Introduction

McDonald is a USA based world leading past Food Company. They have their business 100+ countries in the world. Their main products are hamburger, pizza, chicken and other past food items. The marketing intelligence for McDonald is described in this study including about consumers and business buyer behavior, buying decision process, branding, company image and their relation with repeat purchasing. Types of market research techniques, sources of secondary data, reliability and validity of research findings are also discussed in this study. McDonald has huge opportunity to improve and hold their brand. These opportunities as well as threats of McDonald are also described in this assignment. A customer survey is designed in order to find out customer feedback abut the company and their product. How McDonald can find out their customer response rate is also described with related techniques.

Describe the main stages of the purchase decision-making process.

While buying a product almost all of the customers go through a purchase decision making process. This process helps them to find out the actual product they are searching for. Customers of McDonald are also go through these process while buying any product. The stages in purchase decision making process are given below:

Need Recognition is occur when a consumer wants to buy a product and feel need for it. For example, while McDonald custo9mers feel need for a McDonald pizza then its known as need recognition for their customer to this product.

Information Search after recognizing needs for a product customers of McDonald then try to find out some information about that product as product brand image, brand loyalty, durability, quality and so on.

Evaluation of Alternatives searching for information about the product, customer as well as search for alternative that can substitutes the product if it have a negative feedback about its brand image or it is fail to fulfil the need of the customer.

Purchase is occur only when the consumer find positive information about the product. A customer of McDonald only the pizza of them when he knows that it is healthy as well as testy.

Post Purchase Service occur mostly for durable goods. It indicates that a consumer will get service even after he buys the product. If a pizza is out of date and the customer notice it after buying McDonald should have to change it or back the money.

1.2 Explain theories of buyer behaviour in terms of individuals and markets

There have several theories of buyer behaviour in terms of consumer and market to explain the behaviour of both consumer and business buyer. McDonald follow some of them and they are described below;

Rational act theory

This theory refers to while buying a product a consumer will behave on the basis of rational analysis of their self-interest. McDonald use this theory to find out their customers rationality of both individual and business customers. While buying a product, consumer always try to get most profitable courses of action from that product.

Process theory

While buying a product a buyer do not always analyse rationality but they sometime evaluate opportunities also and the process theory indicates that buyer’s purchase behaviour based on opportunities they get from the product or service. McDonald sometimes offer that if buy a pizza then another is free to increase their sales volume and it is known as process theory.

New institutional economics theory

New institutional economics theory refers that there have several factors which are limited the rationality of buying decision of product or service. When buy a product most of the time they have no idea about that product and have no information about what benefit they will get from that product. This uncertainty occurs the buying behaviour.

The bullwhip theory

Any change in one side of business will occur another one, according to bullwhip theory. For example, if a business wants to increase its sales volume and effort much on advertising then to handle over advertising cost it may decrease the cost of the production or increase the price of the product.

1.3 Explain the factors that affect buyer behaviour

When a consumer buy a product he may be motivated by many factors as psychological, social, cultural, personal and so on. This factors drive him to purchase a product or not.

Psychological factors

Psychological factors are including motivation, perception, behaviour, attitudes of a person when they are going to purchase a product. A person may have a perception about pizza that is it will increase weight. So he may not prepare a pizza. It is only for his personal insight about a product.

Social factors

The surrounding of a people can also effect his buying behaviour. For example, Rolex watch have a sign of richness in the society so many of the customers buy it to be look rich. It social factor of buying a product.

Cultural factors

Cultures teach us what should be done and what should not be. They create a strong restriction toward consume a product. For example, in Muslim culture it is restricted that wine will not be drink and Hindu culture they restricted beef. So these product is restricted in these culture.

Economic factors

This factors are depends upon the income and economic growth of the people of a society. Companies should be aware before market product about its price. The income of US people is not same as the income of India. So McDonald should not make same priced product for this two different economy.

Personal factors

Beside these factors personal factors are also responsible for buying behaviour. These personal factors income of individual person, lifestyle and attitude towards any product. Most organization are unable to control these factors.

1.4 Evaluate the relationship between brand loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing

Repeat purchase of any product depends on the brand image of the product and brand loyalty by the consumer. A brand can be loyal to a customer when it continuously satisfy the customer. A customer become a loyal customer of a brand it satisfy his for long time. Before being a loyal customer of a brand a customer should at first be royal customer of it. When a product or brand continuously satisfy a customer then he never buy the same product from other brand. So brand loyalty create repeat buying. Organization express itself towards various publics as government, suppliers, customers, investors by their corporate image. Both loyal and corporate image helps to increase sales volume, and profit of the company.

a. Identify your market research objective

Every marketer has their own market research tools to identify information about their customer, competitor, market position, sales volume and so on. Like all other company McDonald has also some marketing research tools and the objective of using these tools are given below:

To provide basis for proper planning

Market research provide basis for planning properly of sales strategy, competitor analysis, and market segmentation for McDonald. Market research help these by providing relevant information to the company.

To reduce marketing cost

By collecting relevant information about promotional, distributional and other activities McDonald can gather knowledge about their expenditure in those form and take initiatives to reduce cost.

To determine proper pricing policy

Through market research McDonald can be able to aware about in what price a customer will willing to buy a product and then they can able to planning strategy according to those information. They can also collect information about their competitor price to make their pricing strategy more effective.

To know the market competition

Market research also collects information about the market condition and competitor of the product. McDonald will be able to know at what price KFC sales their fried chicken and what promotional and sales strategy they use.

2.1 Evaluate different types of market research techniques.

Company do market research to find out information about their market potentials, customer’s income, and customers attitudes toward the product, competitive factors and so on. They arrange this research by two ways: primary research and secondary research. Primary research is done by the company themselves. The techniques used by McDonald to done their market research are given below:

Survey is a research technique by which company collect information from sample groups selected from number of population which represents the total target customer of McDonald. Some types of survey are including personal, mail, and telephone survey.

Focus group is interview based research technique. In this interview a moderator collect information from the interviewee by questioning about their interested area or towards the topic. 8-10 people are interviewed at a time.

In-depth interview like focus group interview but the respondent’s number is only one and also operate by a train moderator to find out insight of the respondent.

Observation is a research technique which McDonald is used in their sales point by not disturbing the customer. Information in observation method is collected by use of CC camera or an observer.

Experiment is occur when McDonald collect information from a lab or his controlled environment. Marketer do this inside of the organization or in a market where they can control the objects.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is a primary research technique which is uses it to gain understanding of underlying reasons, opinions and motivations from the selected respondents. McDonald uses this technique to find out insights of a problem and helps to improve an idea for potential quantitative research.

Quantitative

Quantitative methods insist on measurements on statistical and mathematical analysis of data. These data collected through questionnaire and survey method. McDonald collects data from selected respondents and asked them preselected questions to find out their desire objective.

2.2 Use sources of secondary data to achieve marketing research objectives

McDonald can collect their secondary data from two sources and they are internal source and external source. Source of internally collected data are given below:

· Balance sheet of McDonald

· Profit loss statement of McDonald

· Inventory records of McDonald

· Sale volume of McDonald

· CRR of McDonald

· Information from employee.

Secondary data can be collected from following sources

· From several Medias like newspaper, magazine, journals, and business articles.

· Government articles like statistics bureau

· From market research agencies. Done for their own research

· Search engines like Google.

McDonald use primary data which is collected from their inner site of organization to make a marketing research effective. They make their plans and strategies using that information. For making sales strategy and planning meaningful McDonald use information collected from magazine, newspaper and online surveys. To collect information about their competitor McDonald can use information collected from catalogue of several companies.

2.3 Assess the validity and reliability of market research findings

Validity is refers to the credibility and believability of a market research done by the marketer. It assesses that the data collected by McDonald should be believable by the various aspects of their business like investors, customers, suppliers, stakeholders and so on. Reliability refers to the repeatability of the findings. If any research done for second time and it occurs same result then it is reliability of the research.

If McDonald counts their customer on a certain shop and it give an information that 3000 customers are daily purchase from that shop approximately and if it give the same result daily it is reliability but it cannot be validate because some of the days may more customer buy and some days may less.

2.4 Prepare a marketing research plan to obtain information in a given situation

It is necessary to all business to prepare an effective marketing plan for their future plan of sales and forecast as well as other aspects. To obtain information an effective plan is given:

Ø At first clearly identify the problems or research objective.

Ø Then select the research questions and set them in a proper manner.

Ø Write a research proposal which will consist of research type, sources of data, research objectives, and data analysis methods and so on.

Ø Prepare a budget for the research work.

Ø Before finally implement the research proposal it should be trail up.

Ø Sources and methods of data should be clearly identified before starting the research work.

Ø Select statistical and mathematical data analysis tools to use during research work like SPSS tools.

Ø Continuously report about the findings and if problem faces try to solve it.

3.1 Assess market size trends within a given market

Market size for any product like pizza can be measure by its actual and potential customers and sales volume of the company. Actual customers are who already bought the product and potentials are who are preparing to buy the product. Sales volume can be measured by actual amount of sales from the market. But evaluating the market size for McDonald is important to measuring the market share captured by the company. To enlarge market share McDonald should produce the product which have an advantage over its competitor and have customer acceptance, they should turn their potential customer in actual one by providing information about the product and the brand by advertising. For market of India McDonald should provide cheap rated product in order to capture the market. It will help to understand current market trends of the market size and what currently going on the market.

3.2 Plan and carry out a competitor analysis for a given organisation

Competitive analysis helps an organization to find out its actual competitor in the market. Competitive analysis is done for find out the competitor and plan to have an extra benefit over them. As a past food company McDonald’s competitors are including KFC, pizza hat, Burger King, Starbucks, Taco Bell and so on. To get an extra benefit over these competitors McDonald should have to make a plan for their marketing strategy, sales strategy, promotional strategy, and other operational activities should be planned. To make a plan for competitor analysis McDonald should at first collect data about their competitors, about their product, pricing strategy, product cost and so on. After make this plan then McDonald should make plan to carry out this plan and should continuously follow up the plan.

3.3 Evaluate an organisation’s opportunities and threats for a given product or service.

Opportunities and threats for McDonald are given below:

Strength

o McDonald has a large market share comparing with their competitor.

o They has divers’ income streams.

o Brand reputation combination with leader of the market.

Weakness

o McDonald has an unhealthy food image.

o Their customer loses due to unfair competition.

o Their employee turnover rate is so high.

Opportunities:

o Today’s people are very much health conscious and respect it McDonald have introduce healthy hamburger.

o McDonald have industrial, Formica restaurant settings.

o McDonald provide optional allergen free food items, such as gluten free.

o McDonalds can introduce their business in home service form.

o McDonald’s main customers are Asian people and there have huge customers for McDonald product.

o McDonald can acquisition in other company to reduce completion.

Threats:

o As a MNC faces restriction by other country’s government.

o As US economy fall it will hamper sale volume of McDonald product.

o They are supper from any contamination of the food supply, especially e-coli.

o Their main competitors like Burger King, Starbucks, Taco Bell, and KFC are also market leader.

These are opportunities and threats faced by McDonald.

4.1 Evaluate techniques of assessing customer response

To assess consumer response there have various techniques from them some are described.

Home customer survey

McDonald use home customer survey to assess the needs and expectation of their customers. This home survey includes email surveys, mailed surveys, phone surveys and take home surveys. This surveys request information about the product from the customers and on their response company improve their product.

Customer service questionnaire

McDonald use this service to find out information from the customer about their product. Company generally use a well-designed questionnaire and gave this to the customer and they fill up the questionnaire form. It may be open ended questions or closed.

Customer suggestions

Sometimes customer suggest about the shape, size, feature of a product and company make product on the basis of customer choice and set a price.

Customer expectation

McDonald make market research to find out customers’ expectations about their product. Marketer find out needs, wants, and demand of customer and make the product according this information. Customer provide best feedback towards these products.

4.2 Design and complete a customer satisfaction survey

Customer satisfaction survey can be complete by Likert scale. This scale contains 5 level scale to find out customer satisfaction. Likert scale is as follow

States	Rating point
Strongly agree	5
Agree	4
Neutral	3
Disagree	2
Strongly disagree	1

Figure 05: Likert rating scale

Source: own creation

A customer satisfaction sample is given below:

Name: ………………………………

Address: …………………………….

E-mail: ……………………………….

Cell no. ………………………………

Q1. Pizza of McDonald is very satisfactory.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

Q2. Quality of McDonald’s pizza is very satisfactory.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

Q3. Customer care services of McDonald are very satisfactory.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

Q4. Pricing strategy of McDonald is very satisfactory.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

Q5. McDonald’s after sale services are very satisfactory.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

Q6. Who are the major customers of McDonald?

o Male

o Female

o Both

Q7. What is the age range of the customers of McDonald?

o Below 15

o 15-25

o 26-35

o 36-45

o 46 and above

Q8. What is the income level of the customers of McDonlad?

o Below 20,000

o 21,000-30,000

o 31,000-40,000

o 41,000-50,000

o Above 50,000

McDonald can assess customer satisfaction level after collecting data from the customer and manage it by Likert scale.

4.3 Review the success of a completed survey.

The aim of a survey is to provide information to the organization which is collected from respondents and the success of that information lies on how it can help the organization. After the survey McDonald can find out the actual information about their product by the customer. If the collected information go beyond the organization then McDonald should change their strategy. Before this they should at first find out in what point customers are dissatisfied or gave negative rating then they should develop that sector or make a new strategy for that sector. For example, if their customer care services are not satisfactory then they should change the employee or trained existing.

Conclusion

McDonald have the potentiality to increase their sales volume. They are number one past Food Company in the world. But they have some problems still. They should find out that problems and solve this. Their products are too expensive that lower class and even middle class peoples are unable to buy these. So they should make low priced product for lower and middle class people. They should create more loyal customers to make them repeat purchaser and make the image of the company high. They should establish customer completion service to get feedback from their customers. Their competitive analysis technique should be developed to make them hold their position in the markets