Analysis of the Key Consumer and Marketing Trends(From the exploratory research, identify and summarise what trends are relevant to the selected brief and outline why are they relevant to constructing your proposal.)

Statement of the research objectives(What does your research need to achieve?)

Statement of the research questions(What questions does your research need to find answers to?

Type of marketing research(Which of the six types of marketing research^* does your proposed research propose? Is it exploratory and/or explanatory? Justify your decisions.)

Research approach (Outline and justify your proposed approach: is your proposed approach qualitative and/or quantitative? Will the research propose primary and/or secondary data?)

Research sample(What is your proposed sampling strategy? What is your proposed target population, sampling frame, sample size and sampling method? Justify the decisions made.)

Research methods(Which methods of data collection do you propose? How do you propose to undertake your data collection? Justify the selection(s) made.)

Ethical considerations(What ethical marketing research issues are relevant to your proposed research and how will you minimise the risks involved?)

Brief:

Procurement headaches

Laird Callum McGregor oversees the procurement policies for the McGregor estate and has always prided himself on the principle of sourcing locally where possible and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. They currently have over 200 organisations supplying the estate, providing everything from farm machinery and servicing to toiletries and promotional items. Laird McGregor has started drafting a new procurement policy for food suppliers that would allow the estate to have better oversight of the provenance of the ingredients they use. He has teamed up with a blockchain specialist and is looking to introduce a simple networked system for suppliers to use. The online system would record the journey of ingredients through the supply chain whilst allowing the supplier to see when new stocks are required. He is concerned that many of the smaller suppliers, and indeed some of the larger suppliers, would be unable to adopt the proposed system.

Marketing research problem:

Callum generally enjoys good relationships with the estate's suppliers but does need to have a clearer sense of the work that would be required with the suppliers to ensure that they can adopt the new system. He needs data on the potential viability of the networked system.

Guidance from your line manager:

This is a significant change to current supply chain operations. The research proposal will need to provide the client with a clear indication of the impact that introducing this change will have on the organisation and its suppliers. The impact of the change will largely be determined by the current and prospective capabilities of the supplier and the demands placed on suppliers by the specifications of the final system.

The population for the proposed research is outlined in the brief. Taking into consideration the total number of suppliers, this population is likely to be relatively small. This might mean that a census is a viable option, especially when it is in the interests of the supplier to participate and when it is commercially sensible for the client to consult on the proposed changes.

The client is likely to have information on each of these suppliers within their internal records, which could be a useful source of secondary data. This data is unlikely, however, to provide all the information that is required. Do give serious thought to the various types of information that are required to introduce new technology into the supply chain. Some of this information is likely to be technical - about the computer hardware and networking capabilities and capacities of the supplier.

The proposed research study will also need to ascertain the skills and competencies that the supplier has within their workforce to enable them to use the new technology. Do not forget to incorporate data on how the technology will impact the existing processes that the client uses. It is safe to assume that the suppliers will not just be servicing the client. Any change is likely to have implications for how the organisation services other customers.

Change does need to be handled sensitively, so the proposed research approach needs to ensure that suppliers feel that their views are valued and that they are being provided with all necessary information to potentially help them to make the switch to the new technology. It would be prudent, for example, to consider the line management hierarchies within the supplier organisations to ensure senior members of the organisations are informed of the proposed research study before any research tools are released to more junior members of the organisation.