Final Project Case MRK 455 Applied Marketing Research

For this final project you're the VP Research Managerthat works for Pine Technologies Limited. The first part of your final project is to develop a research plan for some research you believe needs to be done for Pine Technologies Limited. As the VP Research Senior Management is relying on you to identify what research is need to help grow the business. The second part of the assignment is to do an analysis of the existing research noted in exbibit D and provide conclusions/ recommendations.

Pine Technologies Limited.

Background History

Pine Technologies Limited started in 1913 in the central regions of Canada, as a company that sold devices that weighed and measured wheat. It was founded by a group of people that were farmers, mill owners, and engineers. They found the best technology for measuring wheat and bag fill, combined with scales to weigh at an economical price. The focus on excellent technology was a founding principle of the company.

In the early 1930s they moved into grain filters and filtration technology. By the 1940s that expanded into the industrial and liquid filtration technology as an extension of the seasonal wheat industry. At the end of World War II, they moved into the area of filler control of measurement. The wheat market, while interesting and still a solid base, was expected to become very competitive from offshore, low cost producers. Pine Technologies Limited technology development was focused on the measurement of grains and liquids.

In 1986 they sold off the measuring division and revisited their mission statement to focus on the area of fill and sensor equipment. They had developed and patented a number of products as an ongoing business practice in this area. As the need for growth in sales revenue and profits focus their marketing efforts, the opportunity to move into other business areas was identified.

Pine Technologies Limited Mission statement

Pine Technologies Limited is in the business of designing, manufacturing, marketing, servicing, and selling sensor fillers for automatic production lines that need packages filled to an optimal level. These are supplied and serviced directly to our customers by our qualified technicians and sales people.

Pines customer base is in the powder, liquid and solids industries which service both customer and industrial businesses throughout the world.

Pine is a customer driven, marketing focused, technology influenced, and engineering directed world-class manufacturer, determined to produce results that generate growth, value and the opportunity to reinvest in both human and financial company resources.

Company Position

Last year's sales were $23,602,804 across all categories. This was a strong surge from previous years. They continued their sales growth for the past 11 years. While some products did better than others management left that to marketing to manage while they focused on R&D and manufacturing.

From a financial perspective the company is cash-rich and invests in engineering and designed to keep their products as leaders in the marketplace.

Current Company Product Status

Pine Technologies Limited has five products that focus in the automatic production lines market in North America and Europe. They produce filler heads with built-in sensors that manage the level of fill. The container categories that PTL's filler sensor products are used in bottles, cartons, bags, cylinders, and cans. Any product that fits into one of these containers can use one of Pine's unique products.

They focus the product line to have one core package type for each container segment. Noted below is the list of current containers, fill type, and brand for each market. This broad category of brands and fill types provides core competencies in many markets.

Category	Fill Type	Brand
Bottle	Liquid	Aq2
Carton	Powders	Miller
Bag	Solids	WizGran
Cylinder	Liquids	DriP2
Cans	Solids	Lav3

Over time, sales and marketing had moved into a variety of marketing categories and products and have created solid relationships with a number of companies. Some products are focused on consumer markets, while others are in the institutional and business markets. The list of applications and products below shows the mix currently being manufactured.

Category	Fill Type	Brand	Type of Fill
Bottle	Liquid	Aq2	Fruit Juices	Soap	Motor Oil
Carton	Powders	Miller	Soap	Cake Mix	Screws
Bag	Solids	WizGran	Candles	Cookies	Nuts/Bolts
Cylinder	Liquids	DriP2	Soap	Cooking Oil	Aviation Oil
Can	Solids	Lav3	Gravies	Cranberries	Bolts

Recent business analysis

The company recently completed its annual five-year strategic planning session. The final conclusions were the strategies in place are solid and there's no real need to change course or do things differently.

Marketing Data

Company Products Share

Management did not look at share of company revenue. However, marketing did and used it to balance marketing programs and budgets. Marketing set up the following data.

Product Revenue	MC (most current)	Share
Aq2	$3,339,465	14.1%
Miller	$4,105,213	17.4%
WizGran	$2,656,792	11.3%
DriP2	$11,761,917	49.8%
Lav3	$1,739,417	7.4%
Total	$23,602,804	100.0%

Marketing is very strong in the company and well supported by other departments and senior managers as the business driver adding to both the top line revenue and bottom-line profits.

Profit and Loss Picture

The company is in a strong position. A profit and loss statement for the company and the top two products is shown in appendix B and C.

Competitive Benchmark Study

Recently marketing conducted a competitive benchmark study to find out how they were doing versus the three closest competitors. It has not been analysed as the data has just been sent in. See appendix D for more information

Organic Growth Rate Projections

Marketing continued to track growth rates in their various industries markets. They pull together the data as an aggregate for each brand from each of the categories that their products did business in.

Brand	Organic Growth Rate
Aq2	6%
Miller	8%
WizGran	8%
DriP2	6%
Lav 3	4%

Management Direction

The sales revenue target for pine technologies overall next year had been established by management at +18% by the end of the fiscal year. The annual planning session had shown with aggressive marketing and sales program this was a goal that could be achieved.

Summary

This provides you some insights, facts and figures for Pine Technologies Limited, the market, and their various products. Use the information provided above along with the questions listed after the exhibits to drive your final case project.

Appendix A

Sales History

Sales Revenues
Revenue	MC	MC-1	MC-2	MC-3	MC-4	MC-5
Aq2	$ 3,339,465	$ 2,891,311	$ 2,550,557	$ 2,314,270	$ 2,160,850	$ 2,037,000
Miller	$ 4,105,213	$ 2,689,474	$ 1,893,462	$ 1,387,152	$ 1,067,040	$ 855,000
WizGran	$ 2,656,792	$ 2,451,639	$ 2,240,782	$ 2,050,027	$ 1,895,365	$ 1,736,000
DriP2	$ 11,761,917	$ 5,840,078	$ 3,240,887	$ 1,910,900	$ 1,201,824	$ 936,000
Lav3	$ 1,739,417	$ 1,634,867	$ 1,518,899	$ 1,385,654	$ 1,267,707	$ 1,139,000
Total	$ 23,602,804	$ 15,507,369	$ 11,444,587	$ 9,048,003	$ 7,592,785	$ 6,703,000
Sales Units
Units	MC	MC-1	MC-2	MC-3	MC-4	MC-5
Aq2	13,589	12,354	11,334	10,592	10,088	9,700
Miller	16,932	11,759	8,775	6,750	5,400	4,500
WizGran	6,780	6,507	6,245	5,999	5,768	5,600
DriP2	72,559	38,189	22,464	14,040	9,360	7,800
Lav3	8,033	7,837	7,609	7,316	7,035	6,700
Total	117,894	76,645	56,427	44,698	37,651	34,300
Unit Price
Unit s	MC	MC-1	MC-2	MC-3	MC-4	MC-5
Aq2	$ 245.74	$ 234.04	$ 225.04	$ 218.48	$ 214.20	$ 210.00
Miller	$ 242.45	$ 228.73	$ 215.78	$ 205.50	$ 197.60	$ 190.00
WizGran	$ 391.84	$ 376.77	$ 358.83	$ 341.74	$ 328.60	$ 310.00
DriP2	$ 162.10	$ 152.93	$ 144.27	$ 136.10	$ 128.40	$ 120.00
Lav3	$ 216.53	$ 208.60	$ 199.62	$ 189.39	$ 180.20	$ 170.00

Appendix B

P&L Data

	Pine Tech Ltd. MC
Revenue	$ 23,602,804.00	100.0%
Volume	117,894
Materials	$ 6,367,819.60	27.0%
Labor	$ 4,977,661.80	21.1%
Overhead	$ 6,320,615.60	26.8%
COGS	$ 17,666,097.00	74.85%
Gross Margin	$ 5,935,903.00	25.2%
Adv & Promo	$ 1,450,000.00
G&A	$ 2,100,578.00	8.9%
Net Margin	$ 3,550,578.00	15.0%
PBT	$ 2,385,325.00	10.1%

	Drip2 MC			Miller MC
Revenue	$ 11,761,917.00			$ 4,105,213.00
Volume	72,559			16,932
Materials	$ 3,516,813.18	29.9%		$ 890,831.22	21.7%
Labor	$ 1,905,430.55	16.2%		$ 665,044.51	16.2%
Overhead	$ 3,269,812.93	27.8%		$ 940,093.78	22.9%
COGS	$ 8,692,056.66	73.9%		$ 2,495,969.50	60.8%
Gross Margin	$ 3,069,860.34	26.1%		$ 1,609,243.50	39.2%
Adv & Promo	$ 850,450.00			$ 488,450.00
G&A	$ 917,429.53			$ 369,469.17
Net Margin	$ 1,767,879.53	15.0%		$ 857,919.17	20.9%
PBT	$ 1,301,980.81	11.1%		$ 751,324.33	18.3%

Appendix C

Competitive Pro Forma Statement

	Pine $ 000		Comp A $ 000		Comp B $ 000		Comp C $ 000
Revenue	23,602	100%	32,450	100%	14,700	100%	11,500	100%
COG	17,680	74.9%	23,400	72.1%	11,900	81.0%	8,950	77.8%
Margin	5,922	25.1%	9,050	27.9%	2,800	19.0%	2,550	22.2%
A&P	1,450		2,100		500		400
G&A	2,100	8.9%	3,100	9.6%	1,360	9.3%	990	8.6%
	3,550		5,200		1,860		1,390
PBT	2,372	10.0%	3,850	11.9%	940	6.4%	1,160	10.1%

Note: Rounding used for data projections

Appendix D

Competitive Benchmark Study

Prioritized Feature	Customer Importance Weight	Pine Raw Score	Pine W F	Comp A Raw Score	Comp A WF	Comp B Raw Score	Comp B WF	Comp C Raw Score	Comp C WF
Accuracy	0.4	6	2.4	5	2	5	2	4	1.6
Easy to Clean	0.2	3	0.6	4	0.8	4	0.8	6	1.2
Easy to change	0.2	4	0.8	4	0.8	4	0.8	5	1.0
Features	0.1	6	0.6	4	0.4	3	0.3	3	0.3
Price	0.1	5	0.5	4	0.4	4	0.4	4	0.4
Total rating	1.0		4.9		4.4		4.3		4.5

The second column represents the customer importance weight factor multiplied by the raw score. This provided a true number factoring in the weighting.

For example, the accuracy Customer Importance Weighting is .04.

Pines rating out of 10 is 6.

So, the factor is worth .04 x 6 = 2.4. Or a Pine Weight Factor is 2.4

Source:Abbott Research + Consulting / ARC Strategy Ltd.

Pine Technologies Limited Case Research Project

The following are the elements that you should consider in writing up this final project. You are going to work through the stages of the research project outlined in the course textbook. You will also do some analysis of research they have done but not analysed.

Part One - Develop a research Plan

1. Background (5 marks): Briefly describe the research project you are about to recommend. This will identify the problem, clarify the situation, to find an opportunity, or monitor and evaluate the current element of the business, you want to address to help to support the direction you develop for your objectives.
2. Define research objectives (15 Marks): State the research objectives that you have for the research you are recommending. You don't need to develop a hypothesis just the research objectives as outlined in this course. Use the textbook for reference.
3. Planning a research design(15 Marks): Outline the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the needed information for your research objectives.
4. Planning a sample(10 Marks): Define the target population. Then identified the sampling frame that you want to use. Determine if a probability or nonprobability sampling method will be chosen.
5. Collecting data(10 Marks): identify the process you are going to use to gather or collect information. Outline the methods and approach for the research recommending. You can include the approach using qualitative or quantitative data or a combination of both to fit your research proposal.
6. Questionnaire design/set of questions (15%) A set of five research questions in the proper format, to determine the information you are trying to collect. Use a combination of open-ended and close ended questions and a variety of research scales.

Part 2 - Analyze Data in the Case

1. Analysis of data in the case(15%): using the competitive benchmark study in exhibit D analyze the data that's provided. Identify at least 3 things you have learned in your analysis and review. This is not fit the research proposal you've done before. It is an analysis of existing research the company has not fully reviewed. Therefore, as the research manager you want to review it and learn from it.
2. Recommendation (15 Marks): What do you believe is the strategic direction that your analysis of the competitive benchmark study has identified? Identify the strategic direction that the data indicates should be used by the company. Set out the action steps or programs needed to execute take advantage of your strategic direction.