Learning Aim A: Examine the types of market research
used in business
Business Introduction
In this Unit, I'll be focusing on how Leyton Sixth Form College conducts market research. Leyton Sixth Form
College is a public sixth form which accepts students aged 16 + and provides education for them. This college
has over 200 teachers and this institution is allocated in Waltham Forest, Greater London. There are around
2100+ (2016) students attending this college. It was established in 1929 and it was known as a founding
institution, however, since 1985, it’s become a sixth form college. Leyton Sixth Form College provides education
to students ages 16+, they give you an option to do either 3 (even 4) A-Levels (35 options) or a BTEC (15 options).
Their aim is to be able to provide students with a good education to then take these grades they earned at the
end of the 2 years course and either start working, apply for an apprenticeship or to attend university and to
attract future students and convince them to apply to Leyton Sixth Form College.
Market research
Market research is research conducted by a business to understand themselves and their competitors business
and then from there innovate their businesses to make them stand out. All of this research comes in different
formats as stated before, primary and secondary research but data can be collected through qualitative research
and quantitative research. Primary research is data collected from a first hand person or conducting the research
for the first time ever yourself, some examples are: survey, questionnaire, interviews, focus groups etc. Moving
onto Secondary research, this is research gathered via second hand observation as in through a chain of links
there’ll be one or more people who have added information, examples of these are: encyclopaedias, internet,
PDF etc. The other three different formats of market research methods are: Quantitative Data, Qualitative Data
and Sampling. Starting of with quantitative data, this market research method is data collected in numerical and
statistical formats such as annual reports, profit income/outcome, percentage of how much one brand holds in
that specific market etc, this research helps because it allows you to come up with a pricing strategy and how
much is spent on raw materials so the business can establish goals such as breaking even. Moving on, next is
qualitative data analysis. This is data in the form of information such as demographic target, gender, age
category etc, this helps the business allocate and hit the right target market in order to gain succession.
Furthermore, another method of market research is sampling. This method is very simple yet so effective when
it comes to producing and hitting off a first time business. It requires your business to look into the public and
speak to them directly to gather an understanding of what they want and how to meet their needs. There are
many different sampling methods such as systematic sampling, simple random, cluster sampling etc, all of these
market research methods as an overall, help the business be successful.
P1: An explanation of how LSC uses the following methods (3 primary and 3 secondary) of market research
Primary Research
, Leyton Sixth Form College uses all sorts of methods varying from primary and secondary but starting off, I’ll be
discussing the Primary research methods Leyton Sixth Form College uses. Every business whether it’s one selling
a product or a service requires advice from external people but what better way to select a few and ask them
their opinions, this is called Focus Groups. Focus groups is a primary research method, which means it’s directly
conducted for the first time by you, that helps gather information by asking questions. The people selected can
give you long or short answers when asked a question therefore I believe it’s important to have why and how
questions because you can collect more data and pointers from there. Before performing this method, you must
select your target audience correctly, since this is a college, you’d need to allocate ages 16-18, both genders as
it’s a mixed college, have around 5 groups of 4 (2 males and 2 females) as this helps you talk more freely since
there are only few in the room, it could cause pressure upon the individuals in the focus group so keeping it
small and intermediate will help them feed off of more information, this is also a form of qualitative research,
which is a non-numerical information gathering.
Moving on to the next primary research which is Pilot research, this is a method which allows researchers to
collect all forms of data (qualitative, quantitative, primary, secondary and sampling) and target where the weak
points are in this scenario Leyton sixth form college. You would have to look into aspects of the grade
achievement succession, which is a weakness to their implementation because they aren’t reaching the target
goals they had set for themselves as a college. This then brings risks of other colleges in close proximity to Leyton
sixth form college because to the consumers [students] they’d think this college isn’t that successful therefore
prioritising another college. To refrain from that, the data they collected can either be downgraded (not ideal
since it looks bad on brand image) or select students who are good candidates and are likely to achieve those
grades of A* - C. Furthermore, sampling in this situation is perfect, specifically stratified sampling as this method
is about collecting information from a small number of people and specified market, this can help the college
understand what the students would like to see happen and what would make them want to join Leyton sixth
form college.
Another market [primary] research is surveys, this is a method which will be effective as it doesn’t take up much
of a consumer's time nor does it give no information. Surveys are questions that can be placed online or printed
out on paper with either tick box answers with yes/no or multiple answer surveys, this allows you to collect
statistical information which is also a form of quantitative data to help Leyton sixth form with aspects where
improvement is required. Also by having a lot of consumers fill out surveys allows you to have that statistical
information advantage as this information is coming directly from the people Leyton sixth form college are
aiming for. Furthermore, this source can be known as reliable because as mentioned before it’s direct but also
it can be classified as a valid source if the college does these surveys every 3 months to keep updated with their
target markets opinions. Overall, this primary research will help Leyton sixth form college gain an oversight of
how they can tackle improvements from this market research method.
Secondary Research
Moving on to the secondary research section, LSC uses competitors' research, which is also a form of external
sourcing, in order to find out their competitors' performance. The reason this method is used is because it gives
you a great amount of information on what your competitors are doing good and bad as a business and whether
they are meeting the criterias they’ve been given. This will also help LSC pick up on their competitors weaknesses
and look at whether they themselves are achieving what their rival competitors are failing in, LSC can then use
that information [competitors weakness] and highlight how they have that advantage, which can be a game
changer when it comes to gaining competitive advantage along with new students [consumers for college]. An
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