Business Research Methods

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Group 8
SECTION B
Research problem
The declining appeal of Parle G biscuits in India

Parle G, a brand which successfully transformed itself from a mere commodity to an emotion, had
successfully ruled the industry over 25 years. It grew itself to be among the biggest brand of biscuit
worldwide, by carrying forward the same positioning from the thirties, perfected over the years with a
resourceful knack for scale and self-sufficiency. Launched as an affordable source of nourishment to
counter expensive, imported biscuits brand, it soon placed itself in kitchens of every Indian household.
However, in these modern times, with rising aspirations and greater disposable incomes, biscuit
consumption has moved to new premium formats. Even with increased penetration, it has been seen
that the share of glucose has declined. As per the latest reports, it has been noted that the share of Parle
G has fallen from 66% in its heyday to nearly 33% today. To the new generation, Parle G seemed to have
failed to appeal in the same way as their forefathers.

Through our research, we aim to unearth the main reason for this shift in trend and what all external and
internal forces are responsible for the decline in the appeal of a brand that for long succeeded in
capturing the highest market share.

Study design and execution

For this research, we plan to undertake the Descriptive Research Design method. This method allows us
to make use of the quantitative and qualitative research techniques, both of which will play an extremely
important role in conducting our research thoroughly. The main reason for us to choose this
methodology is that way of descriptive research we an get deep rooted insight in the mindset of the
consumer, which would help us understand their reasons for switching for Parle G or rather what they
perceive Parle G to be. These insights will help us model our research so as to analyse the causes of the
brand decline and the possible solutions for the same. This type of research is to better define an
opinion, attitude, behaviour held by a pre-defined group of people on the subject of our research.

Respondents
Our target population involves the consumers of Parle-G and the influencers. The consumers include
majorly the kids and the young population. The influencers mostly include the house wives or mothers
who buy the product from the market.

We will try to get responses from customers of different age groups and different family sizes.The types
of respondents are mentioned below:
 Respondent type

Kids 5yrs-15yrs (school going)

Women-31yrs-45yrs(Mothers)

Men/Women 16-30yrs

Retailers ( With Division)

Distributors

Product Managers/Brand Managers

How will the data be collected?

We will make a Research plan detailing the types of respondents and number of respondents. We plan to
reach these segments by interviewing them in person or over call. We would conduct personal
interviews at traditional and modern retail stores.

How will the data be analyzed? (methodology and analysis plan)

Content Analysis: We will do Content Analysis to analyse the qualitative data collected from the
interviews. We will identify common patterns within the responses and analyse them in order to achieve
our research objectives.

Factor Analysis: The various variables that denote the product attributes that determine the purchasing
decision can be actually factored using factor analysis. This factoring of the variables helps in easily
studying the consumer behaviour.

Cluster Analysis: The set of respondents will be segmented on the basis of the demographic information
namely ‘age-group’, ‘income-group’, ‘education’, ‘family size’ etc using cluster analysis so as to identify
the distinct clusters depending upon these demographic factors.

T-statistic: A t-test will be conducted on the results of the survey in order to compare the means of the
ranks for the factors to find out the most important influencing factor causing the dip in the revenues.