ASSIGNMENT

MK 7.02 MARKETING RESEARCH

ASSIGNMENT 1

Submission Done by,

Sreehari Mohan

Student ID: 2020001268

Course- Graduate Diploma in Business Management

Level- 7

Date of submission- October 19, 2020.

INTRODUCTION – KMART 3

PROBLEMS FACED CURRENTLY 3

Management Decision Problem 3

Marketing Research Problems 3

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 4

SCOPE 4

TIMING 4

LIMITATION 4

SECONDARY DATA 4

REFERENCE 6

INTRODUCTION – KMART

Kmart otherwise known as the Kmart Corporation is a big box department store based in the United States of America. From 2005, the company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, US. The company was formed in 1899 and globally it runs 2486 stores. The first store in New Zealand was opened in 1988 in Henderson. Kmart is a subsidiary of Transform SR Brands LLC, then known as Sears Holdings Corporation. The products in the store are electronics, shoes, clothing, beauty and health products, jewellery, bedding and linen products, sporting items, toys, food, automotive, pet items, appliances and hardware. Being chain of discount department stores, Kmart stands are located in malls or as free-standing. Currently Kmart delivers overwhelmingly low prices. Their business are operated across 200 stores in both New Zealand and Australia. Kmart tries to ensure that their customers get their desired product at the lowest price possible (KmartNZ, 2020). Apart from New Zealand, Kmart also operates in Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Singapore, United States of America and Caribbean countries.

PROBLEMS FACED CURRENTLY

The main problem faced by Kmart is the employee satisfaction and poor management. According to a review from the employees of Kmart, a certain ration of employees are not satisfied with the management. Reports suggests that there are no proper staff training which results in lack of products and thereby resulting in less customer satisfaction. This communication problem results in overstocking, understocking of popular products. This issues in turn affect the forecasting of product demands and the supply chain. Poor supply chain affects advertising and reach of company to the consumers. Management problems in supply chain results in more operational costs.

Management Decision Problem

Does the management need to conduct employee appraisal regularly?
Is there a need to ensure that staff training are done with standards?
Should the forecast be conducted using data other than management judgement?
Is there a need for special team to check demands and stocking to make the supply chain effective?

Marketing Research Problems

Is less employee satisfaction leading to mental pressure on staff?
Does the poor staff training affects their in store performance?
Does tremendous increased impact of social media in customers can be used for advertising and demand survey?
Will a specialised team can improve supply chain and shipping issues?

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of the study are

To determine the employee satisfaction of Kmart
To determine the supply chain performance of Kmart
To determine the customer satisfaction of Kmart
To determine the social media and other advertising strategies for Kmart.

SCOPE

The scope of the report is that the study aims at understanding the level of employee satisfaction of Kmart and how it affects the forecasting, supply chain, advertising and customer satisfaction. The scope involves both the primary data and the secondary data being collected. The primary data will be collected from focused group and involve 20 to 25 respondents including quantitative and qualitative

TIMING

The research commences on 15^th of October and finishing on 25^th November.

LIMITATION

As the research is conducted as a student project, fund is a limitation.
Time is another limitation as the research should be done in few weeks.
Due to limited word count, research is kept brief and without much explanation.
Access to more precise details from the employees cannot be obtained as they are confidential according to company policies.

SECONDARY DATA

Many studies conducted by researchers points out the relationship between satisfaction of customer and employee (Bernhardt et al., 2000, Harter et al., 2002, Koys,2003, Tornow and Wiley, 1991, Wangenheim et al., 2007). Because of the nature of the Kmart, in a service industry employee satisfaction is very important (Lam et al., 2001). Customers always recognise and value the level of service offered to them. Increased referrals and customer loyalties are results of these best offered services (Chi, C.G. and Gursoy, 2009). Kmart should follow performance appraisal program for staffs and this should be considered as a process and system for improving employee performance than a rating form conducted every year end. Techniques and staff appraisal should be included as a design during execution of the system (Brown, R.D., 1988). This indicates that internal communication plays a great role in the satisfaction of employees. This sound communication will influence the internal integration of the company and as a result, this will affect positively on the external integration. Active communication in conjunction with contented employees is vital for enlightening firm performance in the synchronisation of material, information, and money as well as integration with trading partners (Jacob M.A., et al, 2016). Well managed supply chain helps meet demands of customers and Kmart can reduce its operating costs by effectively planning through these stages (Thomas D.J. and Griffin P.M., 1996). This prevents understocking and overstocking of products. Kmart conducts their business through suppliers who meet their international standards and comply with all laws. Demand forecast should be derived according to data of potential buyers and their demands. Consumers are committed to purchasing through the great influence of advertisements, promotions and the exposure of the products (Chung C. et al., 2012). Customer needs and wants can be met by delivering offers to them through marketing. This business function aims at the customer groups in the target market. Kmart has a wide range of consumer group from kids, teenagers and youth to elderly. Secured online shopping can also make customers feels secured and create urge to buy more even without going to the shop. Online shopping can bring to people more promotions and discounts. While making the promotion-mix, the glamorous element will be the advertisement. The sales data should be necessarily analysed and sales promotion can be made accordingly. This is because sales promotion helps for increased business now rather than future. Kmart is using advertising and promotions in social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube as well. Thus it is evident that all the factors of the company is interlinked and sound internal and external integration together runs a business.

REFERENCE

Bernhardt et al., 2000 K.L. Bernhardt, N. Donthu, P.A. Kennett. A longitudinal analysis of satisfaction and profitability Journal of Business Research, 47 (2000), pp. 161-171. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296398000423?casa_token=yUeonhgu31cAAAAA:HsjkANTG9UuTTJ9RlCilgaCq9ajiXd0bT1gnemEciBqsijxU9-2vGObsb2Hd2d37puMlHcK72Wvd

Brown, R. D. (1988). Performance appraisal as a tool for staff development. New directions for student services. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-20433-001

Chi, C. G., & Gursoy, D. (2009). Employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and financial performance: An empirical examination. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(2), 245-253. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431908000790?casa_token=Fu2pk5zjYGoAAAAA:bLrwHDByTsfx-lVMp1_jP2NQYeDD2zqZJ1DsYaSm54oni10y3N_ZidjYzU8OG0dr5kb0qjhQsphg

Chung, C., Niu, S. C., & Sriskandarajah, C. (2012). A Sales Forecast Model for Short‐Life‐Cycle Products: New Releases at Blockbuster. Production and Operations Management, 21(5), 851-873. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1937-5956.2012.01326.x

Harter et al., 2002 J.K. Harter, F.L. Schmidt, T.L. Hayes Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis Journal of Applied Psychology, 87 (2) (2002), pp. 268-279. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2002-12397-006

Jacobs, M. A., Yu, W., & Chavez, R. (2016). The effect of internal communication and employee satisfaction on supply chain integration. International Journal of Production Economics, 171, 60-70. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527315003965?casa_token=-UP1s24WZNkAAAAA:lE_g4ACJtydlfh03xP2jCEh7JzkGmOqvkU3yrsJQRmN92aVl_873dEsy6Nr1AihHjl03Qmbkh4BS

Kazmi, S. H. H., & Batra, S. K. (2009). Advertising and sales Promotion. Excel Books India. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1fQuLiaGY4YC&oi=fnd&pg=PR15&dq=advertisement+and+sales+promotion&ots=7sQ6zv2KLa&sig=H65v8Ns_dXKmnGre0m9roKFYLO8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=advertisement%20and%20sales%20promotion&f=false

KmartNZ (2020). Retrieved from https://www.kmart.co.nz/about-kmart
Koys, 2003. How the achievement of human-resources goals drives restaurant performance Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 44 (1) (2003), pp. 17-24. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010880403441002?journalCode=cqxa

Thomas, D. J., & Griffin, P. M. (1996). Coordinated supply chain management. European journal of operational research, 94(1), 1-15. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0377221796000987

Tornow and Wiley, 1991 W.W. Tornow, J.W. Wiley. Service quality and management practices: a look at employee attitudes, customer satisfaction, and bottom-line consequences Human Resource Planning, 14 (1991), pp. 105-115. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/openview/0dd42e143325632e47f160030301b32a/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=52465

Wangenheim et al., 2007 F.W. Wangenheim, H. Evanschitzky, M. Wunderlich. Does the employee–customer satisfaction link hold for all employee groups? Journal of Business Research (2007). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296307000860?casa_token=MLC61ubkdEUAAAAA:09Grc02z6iQjZ4-7rVgeVAHW9U1IVXix2yIItkaPBTRISSb3ruepRxRvEawE1uWO2zeMCrmG8ORs

Contents