sources of information
In this step, it is determined if the available data comes from internal or external sources. If these do not meet the information needs, the investigator should examine the research design to verify its accuracy.
Once the information needs, the objective and the need for the investigation have been determined, the most experienced and (or) competent specialists and workers will be used as internal sources, as well as the review of the entity's documents, mainly requests for the services of the clients, in addition information will be obtained from the plaintiffs through surveys and interviews.
Step 4. Develop formats for information gathering
An effective link should be established between the information needs and the questions to be asked or the observations to be recorded, the success of the study would depend on this link.
In this case, the survey method was used (Annex 4). To apply it, 100% of the clients with a legal contract with the company in the territory were taken due to the small number of the population to be studied and in order to avoid estimation errors. In order to know the reliability of this instrument, an analysis was performed on it, calculating the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, using version 15.0 of the SPSS, which yielded a value of 0.823, considering the instrument applied as this coefficient higher. than 0.70 (Annex 5).
The survey is made up of 8 questions that relate from the frequency with which the client requests the service, response time of the entity under study in the event of unforeseen events, to the services that the clients wish to contract. In them, they were asked the necessary information to know the degree of satisfaction with the services provided by the organization, an aspect that can provide important elements to identify opportunities for improvement. Step 5. Design the sample
Because the population to be studied was not extensive, 100% of it was selected, the 9 clients with whom they had a legal contract in the eastern segment.
Collect the data:
To carry out this step, all the data designed in the survey were collected, for which all the selected organizations were visited, where in addition to applying the questionnaires to the chosen people, conversations were also held with them to thus feed on opinions about the service provided by the entity under study.
Process the data:
The tabulation of the survey results was used using the professional software SPSS version 15.0 and through the Microsoft Office Excel package, revealing the results in the graphs shown in Annex 5.
Analyze the data:
After having used the methods referred to in the previous step, the summary of the data obtained through the surveys that relate the state of opinion of the selected clients within the real market was carried out, then it is related from the point of quantitative view of the same.
Customer opinion status
Questions were prepared to know the customer's opinion about the services provided by the company through which the following results were determined:
According to the results of the same, 100% of the clients of the territory stated that they demand the services of the organization between fortnightly and monthly, which translates into a high content of work for the entity under study.
More than half of the respondents express that the services offered by the organization are never timely, and a third of them state that they rarely are.
45% of clients state that they must wait more than a week to receive the entity's services in the event of any unforeseen event, and 33% state that they receive it within 3 days to a week, lacerating notably the vitality of the economy in the territory, and weighing down damage to such sensitive sectors as health, education and the iron and steel and food industries.
In contrast to this situation, 100% of the respondents stated that the quality of the company is excellent or very good. This reflects that the organization's problems are not affected by the quality of the service they provide.
89% of those surveyed stated that one of the reasons for not receiving the company service at the time they requested it was because there were no workers available at the time because they were providing their services in other entities.. 33% of the clients also stated that another cause was the lack of accommodation to provide the workers of the organization under study, and the other cause manifested by the clients was the non-existence on the first occasion that they requested the services of the entity of an employment contract, so it did not have priority over other clients who demanded services in a coinciding period of time.
On the basis of these analyzes obtained through the processing of the surveys, it can be summarized that the problem raised in the present investigation is confirmed.
Finally, it is pointed out that the results of the survey are consistent with the analysis carried out at the service level of the company through the review of the entity's documents.
Present the results of the investigation:
A report was prepared on the results of the research, which is summarized in this publication. Providing the organization under study as a tool for effective decision-making, recommending the gradual and effective implementation of the results obtained.
Conclusions
- The information needs of the organization are met by complying with the research object The market was segmented according to geographic criteria into five segments Services were classified according to their profitability for the organization under study and strategies were drawn up to increase it The service level of the company is low, mainly due to the lack of opportunity The main causes reflected by the customers of the segment analyzed with respect to the low level of service are: the lack of available workers when they request the service and the problems of lodging for them The service it offers the provincial company does not fully satisfy the real market demand
Bibliography
- Aguirre, MA (2000). »What is Marketing?» {online} Campus. Org. Marketing
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Kotler, P. (1987)
Annex 1. Classification of services according to the Profitability Matrices of Services
Annex 2. Share of revenue from services by quadrant of the generic matrix of profitability of services
Annex 3. Level of service offered by the company
Annex 3. Level of service offered by the company
Thank you very much!
Annex 5. Analysis of the survey applied to the clients of company “X”
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