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Indian Bicycles Private Limited (IBPL) Indian Bicycles Private Limited is a Ludhiana based bicycle manufacturing company.

. It is one of the biggest bicycles manufacturing companies in the world. Basically, IBPL has attained its present commanding heights after long years of struggle. It started as a sole proprietorship concern in 1950. Mr. Lal who owned a bicycle repair shop in Ludhiana had four sons who joined hands with their father and established a partnership concern. This company was developed into a Private Limited Company. There are several companies at present in the IBPL Group which manufacture a wide range of products, viz., mopeds, motorcycles, shock absorbers, bicycle spare-parts, etc. At present IBPL Group has many professional managers working in their various companies but Indian Bicycles Private Limited still remains a private limited company (narrowly held). Management of the company is not very professional. As a result most of the employees of this company and the group as a whole are not a satisfied lot. But still the group and IBPL in particular are working as highly efficient and profit making units in their business. Lately, IBPL started experiencing a cut-throat competition in the bicycle business at home and in the world markets. They had started experiencing some flatness in their sales and profit curve. Recently, IBPL had hired an MBA, Anuradha Goswami. Anuradha, who specialized in marketing, was the first MBA to be recruited from outside as there was a stress to recruited from outside as there was stress to recruit only technically equipped people like engineers etc., without management qualifications. But some of the sons of the four brothers of the IBPL Group had technical as well as management qualifications. Some of these third generation IBPL promoters and managers were MBAs from some reputed universities. They have a lot of management exposure in India as well as abroad as they keep touring domestic and international markets quite frequently. The Chairman, Mr. Ravinder Lal, is also a very ambitious and dynamic man who aspires to take bigger strides and make the group as one of the few big business houses in India. One day Mr. Ravinder Lal called his marketing manager, Mr. Sripat Dass, in his cabin and discussed with him in detail the marketing problems facing IBPL. Mr. Dass told Mr. Lal, sir, our main problem is that we are continuing our manufacturing along traditional lines, and many of the problems in marketing are the result of that. We never tried to have a feel of the consumers in the domestic as well as the international markets. To be very frank, sir, we must undertake some marketing research projects in order to understand the purchase behavior of bicycle buyers. Also there is a need to understand the dealers viewpoints through certain dealers surveys. Mr. Lal immediately retorted, Why dont you design a marketing research project through which we can have a feel of buyers needs and attitudes. I think you can guide and instruct Anuradha to carry out this research project. Ask her to prepare a research report as soon as possible. Mr. Dass summoned Anuradha to his office and asked her to design a research study to understand buyers and dealers behavior within 48 hours. Anuradha immediately sat down to formulate a research design for the study. She established the following research objectives: 1. To study the buyers behavior after establishing certain attributes that are generally considered important by the buyers of bicycles. 2. To study the dealers attitude towards IBPL policies and its products. 3. To distinguish the rural buyers attributes from those of urban buyers. RM Case 2 Page 1

Anuradha decided to adopt an exploratory research design because secondary data was unavailable. She wanted to collect primary data about the buyers and dealers attitudes. For this she decided to have a sample of 100 buyers (males and females) from each of the urban and rural population from and around Ludhiana city. She decided to take a sample of 50 dealers from North Indian states. Buyers sample was to be taken on judgment and convenience basis whereas dealers sample was to be taken on random stratified basis. She decided that data collection from buyers could be carried out with the help of a structured undisguised interview schedule. Personal interviews will also be held with the dealers with the help of a separately designed interview schedule. She decided that many questions on each schedule will be on attitude measurement on the pattern of Likert Scaling Techniques covering bicycle attributes like price, quality, color, availability of spare parts, repair costs, sleekness of looks, etc. Further, Anuradha decided that data thus collected would be categorized in favorable and unfavorable categories (with regard to attributes) and the Z-test will be applied to examine the significance after calculating the mean scores. Ranking of various attributes will also be carried out. The general profile of consumers and dealers will also be prepared on the basis of their demographic information like age, gender, qualification, income, place of living etc. Finally, it was decided that two outside consultants would be appointed for conducting the survey. They would be responsible for collecting and compiling the survey results. She was aware that the survey results would be have certain limitations as the samples would be small in size because of the limited time within which the report is to be prepared. But she felt that attitudes of buyers and dealers would be more or less the same even in larger samples as people have similar viewpoints regarding bicycles. This research design was submitted to the marketing manager, Mr. Dass, who would then discuss the research design with the Managing Director and then finalize after making modifications if required. Questions: 1. Was the problem identification and formulation systematically carried out? Discuss and put forward your viewpoints for improvement in this regard. 2. Were the objectives decided and listed in an appropriate manner? 3. Was the sample selected correctly? Discuss and suggest improvements if any. 4. Were the techniques for analysis correct? Discuss and suggest improvements if any. 5. Were the limitations of the study adequately pinpointed? Discuss and suggest improvements if any.

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