kEn’s WoNderLaNd

First of all, I apologies for doing this late, Sorry!

The answers below are for Q.10

1. In order to reduce the time-to-market, Procter & Gamble (P&G) make a good use out of the most well-known technology today which is the Internet. Firstly, they conducted a concept test and started of sending their product photos and descriptions to the potential customers in order to get their review and feedback about the product. If they receive any negative comment on the product, they will try hard to improve it and make it as perfect as possible. Once they achieve the positive response from the customers, they will send out sample product via mails and the customers were asked to fill out detailed questionnaires. Once the customer’s responses successfully met the companies’ internal hurdles, the company would start with mass TV advertising. Once again, special thanks to the people that have contributed their ideas in the creation of Internet.

2. Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and   summarizing it into useful information like information that can be used to increase revenue or cutting down some cost. For example, Carrefour used the data mining capacity of Oracle software to analyze local buying patterns. They discovered that when some aunties bought Milo on Saturdays and Sundays, they also tended to buy Maggie Mee. Further analysis showed that these shoppers typically did their weekly grocery shopping on Saturdays and Sundays. On Thursdays, however, they only bought a few items. The retailer concluded that they purchased the Maggie Mee to have it available for the upcoming weekend. With this Data mining, Carrefour could use this newly discovered information in various ways to increase revenue. For example, they could move the Maggie Mee display closer to the Milo display. And, they could make sure Maggie Mee and Milo were sold at full price on weekends. So come back to this case, Procter & Gamble uses data mining to reveal the most enthusiastic groups which included teenage girls, brides-to-be, and young Hispanic Americans. Immediately, the company started to target these segments with appropriate advertising.

3. The research methods that were used by Procter & Gamble are on-demand solutions from RightNow Technologies (rightnow.com) as well as survey tools that carry out opinion polls between chosen segments of consumers who have opted into the company’s market research programs.