BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH DIVISION OF IMRB
IMRB has been offering over 25 years specialist research services to clients in India and overseas on products and services that cover the entire gamut of business and industry. Operating out of its five full service offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore, ably supported by 13 other regional centres for collection of survey information that literally span the entire country, IMRB is able to provide the highest quality of professional services to the utmost satisfaction of its clients which include the small medium and large scale industries, the government and public sector units, multinational corporations and international companies that are eyeing the highly promising Indian market.
The Business and Industrial Research Division (BIRD) is a specialist unit of IMRB. Operating nationally out of IMRB's five full service offices, this unit brings to bear the specialist skills and infrastructure required to provide a wide variety of support services to the industrial marketing function. Right from assistance in taking the ''go-nogo' decision for a new product or service and generating inputs for developing an entry strategy, onto assessing market size, share, profiling existing or potential buyer with a view to develop effective marketing strategies and making the sales 'legwork' more efficient, and measuring customers expectations and satisfaction from service, the Business and Industrial Research Division has significant contributions to make in adding value to corporate and marketing decision making in business and industrial products and service companies. Quite often, the role taken by the division is akin to operating as the extended arm of the marketing team specially in exercises leading to entering new market segments or working towards enhancing the share in existing segments.
The ability to provide specialist support services to industrial marketing stems from the following:
Human Resources
- Most of the consultants/project director in Business and Industrial Research Division come from the engineering, science and technology stream with considerable prior understanding of business and industrial products and services.
- Many of our consultants/project directors have specific experience in the marketing of industrial products and services and therefore have a deep, hands-on understanding of the marketing tools, methods, techniques and approaches available with the industrial marketer, and the relative merits and demerits of each. This understanding, drawn over a variety of industries and market segments, when adapted or applied to a specific industry significantly expands the marketers horizons.
- Most of our senior project directors and business group managers have been working on business and industrial market research assignments for several years exposing them to a wide variety of industrial marketing problem and situations. This wealth of knowledge and experience in problem solving is available as a resource across the national network of the division, thereby making available to each client a large internal resource base.
- While the broad process of research is based on IMRB framework, significant adaptations have been made in the role and involvement of different functional personnel with a view to add the requisite value at different stages of the process. For example, while the information collection function is handled by the large, multi-stage field infrastructure that has been suitably built for market research over the years, the function is closely supported by an operations wing exclusively working on business and industrial projects, which ensures a through understanding of stimuli and response at various stages in the information collection process, and in different industrial situations. Such measures have ensured that the quality of information collected matches closely with the specific requirements of industrial marketing.
Information Services
- The Business and Industrial Research Division operates and manages an information office; the personnel of which have the necessary skills and experience in collecting, collating and classifying secondary data on a wide variety of industrial products, services and markets. The division utilises the services of state-of-the-art information scanning and retrieving hardware and software that ensure periodic updating and timely retrieval. The services of the information office add significant value to the division's clients.
Industry Specific Experience
- Since the expertise of the Business and Industrial Research Division is in industrial and business marketing support, virtually any product or industry segment can be researched by the division with equal proficiency. However, over the years, certain industries have been the source of a larger share of the assignments resulting in the building up of specific experience in these industries across the national network of the division.
Some of these are :
- Oil and Gas
- Higher-end telecommunication services and products for business use including products and services for integrated networking of voice and data
- Products and services that enhance productivity and efficiency of offices such as copiers, computers, printers, etc.
- The steel sector both for measuring quality of service as well as recommending an appropriate product mix in the emerging private enterprise scenario
- Chemicals and Petrochemicals
- Core sectors such as power, coal, etc.
- Electrical Equipment
- Machinery-heavy and light
The following pages outline the IMRB's experience in the Chemicals and Petrochemicals sector.
CHEMICALS AND PETROCHEMICALS STUDIED
IMRB has conducted market studies involving a wide range of chemical and petrochemical products which can be classified into the following broad categories.
- Organic Chemicals and Petrochemicals
- Inorganic Chemicals
- Other products from process industries like:
- Cement
- Ceramics
- Paper etc.
- Machinery for chemical industry
RANGE OF CHEMICAL AND PETROCHEMICAL PRODUCTS STUDIED
POTENTIAL ESTIMATION STUDIES
Estimation of demand is one of the most frequently occurring objectives among studies on Petroleum. Some of the methods used for the estimation of potential are,
Supply Route
A fairly accurate estimate of domestic demand for an industrial product can be obtained by calculating the total industry production and adjusting this figure for imports and exports. This is possible given the oligopolistic nature of supply for most industrial products.
Demand = Total Production + Imports -Exports
Standard Norms of Consumption Approach
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Demand can also be estimated by determining the standard norms of consumption of a product in a typical industry for each of the end user segments. Given the total industry production of that particular product, the demand can be estimated as follows :
Demand = iniPi
Where,
ni = Consumption norm is i'th end use segment
Pi = Total production in i'th end use segment
i = No. of end use industry segments
To give a simplified example, the demand for any product used as a fuel in an industry can be estimated as follows:
The norms of consumption of the product under study is determined from a sample of units. Now, given the total production of end products in India coupled with factors such rate of industry growth, imports/exports, alternatives and industry trends the potential can be calculated using the above formula.
PRODUCT ACCEPTABILITY AND SUBSTITUTABILITY STUDIES
Once the concept is put forth in the form of a product, it becomes very pertinent to know their acceptability against established materials/products. IMRB has undertaken several market studies to establish whether the new products would find acceptance and substitute established materials/products and also identify any weaknesses (dislikes) and potential strong points.
CONCEPT TEST STUDIES
Petroleum products can have a wide range of applications and given the changing needs of end-consumers, it is imperative to constantly innovate and bring forth new![]()
products. To this end, IMRB has conducted studies to ascertain need gaps that exists in the consumer’s mind and also expectations. Based on these , certain ideas are conceptualised and the same are tested to assess the acceptability of these ideas and refine them further. This is an iterative process in any new product development phase, wherein the idea (i.e. the concept) is tested again to ensure that it matches the expectation of the end-consumer. Once the concept gains acceptance, the concept is put forth in the form of a product and introduced in the market.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION STUDIES
IMRB has carried out studies for clients to determine the level of satisfaction as expressed by their customers with regard to their products and services. Customers satisfaction involves ascertaining the perception of customers regarding the products and services offered by the client in terms of factors like product quality, delivery, flexibility of manufacture to sudden changes in requirement and delivery, commercial terms etc.
PRICING STUDIES
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Studies on pricing are carried out for existing and new products. We conduct research into aspects such as ideal price, the ready to pay price as well as the sensitivity and elasticity of potential/demand to price. We have also conducted research to ascertain the utility of price vis-à-vis the product features at hand and ascertain the trade-off that a consumer makes on the price vis-à-vis the features on offer, using the conjoint technique. This type of study not only helps in ascertaining the value attached to product features but is also useful in designing the right type of product, which matches consumer expectations and the desired price.
TRADE STUDIES
Trade studies are generally conducted to get an understanding of the trade practices prevalent in any particular product market in terms of nature of traders, volume handled, customers, payment terms etc.
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