Report+by+Dale

Reports on Areas of Improvements for H&F MP3 Players
 * 1, Introduction **

1.1 __ Background __ Our company entered the MP3 player market three years ago. Starting from this February, the market share of our MP3 players has decreased from 22% to the lowest level at 13% in August. The figure for our major rival company, iGADGET, however, has always been much higher. The market share of iGADGET’s MP3 players was almost five times higher than ours this August. 1.2 __ Purpose __ This report aims to examine customers’ perception towards our MP3 players and those of iGADGET’s in three aspects, namely design, functions and headphone quality. By comparing the differences, we can focus on improving certain areas of our MP3 players in the near future.

1.3 __ Structure __ The report writing activity has involved analyzing the researched data, making compariso ns and considering possible explanations, drawing conclusions and making recommendations. Our data was gathered by means of a questionnaire survey conducted by M&D Market Research Company recently. The questionnaire was divided into six parts, design, functions, sound quality, battery life, headphone quality and overall satisfaction. Two-hundred users of our MP3 players and the same number of users of iGADGET’s MP3 players were researched surveyed.
 * 2, Procedure **

From the data collected, it shows that consumers using our MP3 players have higher satisfaction rates in sound quality and battery life, over iGADGET’s. The figures in other aspects, however, were lower than those of iGADGET’s. 3.1 __Design__ Less than half of the respondents were satisfied with our MP3 players. By contrast, the majority of those interviewed showed content to with iGADGET’s MP3 players. This is probably because in our design team, most staff are in their forties or fifties, while the average age of iGADGET’s designers are around thirty, which implies that iGADGET may be able to better capture the fashion trend. Another possible reason is that since our spokesperson, Mr. Felix Chan, is a 49-year old TV star, designs of our products must match his character s and age. These designs, however, are not likely to be welcomed by young people, who are the major target consumers. If we keep the current designs, there are chances that we will lose more market share simply because consumers do not like the old fashion. 3.2 __Functions__ More than 60% of users were disgruntled with functions of our MP3 players, but in contrast on the contrary, the same percentage of consumers were happy with iGAGET’s functions. This may be because transfer of music files onto our MP3 players requires a software program that must be installed on the user’s computer, while iGAGET’s users do not need to do so. A further reason could be that recently many smart-phones such as iPhone4 are multi-functional, which include the MP3 function. It suggests that consumers will choose products which they find most ea sily to use and which have more functions. 3.3 __Headphone quality__ Only about one-third of users showed satisfaction towards our headphone quality, which was a little lower than that of iGADGET’s. This is probably because our headphones are manufactured in Malaysia, where the cost is lower, but the quality control is not as strict as Korea, where iGADGET produced their products. The headphone quality will influence consumers overall perception of our MP3 players as a whole. The findings clearly show that our MP3 players have been under-performed in areas of design, functions and headphone quality compared to those of iGADGET. The overall satisfaction rate of our MP3 players users was about 10% lower. It can be concluded that in order to boost our sales and regain market competence, we need to focus on the three areas above to improve products. 5.1 __Design__ Given that most users were dissatisfied with our MP3 players’ designs, which appeared to be out of fashion. It is suggested that younger designers should be included in the design team. At the same time, we should also consider hiring another spokesman, who is a younger and more popular celebrity, for our MP3 players. 5.2 __Functions__ Since our MP3 players are more complicated to use because of the converting software, our technical team should work on a simple way to input music into the players. We can also design several multi-functional MP3 player models, such as players with WI-FI, to meet the market demand on such products. 5.3 __Headphone quality__ In view of the unsatisfactory quality of our headphone perceived by users, we can try to find another production contractor in Malaysia who is more professional in producing headphon es. This will probably increase users’ satisfaction rate on our MP3 players.
 * 3, Findings **
 * 4, Conclusion **
 * 5, Recommendations **

Overall very good.

I think I would put the declining sales part in the Findings (3.4). A possible reason could be the celebrity used, as well as all the other factors. Then, in the Recommendations, one recommendation could be to change the celebrity which you use. For the design,you should go into a little more detail (different colours for example)