Acknowledgement

At first we present our due regards to the Almighty Allah, who have provided us the brilliant opportunity to build and complete this report successfully with good health & sound mind.

We, the student of Money & Banking course would like to express our special feelings & great affections with our heartiest appreciation to the honorable Instructor Assistant Professor Mr. Moniruzzaman Khan for his kind cooperation. Without his help it was impossible for us to complete the report. His wellorganized method of providing guidelines helped us to understand this critical but most important subject easily. We also thanked his for kindly assigning such a nice & significant report, which we always remember gratefully.

At last we would like to convey our best regards to those people who helped us to completion of the report. We are very grateful that they helped us by giving their valuable time, consultation and guidelines. We are really indebt to them for their cooperation

We desire & hope that this report will certainly help us to get a good experience.

Name of the heads

Introduction Objective of the Study Methodology of the Study Segmentation Positioning Strategy Findings and Recommendations Conclusion Sources

TABLE

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CONTENTS:

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03 04 04-5 06-11 12-15 16 17 17

Introduction

This paper is made on "market segmentation strategy: A Study on OTOBI Ltd". As an Assistant Professor of Project Work Course, Golam Mohammad Forkan instructs us to make this report as a part of Course of Masters of Business Administration Program of Eastern University. Furniture Business in Bangladesh is not new but before last 2 decade it was based on wood basis. But after introduce the new concept by OTOBI the scenario has been change a lot. At present OTOBI also make its wooden furniture for their valuable customer as their new marketing strategy to create permanent position in market. Thus OTOBI has become the market leader in the furniture industry for last whole decade. Few years back the competition has been increased. As a result, OTOBI now facing huge amount of competition though it has an annual sales of 15 corer taka per month. OTOBI has different types of products. Among them chair, table, computer table, home furniture and file cabinet are the main products.OTOBIs price is a bit higher than others. But they are the first brand which exports furniture outside the country. It has about 8 showrooms in Dhaka and Chittagong, 150 dealers in the whole country and 16 outlets outside the country. They usually promote their products by ads, banners and direct selling. About 2500 people are now working with OTOBI. The Target Segment of OTOBI mainly the people of urban area specially the corporate, houses and homes. By giving the ads they try to get the attention of the people and try to give people an idea that OTOBI is the prestigious and high status product. The only problem lies with price and distribution. But for these two factors about half of the respondents do not want to buy the furniture of OTOBI. As a result OTOBI can change the beliefs of the people by giving more ads on the television and in newspaper frequently.

Objective of the Study

Objective of this report is to analyze the Strategic Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning of Otobi Furniture. We know that the competition in the furniture industry is increasing day by day as new firms are coming in the market like legacy, Navana, Partex etc. As a result nowadays Otobi Furniture is facing a huge competition. We have prepared this report to analyze the Strategic Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning of Otobi Furniture tried to build up some probable solutions of their problems so that they can gain their previous position in the market.

Methodology of the Study

2.1 Research Method
In order to make this report we visited showrooms of OTOBI furniture. We collected information from them. After that we made a questionnaire for the general people to know their perception, belief, attitude and lifestyle. We have made of all analysis by their answers of those questions. Different tables and graphs were prepared to gain a better view of the consumers perception. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and SPSS software were used for this purpose. After the analysis we suggested the probable strategies. We made the analysis of this report by Questionnaire survey methods. At last we selected some people as sample and made this report.

2.2 Data Collection

We collected the secondary data from customer and the competitors of OTOBI and websites.

Limitations
To prepare the report we faced some problem that effected to make a good report. Such as,

We did not get the real annual sales data of OTOBI Furniture. It was easy for us to identify their current market position from total sales volume. For most of the corporate information of OTOBI Furniture we totally depended on the information that provided by the officials of OTOBI Furniture Showrooms. It could not possible to find out the major corporate clients of OTOBI. We did not get sufficient time to make a successful report and for this reason we made it as early as possible. We did not get any report prepared in past in our library, so we depends only on instructions given to us.

Segmentation strategies

Defining the Furniture Market to be Segmented

The mission of OTOBI Furniture is To provide the middle class and higher middle class people of the country world class furniture in a very comfortable price. OTOBI Furniture a part of OTOBI Group is one of the market leaders of furniture market of Bangladesh. They started their business in Bangladesh in the year 1975 with the slogan Trusted across the World. And now they crossed the boundary and operating business also in India. They are assuming themselves as the market leader for last 10 years. Though their price is a bit higher but as they provide the best quality furniture people are ready to get that with any cost. Not only that they have the biggest brand image in our country. OTOBI furniture has the biggest collection of furniture like world class chair, world class computer furniture, world class home furniture, world class table, world class swivel chair and file cabinet and plastic furniture. OTOBI furniture was given the award of enterprise of the year 2001. Beside their corporate office in Dilkhusha, Dhaka, they have 8 sales and display center in Dhaka and Chittagong city and around 100 dealers in the whole country. They have about 16 outlets outside the country.

Competitors:
The competition in the furniture market is increasing day by day as so many new firms are coming in the market. As a result, OTOBI Furniture is facing a huge competition now a day. Their main competitors are,

Navana Furniture
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Partex Studio 45 Hatil Tanin Legacy

Market Segmentation
DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION
5.1 Age, Sex and Family Member
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OTOBI Furniture is marketing one of the best quality furniture in Bangladesh. They are mainly promoting their products to the corporate houses as well as houses. In this factor age is not a big consideration as purchasing of furniture in a corporate house made by the officials who involve with purchase or the directors. Their age may be 25, it may also 55. Not only that purchasing home furniture in home may be influence by the father, mother or may be the children. So here I also found a big age range. And same we can say about the sex. The purchase may be influence by male or it may influence by female. As people do not buy furniture impulsively and it is a high involvement product in most cases these demographic factors is not working like the other products. As the family members influence the buying decision of furniture.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SEGMENTATION

Social Class
The social class of the target market was determined according to their family income. From the figure we can see that 44.17% people are coming from the income level of Tk. 15001 to Tk. 40000. We will call them middle class. This percentage is bigger in size. 27.86% are from the income level of Tk. 40001 to Tk. 75000 who is near to the upper class, 19.6% are from Tk. 75001 to Tk. 100000 who are upper class and at last 8.19% are from the income level of Tk. 100000 or above who are the elite class. So we found that most of the members of the target market are from middle and upper class people. Our survey also found the social class of the people by their occupations and the educational qualifications. And I found out from our respondents that a very few has educational qualification of College and PHD, 55.7% have educational qualification of graduate, 19.7% have postgraduate, and 19.7% have other types of educational qualification.

BEHAVIORAL SEGMENTATION
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Shopping Activity
Number of shopping also reflects the social class of a person. Because if you are a person of higher class you should have a higher number of shopping and it will decrease in middle class and lower class respectively. From Our respondent I found that, 29.50% of our respondents shop once a month, 34.42% of them shop twice a month, 9.84% of them shop once a week and 26.23% shop more than four times a month. After the average I found that our target market has a habit to shop more than twice a month but not more than once a week.

Shopping Place
Shopping place is now a symbol of status for the people of our country. As a result I can be able to find out the social class from the shopping place habit of the people. 55.7% of the total respondents shop usually from Eastern Plaza, Riffles Square and New Market. We can categories them in middle class group. And remaining 37.7% shop from Bashundara City. We can categories them in upper class. OTOBI can give distribution centers in the most visited shopping place or near to it for convenience of customers or to get more attention.

CULTURAL FACTORS
TV Channel, Clothing, Food Habit, Shopping Place are the cultural indicators that influence the behavior of the people more.

TV Channel

The choice of the TV channels has sufficient effect on the cultural preference of the target market. From Our findings of the survey I got that among those respondents approximately 49.2 % like channel I, 27.9% like ATN, 16.4% prefer Ekushe and others like RTV and NTV. From this, I got the general idea about which channels of Bangladesh are most seen. Many respondents like to watch several channels at a time.

Culture is the distinctive way of life of a group of people, their complete design for living. Cultural factors play a very important role for purchasing any kind of product. Without matching with the culture a product is not able survive in the market.

Relevant Cultural Values The important values that affect the purchase of OTOBI Furniture are,

Status: Status is one of the cultural values that effect the purchasing of OTOBI Furniture. We know that decorating a house or a corporate office by the lamination board furniture is the symbol of status now a day. As a result, people are buying lamination board furniture. As OTOBI is the oldest brand people already have a

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believe that their quality is good. So most of the time they prefer to buy from OTOBI. Non-Traditional: We know that people are like to change their lifestyle now a day. As a result most of the people now switching from the traditional wooden furniture to lamination board furniture.

Being good to ourself concept: We know that being good to Ourself concept is cherished by all in the society. As a result now people are thinking if they have money they will buy the expensive and exclusive products for their use. As a result, Lamination board furniture purchasing is increasing.

Fashionable: For making a home into sweet home people are now expensing a lot for its fashion and design. And it is possible for only lamination board furniture to provide more fashionable and stylist products. So lamination board furniture purchasing is increasing.

Positioning Strategy
Products:
We know that OTOBI is the biggest furniture brand of our country. They have about 26 different types of furniture. Not only is that OTOBI furniture the symbol of status now a day. Most of the big corporate house now purchasing their office furniture from OTOBI. They provide both customized and standardized product. For customized product a buyer gives the order and OTOBI produce according to that and in case of standardized product OTOBI makes the product itself and

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keep it in the outlet for buying of the people. Among the 26 different brands the main brands of OTOBI are,

World Class Chair Home Furniture Table & File Cabinet

Most of these products has different slogan to establish themselves in the mind of the people. They are, World Class Chair Table Swivel Chair Home Furniture & File Cabinet Chair that satisfies your need. Create your ideal office environment Beauty you can See World Class Furniture

Not only that they also take the orders for kitchen fittings. The main advantages with the OTOBI products are, Multiple colors Knock Down System Elegant Design Competitive Price After Sales Service

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Beside all this lamination board furniture they have already introduce Plastic and Wooden furniture.

Price:
We know that OTOBI now a day is one of the symbols of status. The price of OTOBI furniture is a bit higher than that of the competitors. According to the officials of the outlet of OTOBI As they are giving the best quality raw materials in each furniture their price is a bit higher. They also told us that they import each of the raw materials from the country where they get the best one. But according to them though their raw materials are more costly than their competitors their price is competitive. The price range of different furniture are given below,
Table: Price Range of the different products of OTOBI Furniture Products Price range

Chair Table File Cabinet Bed Dinning Table

Tk. 970 18,000 Tk. 4,600 40,500 Tk. 8,900 65,500 Tk. 9,900 40,000 Tk. 5,300 16,500

According to the officials of the OTOBI Furniture their price is depends on the quality of raw materials, high technological machineries and overhead cost.

Place:
The target market area of OTOBI Furniture is the metropolitan city area. In fact the main target area is the Dhaka city and Chittagong city. For that reason all the showrooms of OTOBI furniture is in these two cities. The addresses of the showrooms are, OTOBI Corporate Office: 14 Dilkusha Commercial Area Dhaka 1000 OTOBI Center: Plot 12 Block CWS (C) Gulshan South Avenue Gulshan 1 Dhaka 1212

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 Elephant Road: 230 New Elephant Road Dhaka Gulshan: SE(F) 3 Gulshan Avenue Dhaka Uttare: House # 21 Road #7 Sector # 4 Uttara Model Town Dhaka Shewrapara: 923 Begum Rokeya Sharani Mirpur Dhaka Panthapath: D. H Tower 129 Panthapath Dhaka Chittagong: Zohora Tower, 1401, Agrabad C/A, Chittagong 1400 Beside these showrooms OTOBI has about 100 dealers all over the country to sale and promote their furniture. Not only that they have about 16 outlets outsides the boundary of the country. Their factory is situated in Savar, Dhaka which is bigger than all other furniture factory of the country. They use their own van to distribute their furniture in the country.

Promotion:
All the firms try to keep their brand on the top ladder of the people mind by its promotional activities. OTOBI also has its own promotional activities to keep itself on the top of the peoples mind of Bangladesh. OTOBI use both ATL (above the line: TV, Newspaper, Direct Selling) and BTL (Poster, Banner, Neon Sign) promotional strategies. But for a product like furniture Above the Line promotional strategies specially direct selling, are the main one.

Direct Selling:
OTOBI Furniture has some very skillful and experienced marketing executives. Usually they go to the big corporate houses of Dhaka and Chittagong city with their leaflets and other promotional tools. In this case they try to describe the advantages of the furniture of OTOBI and try to sell as many as furniture possible. The descriptions of the OTOBI Furnitures TV and paper ads are explained below.

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Banner:
The banner is specially made because of the present Rainy season. In fact they use another ATL strategy in the banner. To promote the sales in this season they give 10% discount to all the furniture. This information and their showrooms are given in the banner.

Paper ad:
The paper ad basically shows the high status of OTOBI Furniture. In this paper ad OTOBI use their slogan Barashar char That means the furniture of OTOBI has a biggest status and prestigious image that people are buy OTOBI furniture with seasonal discount. Not only that as when International trade Fair was on going the special offer 15% discount was also mentioned in the newspaper ad.

TV ad:
The TV ad also shows that people are motive to buy the furniture in the Rainy season. Then a person says Apni Kinchen Kobe? This ad shows that OTOBIs Furniture are so good that one people motivate the another people to buy the product with seasonal desire.

Findings and Recommendations

The main drawback of Otobi Furniture is the price. From our report it is clearly found that people are not really comfortable with the price. Otobi Furniture should decrease their price a bit to make their price more competitive in the market. For that they need to decrease their cost. We know that they imported most of their raw materials from outside the country. So they can make long term contract with the exporter or may take backward linkage strategies

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Rather than price it has also draw backs in the promotional and distribution activities. The number of distribution outlets should be increased in Dhaka and Chittagong city. They also need to increase their outlets into other big cities like Khulna.

Promotional Activity
Otobi can done some promotional Activity for increase there income and goodwill by doing

Newspaper Advertisement Television Advertisement Billboards Banner Direct Selling Sponsor

Conclusion
Otobi is the market leader in furniture industry. But unfortunately we found a very few advertisement in the newspaper and television of Otobi Furniture. Our report also shows the same results. We can conclude that Otobi has some problems with their promotional activities. On the other hand, we found frequent advertisement of Navana and other brands. We know that exposure creates attention. So Otobi may loose some of the peoples attention if this strategy not changed by

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Otobi Furniture. So our recommendation is Otobi should increase the advertisement. Otobi Furniture should decrease their price a bit to make their price more competitive in the market. For that they need to decrease their cost. We know that they imported most of their raw materials from outside the country. So they can make long term contract with the exporter or may take backward linkage strategies Rather than price it has also draw backs in the promotional and distribution activities. The number of distribution outlets should be increased in Dhaka and Chittagong city. They also need to increase their outlets into other big cities like Khulna.

Sources
www.otobi.com ww.alibaba.com/member/bd100630270.html www.bdyellowbook.com/.../Otobi_Limited-info666.html bangladesh.world-countries.net/archives/tag/otobi-bangladesh bd.linkedin.com/pub/bishnu-otobi/28/297/a12

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