Business Research - Jewellery Store - Scientific Method - Assessment Answer

Business Research Assignment

Assignment Task

Introduction

A1: Prior to foraying into any new market or establishing any new business venture, it is an absolute must that the organization conducts thorough market research. This needs to be done so that the industry category in the particular geographical area could be studied to identify market strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Like for instance, prior to opening up branches of a jewelry store in a new location, the company needs to analyze and see if there is scope for a jewelry product in that location. Moreover, it needs to be determined whether the venue where the store is going to be located needs to have a store with the product portfolio such as the one they have. The market’s target crowd needs to be reviewed as well – what kind of buyers come into the area etc. All these factors need to be deliberated before arriving at a decision.

A2: When expanding a business, there are multiple challenges that need to be tackled. With regards to the jewelry business identified here, one of the first challenges is to keep up with the market activities and trend (Hair, 2015). Every geographical location boasts of its own market strengths and vulnerabilities – assessing them is very important. Market research needs to be a continual endeavor else businesses run the risk of expanding on market knowledge which may be outdated and cause business failure thus (Hair, 2015) For instance, the population of Adelaide is 1.37 million (2017) and Melbourne’s is 4.84 million (2017). Clearly, Melbourne has more customers that the business can target. Also, in terms of retail markets, Melbourne registered a growth of 4.6 percent in 2016, compared to Adelaide which was 3.5 percent. Again, Melbourne’s figures suggest that it is better option for expanding the business. Secondly, planning ahead is very critical for a growing business (Hair, 2015). Thus, the business needs to devise business plan and strategy accordingly as the business focus is likely to change from customer to business expansion. Thirdly, and most important, availability of cash flows and financial investments need to be considered at length (Hair, 2015). As it is a jewelry store, jewelry design and manufacturing, supply costs need to be considered.

A3. In context to the jewelry business, product-oriented research alludes to studying the market to assess market scope for the product (Zikmund et al., 2013). Markets of Adelaide as well as areas of Melbourne need to be studied to gauge which city has increased demand for jewelry items. Similarly production-oriented research needs to be carried out to understand whether the quality of product can be maintained or procured better (Zikmund et al., 2013). In comparison, Marketing-oriented research (surveys etc.) would not work for a jewelry business. This decision is relevant to the business in the sense that it provides a detailed overview about market and market conditions for jewelry products (Zikmund et al., 2013).

A4: Constraints identified include:

• Time investment for research
• Availability of cost
• Budget
• Benefits versus cost

A5: The seven steps of the scientific method are (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016):

• Observe
• Conduct Research
• Form hypothesis
• Test hypothesis
• Record data
• Draw conclusion
• Replicate