H&F+report+by+Dave+and+Fred


 * 1. Background and Purpose **

1.1 Background Since the H&F entered the local market three years ago, there has been continuous competition from within the MP3 industry as well as from other industr ies  such as  smart phon es  that have music player function imbedded in them . In order to maintain competitiveness and make improvemen ts , it is necessary to compare our recent performance with our major rival iGADGET in terms of product satisfaction.

1.2 Purpose The purpose of this report is to identify the problem shown by the customer survey, address the cause and provide possible solutions. This report also provides a overview of the market share over 2010.

**2. Procedure **

All the survey data are collected from 200 interviewees, half of which are H&F MP3 users and the rest are iGADGET users. The results are shown in percentag es . The market share date are from the industry statistics center.

**3. Findings **

The survey shows that H&F MP3 outperforms the iGADGET in terms of battery life and sound quality. However, we are faced with a 11% lower overall satisfaction level than iGADGET. The problems arise from the following three aspects (state them) . In addition, the bar chart illustrates that more attention are is <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> needed to improve the market share.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">3.1 Design <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Only less than half of the interviewees are contented with the design of our product. In contrast, the figure of for <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> design satisfaction is almost double for iGADGET MP3. A possible cause of the result is that our design and production center is located in Malaysia whereas iGADGET’s center is in Korea, which is more advanced in terms of appearance design. This implies that our previous low cost strategy may need some modification.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">3.2 Function <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Just over one-third of the H&F MP3 customers are satisfied with the function of our product. In comparison, almost two-thirds of the iGADGET users feel good about their product. This may be due to the fact that iGADGET use only drag-and-drop to transfer music while H&F MP3 requires a more cumbersome software to convert computer music into MP3 files. The implication is that our product engineers are not flexible enough in programming and they may focus less on incorporating customers’ feedback into software design.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">3.3 Headphone Quality <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">A even lower level of satisfaction occurs in the aspect of headphone quality. Over two-thirds of the H&F users are disgruntled with the headphone durability. iGADGET MP3 does not perform well in this aspect either, with only about 40% of the customers satisfied. The result of this may be the outsourcing of production to some suppliers in developing countries where the quality standard is relatively low. The low figures for both companies indicates that improving headphone quality may be a good opportunity for us to outperform our rival.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">3.4 Market Share <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Besides the above three problems, H&F MP3 has been struggling when <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> competing with iGADGET for market share during the past twelve months. From September 2009 to August 2010, our market share fluctuated between an average of 20%. During the same period, iGADGET’s market share first remained at a dominating level of approximate 57% for the first three mont hs <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> and then increas ed <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> to an <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> even higher level of about 63%. During the second half of this fiscal year, iGADRET saw a drop in market share to 53% in May 2010 but it bounced back to about 63% in the end. In comparison, H&F only went through a gradual decline from 19% to 13%. The unsatisfactory performance may have been the result of a old-fashioned advertising strategy, which asked a 49-year old TV star to promote our product for three years. This implies that a new marketing strategy is needed to improve the situation.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">4. Conclusion **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">In conclusion, the findings clearly indicate that our product H&F MP3 does not live up to the expectation of our customers in the three aspects. The percentages of satisfaction in design and functions are much lower than those of iGADGET. Neither of the company has done well in headphone quality and this would be a good opportunity for us to improve and catch up.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The results also apparently show that our market share is considerably lower than that of iGADGET because of the inappropriate advertising strategy.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">5. Recommendatio ** ns (I think unfinished?) You should have one separate recommendation for each problem you identify in the Findings. Also you need to go into more detail,than just say hire better designers.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">5.1 Three problems related to the product <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">It can be concluded that in order to improve the design of the products, we may need to hire designers from countries like Korea to absorb more popular design concept. The function problem could be solved by providing training workshop for our engineers to increase their technical skills and giving them more chance to contact our customers. We could improve the head phone quality by making more strict quality rules for those suppliers in the developing countries.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">5.2 Market Share <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">To increase our market share, new advertising strategy must be considered in addition to correcting the problems of the product iteself. It is recommended that we should hire a younger and more popular celebrity for our advertisement.