TATA MOTORS MARKETING RESEARCH Essay Example

TATA MOTORS MARKETING RESEARCH

Introduction

Tata Motors Limited is the largest automobile in India. It is a leader in commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles in India. Passenger vehicle market has become attractive especially with the increase of middle class (Menon & Raj 2012). However, since its establishment, there has been a phenomenal decline in the sales and market share of the company due to the perception that Tata products are boring and have low-quality products when compared to cars produced by other manufacturers. However, to re-emerge in the industry, the company launched a new car «Tata Zest» which is aimed to reach the growing market for passenger vehicles. Tata Zest belongs to the passenger vehicles segment and is designed and enhanced on X1 platform. In fact, Zest is designed to offer high performance and connectivity and as a result it has received various awards such as ‘Zee Ignition Car of the Year’ award as well as the ‘Technology of the Year’ award.
The purpose of this study is to identify those consumers who have a high intention to purchase passenger vehicle in Australia.
The sample design within this research will include definition of research population, definition of the population frame and determination of the sampling approach.

Target Market

Zest Sedan has a diverse target market can be classified in both geographic and demographic segments. It targets people who want a four wheeler at an affordable price.

Geographic Segment

Cities (normal and Metropolitan)

These are customers in the cities with high traffic congestion. Tata Motors has introduced diesel powered Zest compact sedan that will be sold with an automated manual transmission. The automatic feature of Zest sedan has eased driving by eliminating the need for pressing clutch pedal frequently. In addition, Zest is a diesel car which provide fuel efficiency and thus is considered to be economical especially to regular users. Customers living in cities travel about 50km daily and they will need better leverage. Consumers living in cities who are likely to travel such distance regularly will enjoy the benefits of saving fuel reducing cost. Such customers who want to reduce cost as well as ease driving through automatic manual transmission should consider purchasing Zest sedan. Research shows that the sale of automatic cars is expected to rise, and Toto Motors has the opportunity to market its car to people who are switching from manual to automatic cars.

Demographics

Young professionals

Zest sedan is also targeted to the young people who prefer innovative and fashionable cars at a relatively low cost. The new Zest sedan has a new design, it has a well-sculpted body with additional features such as forward pouncing stance. The car also has a good balance in terms of sporty alloy wheels, the shoulder-line has a strong wedge and front is wide stretched. Another defining factor of Zest is vehicles interiors and emphasis on space and safety. The Zest sedan has high-tech features that make it attractive for tech savvy young people. Majority of consumers in this demographic are buying their first car, and thus they would be more interested with ease of driving and less maintenance costs (Wong 2013). Zest has a cluchtless gear and this provides ease in driving and it has a diesel engine that has low maintenance costs compared to petrol engine and this makes Zest sedan an ideal car for such customers.

Low and middle-income families

Zest sedan is positioned as affordable and which customer can rely on its product performance. Therefore, it is attractive to middle and low income families who want to purchase a passenger vehicle. Also, diesel engines have lower depreciation than petrol engines thus have a better resale value of old cars.

I would recommend Tata motor company to focus on the young working professionals in urban areas. Research shows that the urban middle class is growing and it is composed of young professionals, and this demographic is composed of people who love being ahead and tech savvy and would be delighted by high-tech features of Zest sedan for this demographic.

‘Population’ for a research study

The population of a research study is defined as a whole group from which a researcher collect information for the study which is determined by the objectives of the study. The first step in a research study is to ensure that the population of interest is defined clearly and completely as possible to ensure that all elements within the population are represented. According to Churchill (2001), the population refers a set of all objects that share common characteristics in regards to the research problem. Sekaran (2000) defines population as the whole group of interest that the researcher wants to investigate.

Defining a population for a research study involves two decisions. First, understanding what unit to study, that is, the ‘what’ that is to be counted. In this case, the research studies on Zest sedan the units that will be used is the consumers who are likely to purchase the newly launched passenger vehicle. The elements of the population in this research study on zest sedan are people who purchase the car, households, and geographical areas. Unfortunately, this information cannot be obtained from a single database. The units of the population will be identified from consumers above 18 years who are allowed to purchase a vehicle and those who satisfy the essential requirement to be considered to be Zest sedan consumer. The second decision used in defining the population of research is to define boundaries of the population: to determine which units will be included and those that will be excluded. The boundary will be based on the behavior of those who purchase passenger vehicle.

To define the population of this research study on Zest sedan, the researcher should solve several issues. First, the term consumer should be defined. In this study, a consumer is defined as a person who has entered into a contract for the purchase of the new Zest sedan. Therefore, the consumer must be at least 21 years of age. Second, the middle and low income of the consumer should also be defined. However, it is not easy to identify the level of income which would serve as the actual definition of middle and low income. The sampling frame will provide income ranges of the consumer and this enable the researcher to categorize middle and low income. Third, the geographical coverage of the study will also be defined. The study will concentrate on passenger vehicle purchases within Australia. In this research study, we will select a population of Australia that is likely to purchase Zest sedan as its passenger vehicle.

Therefore, we recommend that the universe of the study to be Tata Motors who are offering sedan in compact and midsize besides others segments cares in Australia. The study population includes the car owners who see the impacts of marketing strategies of Tata Motors on the consumers’ brand preference, satisfaction, and loyalty. Thus, the research population is thus defined was middle and low-income passenger vehicle consumers living in Australia.

Sampling Frame

Sampling frame is a list that defines set of elements in the population from which the researcher can select a sample (Hair, Bush & Ortinau 2003). Before defining the sampling frame for this research, it is necessary to understand the sampling unit. In this research study on Zest sedan, the element of the population was passenger vehicle purchases. The sampling frame should contain almost all the sampling units of the population of interest. In this research study, motor vehicle registration will be used to select a sample.

The list we wish to use as a sampling frame may have deficiencies because it had been completely compiled for a different reason. However, before the researcher adopt the above sampling frame, it is important to know why the list was compiled, the inclusion criteria and whether the list has been updated. The sampling frames for this study will be selected depending on the scope and purpose of the study conducted. In this case, the deficiency in the list cannot affect the results of the study and thus is satisfactory as a sampling frame for the research.

For instance, we can consider sampling frame used to illustrate the restrictions and opportunities of certain sampling frames. In this study, the desired population is middle and low-income passenger vehicle purchasers in Australia. This then raises the question of where we could find a list of middle and low-income passenger vehicle purchasers. The obvious source would then be motor vehicle registration list for Australia. However, due to confidentiality it would not be possible to access individual names and their demographics. Even if we would access their names, there is a problem of defining middle and low income.

In this study, we will also incorporate a list from Australia market research firm of the names and contact information of Australians who have bought a passenger car over the last three years. The list also details such as the consumer income, family size among other demographic variables. This list will provide the middle and low-income individuals that could otherwise not have been identified from motor vehicle registration list. This is to ensure the individual met the other criteria (middle and low income).

Sampling Approach

Sampling is done by the researcher in order to obtain a small sample from the population which is a representative of the entire population. It is therefore of some importance to ensure that the sample is representative of the entire population. In this research study, sampling is necessary because passenger vehicle users studies deal with large populations. It would be impossible to study all members of this population. A relatively small sample should be a representative of the estimates of population characteristics. However, the accuracy of the sample will depend on the method used to collect the sample of the study. There are two main sampling approaches: probability and nonprobability samples (Hair, Bush & Ortinau 2003). A probability sampling ensures that all the members of population have equal, nonzero chance to be selected. In fact, research shows that a probability sample is more likely to be a representative of the population. Various procedures can be used to ensure all units in the population have an equal probability of being chosen such as simple, stratified and systematic random sampling. In contrast, nonprobability sampling all members of a population does not have equal chance of being selected. The procedures for nonprobability samples include snowball, quota and judgement sampling.

In this research study for Zest Sedan, probability sampling method will be used because it provides samples that are more likely to produce a sample to more representative of the sampling frame, thus reducing sampling error. Consequently, the probability sample will be obtained from the research population frame. However, there are various types of probability sampling and thus to determine the most appropriate for this study, efficiency should be considered. In this research study, simple sampling was chosen as it provides the smallest sampling error (Churchill 2001).

Effectiveness of simple random sampling approach

Simple random sampling allows each unit of population to be assigned a number and then the numbers are sampled randomly (Churchill 2001). In this research study, from the sampling frame, we can identify the names and addresses of passenger vehicle purchasers. The researchers will create label associating with each person, and then a large random table can be used to select passenger vehicle purchasers from the same. This way each passenger vehicle owner will have equal, non-zero of getting selected. Finally, the researcher will then select which of the passenger vehicle owners will be invited to take part in the research. In this case, this would mean selecting the sample using random numbers from the random number table. As a result, the simple random would be an effective approach in this research as it is highly representative of the population being studied, assuming that there is limited missing data.

Conclusion

As Tata Motors is putting an effort to restore its market share to passenger vehicle segment, research is necessary to determine the characteristic of Zest sedan buyers in Australia. Conducting this research study, Tata motor can understand the market segment which is suitable for the new passenger vehicle. The first step was to determine the target market, and it is clear that young professionals with middle and low-income are likely to be the most suitable market for Zest sedan due to its price. The population of the study was recommended to be middle and low-income passenger vehicle owners in Australia. The most suitable frame that would ensure all elements are included will be obtained from Australia market research firm. Finally, a simple random sample will be used in this study as it is highly representative of the population being studied.

References List

Churchill, G A 2001, Basic Marketing Research (4th ed.). Australia: SouthWestern.

Hair, JF, Bush, R P. & Ortinau, D J 2003, Marketing Research: Within a Changing Information Environment (2nd ed.). Boston: McGrew-Hill.

Menon, B & Raj, J. 2012, Dominant partial least square factors of consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars,
Asian Journal Of Management Research, vol. 3 no. 1, pp. 83-99.

Wong, W.M. (2013). Consumers’ purchase intention of an automobile in Malaysia. Journal of Marketing Analytics, vol.1, no.3, pp 149–155.