How To Do A Project

1
Girish Ketkar “How to Do a Project?” (SBUP 2022-24) (Abridged Version) April 9, 2023
Businesses,
products,
Industry services
Customers
information
Collect
information
Future plans Competitors
about the
company
Revenue,
Top
profitability,
management
History, market share
growth
2
 Websites of
▪ Company
▪ Competitors
▪ Industry bodies
▪ Government’s regulatory bodies
 Annual reports of company and competitors
 News and articles about company, competitors, industry
 Top management interviews, speeches
3
 Reasons
▪ What prompted the company to initiate this project?
 Expected benefits
▪ How will the project help the company?
▪ What decisions will be based on its results?
▪ How will it contribute to company’s top-line / bottom-line?
 Deliverables
▪ What outputs does the company expect from you?
4
 Prospecting / lead generation
 Sales
 BTL promotion
▪ Distribution of stickers, brochures to be placed at point of sale
▪ Product demos and samples
▪ Setting up kiosks in societies
 Assist in product launch
5
 What if your company does not assign a marketing research
project to you?
 Then you will have to identify one!
 Let’s learn from some alumni of SBUP …
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 MR project identified by the student
▪ Analysis of buying behaviour and consumption pattern of
buttermilk
 Project scope
▪ Ascertain awareness level of company’s buttermilk in Wakad
▪ Identify demographic and socio-economic factors influencing
purchase of buttermilk in Wakad
▪ Estimate average daily volume of buttermilk sold in Wakad
 MR project identified by the student

▪ Study of customers’ investment behaviour w.r.t. ULIP vis-à-vis
other financial products
 Project scope
▪ Understand customers’ preference towards ULIP as an
investment option
▪ Identify parameters which customers evaluate before investing
in ULIP
▪ Measure level of satisfaction of customers with special reference
to ULIP
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 Brand perception survey
 Demand forecasting
 Customer satisfaction survey
 Survey of retailers’ expectations and satisfaction
 Survey of customers’ expectations and perceptions of service
quality
You and your friends are working on research papers.

What research areas do these research papers cover?
 Consult your company mentor and SBUP mentor
 Choose a marketing research project that
▪ Complements the company-assigned project
▪ Can be done along with the company-assigned project, and
▪ Will be of value to the company

▪ This will help you get required support from the company
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 Semester I
▪ Business Research Methods
▪ Business Statistics
▪ Business Modelling Using Excel
 Semester II
▪ Quantitative Techniques
▪ Marketing Research
▪ Data Visualisation using Tableau
▪ Statistical Data Analysis Using R Package
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 Carry the textbooks and your notes of these subjects with
you to the place of your internship!
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 You don’t cut mangoes before washing them

 You don’t iron clothes before washing them
 Similarly…
 Don’t write hypotheses before defining research objectives

 Don’t decide on research design before finalizing hypotheses
 Don’t design questionnaire before finalizing research design
 Don’t decide recommendations before analysing data
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 Pay attention to how you
▪ Specify the topic
▪ Identify the problem and write the problem statement
▪ Frame the research objectives
▪ Formulate the hypotheses
• Understanding consumers’ car • A Study of Factors Influencing

buying behaviour Buying Behaviour of Four Wheeler
Electric Vehicles in Maharashtra
Or
• Analysis of Role of Branding in
Consumer Buying Behaviour in Car
Purchase in Bihar
Or
• A Study of Factors Affecting
Automobile Buying Behaviour of
Women Customers in Tamil Nadu
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• To understand retailer satisfaction • To measure the level of retailers’

with ABC cold-drink satisfaction with ABC cold-drink
and competitors about
– Price to retailers, packaging, offers,
credit policies, ordering process,
delivery, marketing support and
complaints handling
• To identify the factors which have

maximum impact on retailers’
satisfaction
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Assess the quality of your questionnaire
Quality of questionnaire has direct and significant impact on
quality of data, its analysis, findings, recommendations…
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 Ask all necessary questions

▪ Are you collecting all the data required to test all hypotheses
and meet all research objectives?
 Don’t ask unnecessary questions

▪ Don’t collect data if you are not going to analyse and use it
 Judiciously decide which questions should be mandatory and

which need not be
 Assign serial numbers to questions
 Check spellings, grammar, punctuation marks
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 Include some open-text/free-form/open-ended questions

▪ Closed-ended questions
▪ Respondents choose from pre-defined set of options
▪ Quantitative data
▪ Open-ended questions
▪ Respondents can freely express their feelings and suggestions
▪ Qualitative data
▪ Better understanding of ‘voice of customer’
 Frame your questions correctly and clearly
▪ “State your income”
▪ “State your annual family income (Rs.)”
▪ Don’t ask for exact income

Instead, give ranges and ask to choose one of the ranges
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 Label the scales
▪ “Please rate your satisfaction level with XYZ product”
1 2 3 4 5
Neither
Extremely Somewhat satisfied, nor Somewhat Extremely
dissatisfied dissatisfied dissatisfied satisfied satisfied
1 2 3 4 5
 Be clear about difference between ranking and rating

▪ Rating:
▪ “Please indicate your satisfaction with features of the motorcycle
that you own.”
▪ Ranking
▪ “How important are following features to you while choosing a
motorcycle? Please rank the features from most important (rank 1)
to least important (rank 4).”
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 Be clear about types of scales

▪ Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio
 Do you know what kind of data analyses can be and cannot

be done in each of these scales?
 Do a pilot study
▪ Administer the questionnaire on a small sample
▪ Assess how well your research methodology and questionnaire
are working
▪ Revise your research methodology and questionnaire based on
your assessment
▪ And then administer the questionnaire on entire sample
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 Pilot study helps you to
▪ Test your research methodology
▪ Check completeness and accuracy of your questionnaire
▪ Verify whether respondents are able to understand and
interpret the questions correctly
▪ Assess whether respondents are able to respond to questions
▪ Uncover any other issues/problems
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 You have learned many tools and techniques
Cluster analysis ANOVA MANOVA Conjoint Analysis
Regression analysis Discriminant Analysis
Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient
Cross tabulations Frequency tables
Factor analysis F test Z test Chi-Square test
 Don’t use a tool or a technique just because you know it
 Decide which tools/techniques are relevant, and which aren’t
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 Using a tool or a technique is not enough
 You must be able to interpret the outputs/results
 For example: Factor Analysis

▪ Don’t just show
▪ Correlation Matrix, or
▪ Results of KMO & Bartlett’s Test, or
▪ Scree Plot
▪ Explain what these mean in the context of the
company/market/brand/product that you are researching
 Title
 Research problem
 Research objectives
 Hypotheses
 Findings and inferences
 Recommendations
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 Semester I
▪ Marketing Management
▪ Sales & Distribution Management
▪ Consumer Behaviour
 Semester II
▪ B2B Marketing
▪ Services Marketing
▪ Product Management
▪ Marketing Analytics
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 If you don’t understand something …

▪ Do some self-study
▪ Try to find answers yourself
▪ If you still have doubts, seek help
 Remember …
▪ Not understanding something isn’t a crime
▪ Not making an effort to understand, is
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 Every day, note down what you learnt that day
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 Before you say “farewell” to the company …
▪ Thank everyone
▪ Boss, mentor, HR folks, colleagues, canteen staff, security guards,
dealers, retailers, customers …
▪ Tell them how their guidance and cooperation contributed to

▪ your learning, and
▪ the success of your project
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1

 Then you will have to identify one!

 Let’s learn from some alumni of SBUP …

 MR project identified by the student

You and your friends are working on research papers.

 Consult your company mentor and SBUP mentor

 Choose a marketing research project that

▪ Complements the company-assigned project

▪ Can be done along with the company-assigned project, and

▪ Will be of value to the company

 You don’t cut mangoes before washing them

 Don’t write hypotheses before defining research objectives

▪ Specify the topic

▪ Identify the problem and write the problem statement

▪ Frame the research objectives

▪ Formulate the hypotheses

• Understanding consumers’ car • A Study of Factors Influencing

• To understand retailer satisfaction • To measure the level of retailers’

• To identify the factors which have

Assess the quality of your questionnaire

Quality of questionnaire has direct and significant impact on

quality of data, its analysis, findings, recommendations…

 Ask all necessary questions

 Don’t ask unnecessary questions

Assess the quality of your questionnaire

 Judiciously decide which questions should be mandatory and

 Assign serial numbers to questions

 Check spellings, grammar, punctuation marks

 Include some open-text/free-form/open-ended questions

Assess the quality of your questionnaire

 Frame your questions correctly and clearly

▪ “State your income”

▪ “State your annual family income (Rs.)”

▪ Don’t ask for exact income

 Label the scales

▪ “Please rate your satisfaction level with XYZ product”

Assess the quality of your questionnaire

 Be clear about difference between ranking and rating

 Be clear about types of scales

 Do you know what kind of data analyses can be and cannot

Cluster analysis ANOVA MANOVA Conjoint Analysis

Regression analysis Discriminant Analysis

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient

Cross tabulations Frequency tables

Factor analysis F test Z test Chi-Square test

 Don’t use a tool or a technique just because you know it

 Decide which tools/techniques are relevant, and which aren’t

 You must be able to interpret the outputs/results

 For example: Factor Analysis

 If you don’t understand something …

▪ Tell them how their guidance and cooperation contributed to

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