This involves being concerned with finding ‘soft’ information, i.e. Customer attitudes, beliefs and opinions. Its purpose is to understand customer behaviour by identifying possible reasons or causes. The techniques Cadburys use to gather qualitative data are those more likely to encourage more detailed responses from those being interviewed as well as focus groups. Cadburys will use qualitative data in circumstances when customer’s answers cannot be recorded into statistics, meaning interviews and focus groups are the best way to collect this sort of data.
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Cadbury is the market leader in the Indian market. Cadbury is the fourth largest supplier of chocolate and other sugar confectionaries in the market. In India it has the largest share of the market with more than 70 percent of the market share.
The following is the SWOT analysis for the company:
Strengths
• The company has an already large established business in the Indian market. Since 1824, the company has established itself as a world leader in the confectionary market. It has operated in India since 1948. In India it has about 70% of the confectionary market. In line with its vision, the company has been striving to be the world leader in the confectionary industry. Through innovation and strategic marketing, the company has acquired about 10% of the world confectionary market.
• The company has good market reputation. With strong brands in the market, the company is well positioned in the market. It is totally focused on chocolate, candy, chewing gum, unique understanding of consumer in these segments.
• In the Indian market Cadburys has strived to build a good market reputation. This has worked positively for its products. It is on this good reputation that the market can embark on introducing the new brand in the market. Cadbury India was ranked the 5th most respected Indian company by Business world magazine in 2007.
• The target market is also quite large. With the female population marketing more than 56 percent of the Indian population, there is a wide target market for the product. The Indian chocolate market has been recording growth in the recent past and there are future prospects of growth. Therefore the target market is slowly expanding. Cadbury is a company, which is reputed internationally as the topmost chocolate provider in the world Cadbury is the largest global confectionery supplier, with 9.9% of global market share.
• The brand is well known to people and they can easily identify it from others, by its distinctive branding, this separates it from any other competitor as it stands out within the market. The iconic purple branding of Cadbury’s is on many of the products, this will ensure all customers know that each of their products is Cadbury’s. If users have a positive perception of existing products, it’s likely that they will assume all products have similar quality; this will benefit Cadburys as they are known to have high quality products.
• High financial strength (Sales turnover 1997, £7971.4 million and 9.4%)
• The products that Cadbury sell are convenient to customers as it can be thought as a quick and easy snack, which does not need cooking or heating. This attracts customers as it can be an easy option and a good alternative to a meal.
Weakness
• The target population is quiet large and there are fears the demand for the product may outdo the capacity of the company to satisfy the demands of the market. It is still not clearly established the rate of growth of the product in the market but there are expectation that the product will record a high growth rate. This means that the company will need to increase its production capacity in order to match the rate of growth of the market
• The company has not been able to establish a distribution network