On January 11. 1991. William Kolander. president of the New England Soup Company of Boston. Massachusetts. was reexamining a research study he had received from a Boston-based research house. The study presented the findings of a survey on the firm’s new preparation of Kolander’s Chowder trade name of canned soup. The survey had besides been sent to the firm’s gross revenues director. Kirk George. and the production director. Edward Corey. A meeting was scheduled for January 12 with the research house and the New England Soup Company direction. The intent of the meeting was to discourse the research findings and to do determinations refering Kolander’s merchandise offerings.
The Company
The New England Soup Company was a little house that produced and distributed a line of forte canned soup merchandises to both the institutional and retail markets. Approximately 62 per centum of their 1990 gross revenues volume went to the institutional market ( $ 68. 526 ) . and 38 per centum went to the retail market ( $ 42. 102 ) . The company was founded by William Kolander in 1957. Kolander’s male parent was a successful proprietor of several eating houses in the Boston country that were celebrated for their chowder. The immature Kolander convinced his male parent in 1956 that there was a market to sell the chowder to local establishments ( eating houses. infirmaries. etc. ) in the New England country. and he developed a canned chowder under his father’s supervising. Production installations were acquired in the same twelvemonth.
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After losingss in the first few old ages. the concern turned profitable in 1960. At this clip. Kolander decided to come in the retail market with Kolander’s Chowder trade name. Both the institutional and retail concern grew quickly during the 1960’s. as did the firm’s profitableness. Expanded production installations were built in 1968. and two extra forte soup lines were introduced in 1970. These lines experienced limited success at retail but were moderately profitable in the institutional market.
Current Situation
The last five old ages had been a period of degree and so worsening gross revenues for Kolander’s Chowder ( 1987 -6943 instances. 1988 — 5676 instances. 1989 — 5101 instances. and 19901 — 4900 instances ) . Kolander attributed this diminution in gross revenues to the market entry of two new canned chowders in 1986 and 1987 ( see Appendix A ) . The new rivals were Fisherman’s Delight Chowder and Cape Cod Chowder. Both trade names were produced locally and appeared really similar in preparation to Kolander’s Chowder. Both of the new rivals had entered the market with a slightly lower selling monetary value than the Kolander’s trade name. Distributors were besides attracted by the somewhat higher borders plus the desire to transport a competitory option to Kolander’s Chowder. Several big retail merchants had advertised the Fisherman’s Delight trade name as a “weekly special” at 43 cents per can.
Management Objective
Kolander recognized that the house faced a serious competitory menace from the two new trade name entries. While there were several long-run issues he was sing. his immediate concern was one of developing a competitory scheme to counter the gross revenues diminution of Kolander’s Chowder. Specifically. he wanted to retrieve the lost distribution of the trade name and switch clients from competitory trade names back to the Kolander’s trade name. This was to be accomplished within the following 12 months. While increased distribution outside the current market country was a possibility. Kolander’s immediate aim was to better the market place of Kolander’s Chowder at retail within the New England are.
Estimated from 1989 company records.
The Research Project
In October 1989. Kolander contacted a local research house. After a figure of meetings. the research house recommended that a series of group interviews be conducted with current users of the two competitory chowder trade names in order to research grounds for the merchandise use. reactions to the trade names. and perceived merchandise differences. Through group Sessionss of this nature. the research house believed that the cause of worsening gross revenues of Kolander’s Chowder could be established and possible solutions identified. The consequences of the group Sessionss suggested that an of import proportion of the competitory transcribed chowder users preferred a chowder that was thicker and creamier than the current Kolander’s Chowder trade name preparation. Of the former Kowlander’s Chowder users. the desire for a creamier preparation was the prevailing ground for exchanging. Many of these chowder users had switched to either Fisherman’s Delight or Cape Cod Chowder.
Based on these findings. the research house recommended that farther research be conducted to measure altering Kolander’s Chowder to a creamier preparation. For intents of the trial. it was recommended that two creamier preparations be developed. a “creamy” version and an “extra creamy” version. These two new preparations would be evaluated in a gustatory sensation trial along with Kolander’s current chowder plus the two competitory trade names.
After several meetings on specific facets of the proposed research design. Kolander decided to O.K. the undertaking. Appendix B presents the consequences of this survey.
Case Question
Concentrating on the retail market. what merchandise line does the research suggest Kolander should bring forth? Guidelines for 3-Slide Submission
Slide 1: Analyze the information in Table 1 and do a merchandise line recommendation Slide 2: Measure the focal point group and the gustatory sensation trial and justice the quality of informations from each Slide 3: What would you hold done otherwise if you had guided the research procedure for this job?
APPENDIX A: New England Soup Company. Audited account of Retail Food Outlets ( Tables from the Report ) Fifty retail nutrient mercantile establishments in the New England market country have been audited yearly since 1975. These are deemed representative of the possible distribution mercantile establishments of transcribed soups for the New England Soup Company.
APPENDIX B: Evaluation of Two New Formulations of Kolander’s Canned Chowder Research Objectives
To measure the penchant for two new chowder preparations among users of Kolander’s Chowder. Cape Cod Chowder. and Fisherman’s Delight Chowder.
Research Design and Procedure
Two hundred male ( n=100 ) and female ( n=100 ) canned chowder users were selected from four geographic locations representative of the New England market country. The topics were selected utilizing a chance trying process affecting a telephone-administered modification questionnaire. Each topic was paid $ 5 for take parting in the trial.
The topics came to one of four trial locations ( local churches ) . They were tested separately in 30-minute Sessionss. Subjects were brought into the testing room and seated at stables. An direction sheet explained that the topic was to measure several samples of chowder. that the trial would dwell of three parts. and that they would be required to savor a sum of 15 cups of chowder. Normal taste-testing processs were followed.
The first portion involved savoring five samples of chowder and ranking them from “most preferred” to “least preferred” . The five chowders were Kolander’s regular chowder. Fisherman’s Delight. Kolander’s creamy ( version 1 ) . Cape Cod. and Kolander’s excess creamy ( version 2 ) . The 2nd and 3rd parts of the trial involved savoring five samples once more. The samples had different codification letters and the topics were non told the samples were indistinguishable to the old five. After savoring the five samples. the topics were once more asked to rank order the five samples. For each topic. the trial process resulted in three penchant ordinations of the five chowder samples. The penchant ordinations were combined to organize a composite ordination for each topic. a process that resulted in a more dependable step of each subject’s true penchant ordination.
Consequences
The information set consisted of 200 penchant ordinations of the five chowders. Table 1 nowadayss 20 penchant ordinations which are representative of the full information set. The difference between male and female penchant ordinations was non statistically important.
The information set was analyzed by ciphering the mean rank order of each chowder and scaling the chowders on a five-point graduated table runing from most preferred ( 1 ) to least preferable ( 5 ) . Table 2 nowadayss the consequences of this analysis.
Recommendation and Discussion
Recommendation: Change the current Kolander’s Chowder preparation to the version 1–“creamy” – preparation and develop a new label which makes this alteration conspicuous at point of purchase. The table 2 consequences clearly indicate that the current Kolander’s Chowder preparation and the “extra creamy” preparation ranked significantly ( . 05 degree of significance ) lower than the two competitors’ trade names and the “creamy” preparation. These findings suggest that the market place of Kolander’s Chowder can be improved by a preparation alteration to the “creamy” version. which ranks higher than the two rivals and should recapture a important portion of gross revenues lost to the Cape Cod and Fisherman’s Delight trade names.
