7. Research Methodology(1-10)

8/6/2019 7. Research Methodology(1-10)

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Research Methodology

By Tanmay Mandal, Sec D, Roll 237

1. INTRODUCTION:Before we go into the description of the process we

should know and understand where exactly market

research fits into the market function. Every business

runs in an explicit or implicit business plan, which

comprises both the corporate and competitive strategies

of the firm.

The marketing plan usually follows the marketing

strategy. It can be defined in simple terms as

segmentation, target market selection and positioning.

LEVEL 1

(Strategic)

LEVEL 2

(Tactic)

Segmentation

Target market

selection

Positioning

4 Ps of Marketing

Product

Price

Promotion

Place

Marketing

Strategy

Marketing

Plan

Information formarketing decision

Fig 1.1 The role of market research


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Marketing research plays an important role in deciding

on the marketing strategy by providing information

necessary for choosing an appropriate strategy. Once

marketing strategy is in place, the marketing plan at

the tactical level proceeds to the arena of 4 Ps of

marketing.

A research design provides the framework to be used in

collecting and analyzing data. But it is not necessary

that research design always be the best. Broadly

speaking research can be classified into three main

categories.

1. Exploratory research2. Descriptive research3. Causal researchThis research was the type of descriptive. Here a

consumer panel (insured person) was used to respond to

some questions and to give their views about the

company. The research was conducted to know the

perception of ICICI Prudential as an insurer. The

target audiences were some semi urban people. It is

seen that people are having a perception about LICI as

a no risk farm, and people till now think that

insurance and LICI are same thing. In urban area IPRU

has done a great job and thats why they are in no 1

position for last three years. But the overall

achievement would be got if they can win other peoples

heart.

2. PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH:

Risk and returns go hand in hand. Higher the risk,

higher is the possibility of earning a good return.


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Thus, it follows that all types of investment have some

form of risk attached to it. Theoretically, even

'safe' investments (such as bank deposits) are not

without some element of risk. The objective of the

report is to lay stress on the fact that weather there

any scope of private insurer to capture the market by

beating the LICI, Public Sector Unit, which has made a

perception of security in peoples mind. Another way,

one must invest a part of ones savings as to get a

high return instead of only the security. Because by

investing through a Private Insurer an individual can

enjoy the twin benefits of capital appreciation plus

high returns. However there is no guarantee that

either or both of these objectives would be realized.

The study can be divided into two parts. The first

part aims at understanding the reasons for investment

of people only in PSU Insurer like LICI, Peerless etc.

though they are getting less benefit from them than

others. A survey of 250 respondents was used to get

the required data for this analysis and the data wasthen validated.

The second part of the study tried to find out the

scope of ICICI Prudential to expand their business not

only in the urban area but also in semi-urban and rural

area. In this part I tried to put some light on their

marketing strategies by which they can reach to the

customers minds as well as to their hearts.

3. OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH:

y Understanding the reason/area of investment.y Choice of people while selecting an insurer.


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y The competition of the ICICI Pru.y Rural area as target market, good or bad.y Scope of ICICI Pru Life in semi-urban and rural

market.

y Analysis why ICICI Prudential Life is lagging behindLIC.

4. SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH:

Though strictly my activities during the summer

internship was limited within the life insurance

segment, yet my project required me to study the

popular investment vehicles, like home/building

insurance, vehicle insurance, health insurance etc. As

well as to study and analyze the performance of

different sectors in terms of their generated returns

in order to provide customized financial solutions to

individuals by designing need specific investment

portfolio. This research may help ICICI Prudential to

build up their market in semi urban and rural sector

initially by life insurance and day by day with other

insurance also.

5. IMPORTANCE OF THE RESEARCH:

The importance of the research is lying between finding

out and understand the need of the low income customer.

Another importance is to understand their choices as

products and the insurer. It will help to find out thereasons where private insurers are lagging behind than

PSU. It will help me to gather overall knowledge about

insurance and help me to complete my project.


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6. LIMITATION OF THE RESEARCH:

There are no any survey where there is no limitation,

because survey is based on other peoples response and

then interpreting the same. That is why there are some

limitations:

y Error in response: It is difficult to get theresponses of the customers about their detailed

financial details and often some information was

missing or biased. Such information could not be

taken for further analysis.

y Diversified sample: Due to the time constraintrespondents with more different profiles could not

be included in the survey. An attempt is being made

to give a truest representation of the population

data with the available sample.

y Percentage of error in the reason for investment andthe actual policy held: There was a discrepancy of

percentage between the reasons mentioned for buying

insurance policies and actual types of policies held

by the respondents in savings slab 1-3 lac and less

than 1 lac.

y Time constraint: Due to lack of time more numberof samples could not be collected. Higher number of

samples and a more elaborate understanding of the

problem would have generated better conclusions.

Also following up on the error in responses and

verifying all the responses was not possible due to

lack of time.

y Technical Constraints: I did not include the marketrisk associated with individual asset classes.


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Taking into consideration market risk calculated

based on historical data does not give a true

picture of the risk of future investments. I

however took into consideration the standard

deviation between returns of individual assets under

a particular asset class and the mean return of the

asset class as the risk of that particular asset

class.

y Other constraint: Using the company name andidentifying myself as a representative of a life

insurance company, acted as a major constraint on

the respondents part in divulging their personal as

well as financial details. Also, ignorance about

ULIPS being a strong investment tool became very

apparent while carrying out the survey. Premonition

about LIC being the only dependable organization in

the life insurance market and the reluctance to

invest in private players in the insurance market.

People are unaware of the brand ICICI Prudential

Life as a financial services provider due to its

very low promotional activities in comparison to its

competitors in the same field though the

organization is a better performer than many others

in the existing market.

Considering the above limitations I have made an

earnest and sincere effort to analyze and draw

inference based on the primary data collected and

also support the analysis with the help of secondary

data analysis.


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7. METHODOLOGY:

7.1 SOURCE OF DATA:

As the research was conducted to know the situation of

ICIC Prudential in semi-urban and rural segment, so I

gave the importance to collect data from Malda, my home

town. I approached to demographically and economically

different people to answer and give their views.

7.2 SAMPLE SIZE:

The size of the sample was 250. I approached to

different houses sometimes there was one respondent ina house and some time many. I tried to collect at

least 10 complete responses from the people and jotted

down it. The calculation I did after completing the

data collection.

7.3 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION:

The questioner has been attached to the appendix.

Some methods were followed while collection of data.

Survey: It was the first thing to collected data. The

first and foremost was to prepare questioner, and ask

the respondents to answer. The question of the

questioner was of MCQ type. The people had to answer

by putting a tick mark. Some time due to time

constraints of people I left the questioner to them and

collected another day. There were some small or semi

descriptive questions to know peoples view about

private player in the insurance field. A form was

attached to the questioner for knowing the people

better. The second thing was telephoning; there were


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some respondents who were out of station at that time,

so I had to make phone call to them. One more approach

I made to young people was mail. I mailed the question

paper and ask them their views.

Observation: its a technique where the consumers

behavior was recorded, without his/her knowledge. I

applied this method to my own relatives. After

approaching towards them with my product and discussing

the same I left recorder or sometimes I asked their son

or daughter about their views.

Experimentation: I tried to show the people some good

ads and brochure and tried to highlight the products.

This technique was really effective to motivate them

towards the private farm. By showing ads I tried to

make them understand the benefits of IPRU.

7.4 TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

The project is based on primary data collection both in

the form of a survey being carried out with a

questionnaire as well as interacting with people of

varying age groups and professions. Interaction is

being done both with people who are considered

investment-savvy as well as people who are not as much

aware of the various investment tools in order to

understand the investment psyche of the general public

on a whole and try to relate to their differing

perceptions regarding investment. For this, a survey

was carried out with 250 randomly selectedrespondents.

However, only those people were approached who are

familiar with the concept of making investments. Care

is being personally taken while carrying out the survey


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to encompass maximum number of potential clients from a

varied demography to get a better understanding of

their investment style.

8. THE RESEARCH PROCESS:

The marketing research project starts with information

need and ends with an actionable report or presentation

or both. In between there are various steps to ensure

that the research project achieves what it set out to

do.

The diagrammatical representation of marketing research

is as follows

As per my research concern the information was

collected by asking question by preparing the

questioner. The information what I felt to be needed

was peoples view towards private insurance company,

basically the ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company

Information need

felt

Report writing &

presentation

Tabulation &

analysis

Design

methodology

Define the

research objective

Secondary

research

Primary

research

Fig 1.2 Market Research Process

Marketing

Action


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Limited. Therefore the objective was to know the

reason of being second in this sector.

The process was started by asking question and finding

out the analytical reason behind the problem. The

detailed process and analytical calculation has been

given in the following chapters.

Documents

7. Research Methodology(1-10)