Project Scope Document (Preliminary and Tentative)

This is tentative, currently. Am looking to collect your thoughts and feedback first. Pls use the comments below to give feedback.

Project Scope Document

Context: A large foreign conglomerate (let's call it XYZ Corp) is contemplating an India foray, attracted by India's red hot passenger car market.
XYZ corp is currently engaged in a descriptive study of the structure and competition levels in the India market on the one hand and the preferences & habits of current & prospective Indian customers.

Scope: XYZ Corp has ruled out the high end luxury cars submarket (Rs 18 lakh and above, ex showroom) and is solely focussed on hatchbacks (including subcompacts), small sedans, mid-size sedans and large sedans (saloons).
They want to know (among other things, perhaps) about the habits and preferences of current and prospective customers. A few indicative examples are listed below (not necessarily in any order of importance):
(i) market characteristics such as current marketshares and trends in shares
(ii) regional preferences for particular vehicle types
(iii) car driving habits of current customers/car-owners [for example, average miles driven per week, in what driving conditions - city, rush hour city, highway, etc., primary use - daily commute, family use etc, average time between purchase of two cars, and so on]
(iv) expectations of current and prospective customers [e.g., total operating costs including fuel, servicing and spares; seating, engine and trunk capacity; parking ease, resale value, warranties, service levels from dealer and service station; price etc.]
(v) Attribute/feature preferences of current and prospective customers
(vi) feedback from current customers [e.g., level of satisfaction with current car, etc.]
(vii) brand perceptions of current and prospective customers for the top selling 5 brands in the market; whether there are gaps in the positioning that can be exploited by XYZ corp and so on.
(viii) demohgraphic and lifestyle information

Pls note, the above are indicative only. Groups are expected to come up with a better list of their own.

For car attributes etc, a good site to refer would be carazoo.com. Goto this site, type in any make and brand and explore the detailed listing of technical specifications and attributes available.

Requirement: Design a questionnaire for aweb-based survey that can be administered to people in the target segment. Pls leverage the strengths of a websurvey - notably the ability to imbed IF-THEN loops within the questionnaire. Hence for example, you could have a question that asks "Are you: (A) currently a car-owner (B) in the market to buy a car, (C) not looking to buy a car" and depending on whether the respondent checks (A), (B) or (C), irrelevant questions are skipped and only the relevant ones presented.

Pls make a websurvey.
First, brainstorm and come up with a questionnaire draft on a regular word editor. Make sure it has these IF-THEN loops readied. Refine the draft and ready it for submission. Questionnaire design will be covered in lecture 4. Get a heads up with reading the relevant textbook chapter on the same, and looking up readymade past questionnaires on the web. You DON"T have to reinvent the wheel! Cite sources if you took help. No outright PLAGIARISM please!
Second, register for a free account on surveymonkey.com. Use its tutorials etc to understand how to create your survey with the logical loops built in.
Third, fill it up and send the academic associate both (a) the link for the websurvey and (b) the word copy of the questionnaire. Pls remember to mention group name and members list in both the websurvey and the offline questionnaire.

The deadline for the questionnaire is 26-27 october (depending on when your section has its lecture).

Do NOT adminster the survey to anyone outside MKTR yet. I will provide you with a *final* version of a questionnaire which the entire class will then administer using the ISB account for surveymonkey. That will come later and will be detailed at an appropriate time.

Shall put this proj scope doc first up on the blog. Shall release the full, formal and final version of this document on blackboard after first collecting your preliminary comments/feedback and refining this document.

Hope that helps. Questions and comments welcome.

Sudhir.