Research Proposal
PepsiCo is one of the world’s biggest organization with a portfolio of 22 complementary food and beverage brands. The company is operating in 200 countries and territories around the globe (Pepsico.com, 2017). With time, the company has proven itself as a successful organization. Now the world is moving towards betterment and it is the young generation that is leading this revolution. Following it, the company has also well diversified its portfolio and current focus is on products with health benefits. The company has already launched many such products but the growth of these products needs escalation. So, the company has decided to do a market research to identify the level of awareness about its health focused products amongst the targeted group. This research will focus on the youths between age-group of 14 to 30 years and the geographic region will not have any boundary, it means the whole world will be considered for this research. This region can only be covered if internet is the medium. The proposal will cover the 4 steps of research and the data for the proposal will be collected from various commendable sources. There are also some ethical issues that the company will face during research such as to prove the reliability of this research, the company may be asked to disclose the data. In this case, the company should find a strategic solution for this. The company has maintained ethical standards whether at workplace or marketplace. The business activities of company ensure ethics because the company has a “Global Code of Conduct” that works as a roadmap for them (Pepsico.com, 2017).
When an investigation is to be done on a certain objective, then a method needs to be suggested describing how the investigation should proceed. This is called Research Proposal (BusinessDictionary.com, 2017).
The problem that company is facing is the slow growth of its health focused products. The company has found that it is because of less awareness about the health benefits of these products. Its market share needs to be increased. So, the company has decided to do a research on “How to increase awareness about healthy products amongst young generation?”
Here it becomes important to do a research on this issue because such kind of research is not done in the past, not even from the competitors. The research will also change the mindset of people and they will shift towards the healthy lifestyle, most of them would like to overcome their present way of living and this research will spark the need to change.
Research Question
This is a descriptive research. The sources of information needed for creating this report will come from different websites. This report will consider quantitative data because the thorough understanding about the mindset of people can be resulted in the form of statistical output (Bradley, 2012). The data will be collected through internet sites because through this medium a large sample can be collected that will increase the statistical power, and the data is error free as it is automatically coded. The disadvantages may be that some subjects may want to clarify some points and they need to be contacted for that, which will be assumed as a hurdle and secondly some of the respondents may leave the survey in between.
To increase the awareness among young generation about healthy products and shifting their focus towards our products, thereby increasing the sales.
The number of respondents expected are 10,000 in the time duration of 3 months.
The approach as discussed before will be quantitative as the data will be collected from the survey conducted by considering internet as a medium but the results that will be obtained after analysing will be qualitative in nature as the results that are required will be about the perception of people. The survey will be advertised on different social networking sites because it is the place where youths spend most of their time while surfing the web. The data collected will then be evaluated by processing it. The result will be obtained after these steps:
- Integrating Process Evaluation:This will help in keeping a track of project, whether it is going accordingly or not. The data collection activity will show how many people attended the survey and to how many websites it was made available. The survey will be online for three months and expected number of participants can be found in these three months (BCPS, 2017).
- Integrating Outcome Evolution: The results will be analysed and the survey analysis will provide an indication whether the objective of spreading awareness is reached or not (BCPS, 2017).
- Conclusion:In the end conclusion will be made depending upon the quantitative results obtained from the survey. The conclusion will make it clear whether the audience is aware about the availability of health benefit products of PepsiCo in the market.
To get information in a useful way and for less cost, a questionnaire is best suited method for a research (Milne, 2017). The research will be designed in the form of a questionnaire that will provide the answers for following questions:
1. What is your age group?
i. 14-30
ii. 30-40
iii. 40-50
iv. Above 50
2. What is your gender?
i. Male
ii. Female
3. How much time you spend in physical activities such as sports, gym, dance, etc. per week?
i. Below 5
ii. 5-10
iii. 10-20
iv. Above 20
4. Do you visit any nutritionist regularly?
i. Yes
ii. No
5. Do you consume products with health benefits?
i. Yes
ii. No
6. If yes, what is the frequency?
i. Daily
ii. 3 times a week
iii. Once a week
iv.Occasionally
7. Are you aware PepsiCo has several products in market that are made for health-conscious people?
i. Yes
ii. No
8. How did you become aware about our products?
i. TV Commercials
ii. Print Media
iii. Internet
iv. Friends or Family
Benefits of this Research
9. Do you prefer other companies’ products over Pepsi?
i. Yes
ii. No
10. According to you, how is the quality of our products?
i. Good
ii. Bad
iii. Don’t Know
iv. Have not consumed any products yet
11. What do you think about the prices of our products?
i. Easily Affordable
ii. Too Low
iii. A Bit Expensive
iv. Haven’t Compared Yet
12. Would you recommend our products to your friends and family?
i. Yes
ii. No
13. Would you like to give any suggestions?
Ethics may be described as a set of rules that an individual or company should follow so that the all the surrounding environment or environmental components are not hurt emotionally or physically. In this research, the ethical issue that may arise will be about viability of data (Resnik, 2015). The questions may be raised whether the results shown are based upon the real survey or are just imaginary. The questions may also be raised to reveal the data received during the survey.
These ethical issues can easily be handled because the company is already following “Global Code of Conduct” and the company has some strict policies regarding ingredients and research (Pepsico.com, 2017). This will help in understanding the responsibility of company towards consumers and any new research done focused on them. The various codes and policies that can help it in overcoming these issues are:
- Honesty: The data should be honestly collected and honestly reported to the required persons. It should not be fabricated in any way.
- Objectivity: The design of questionnaire should be not favouring PepsiCo. It should be noted that the questions are designed to find the general perspective of people and not only about the company.
- Integrity: During the research,the company should stick to its main aim of spreading awareness about health benefits amongst young individuals. The company should show honesty towards its aim.
- Openness: The data, tools, ideas and resources should be made available to all the persons concerned.
Conclusion
According to the research proposal, it can be concluded that the research will be quantitative one where the data will be collected from the questionnaire prepared. The questionnaire will be designed in keeping the age group of young individuals as the target segment. The aim of this research will be to spread the awareness of healthy products especially those brands that are under PepsiCo. The data collected will then be analysed and a solution will be concluded according to the data and its prospects towards the objective of the research. There are chances of questioning the ethnicity of the data and that can be avoided if the company follows honesty, integrity, openness and objectivity in its research process.
References
BCPS. (2017). Develop a Research Proposal. [online] Available at: https://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/researchcourse/develop_writing_data_instrument.html [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
Bradley, N. (2012). Market Researcher’s Toolbox. 1st ed. [ebook] Harrow, G. Britain: Oxford University Press, pp.493-500. Available at: https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&edata-src=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwi4kd-t3LLUAhXFOo8KHbOzC5QQFggnMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Felearning.sbta.com.au%2Fwww%2Fcontent%2Flessons%2F1659%2FExample%2520of%2520a%2520Research%2520Plan%2520-%2520Proposal.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEq4vLgMfgQUlivIDS8PcocEfgvAQ [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
BusinessDictionary.com. (2017). What is research proposal? definition and meaning. [online] Available at: https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/research-proposal.html [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
Milne, J. (2017). Questionnaires: advantages and disadvantages. [online] Icbl.hw.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ltdi/cookbook/info_questionnaires/ [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
Pepsico.com. (2017). Global Code of Conduct – PepsiCo. [online] Available at: https://www.pepsico.com/Company/Global-Code-Of-Conduct [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
Pepsico.com. (2017). Performance with Purpose Policies – PepsiCo. [online] Available at: https://www.pepsico.com/Purpose/Policies [Accessed 10 Jun. 2017].
Pepsico.com. (2017). Who We Are – PepsiCo. [online] Available at: https://www.pepsico.com/Company [Accessed 9 Jun. 2017].
Resnik, D. (2015). What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important?. [online] National Institute of Environmental Health Services. Available at: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/ [Accessed 10 Jun. 2017].