Identify the reasons for declining the demand for laptops in cooperate sector with special reference

Introduction

As world in going to new ICT generation, laptops are considered to be one of the essential and popular products in the business corporate sector.

Most of the Laptops Brands in Sri Lanka have been launched in late 90’s. Despite having a vast competition among the Laptop brands was found due to a fixed advertising budget, laptop brands were able to position their statuses with different images or perspectives in Sri Lankan Market.

According to ratings presently 12-15 Laptop brands were found in Sri Lanka and Toshiba is one of the brands that are included.

In the early days there was a huge demand for Toshiba in cooperate sector, actually that time Toshiba’s main market was cooperate sector, where some cooperate accounts have been dealing with Toshiba and JKOA (John Keells Office Automation) for nearly 7 -10 years whilst having good faith on Toshiba laptops and JKOA. In recent past if we take JKOA performance on Toshiba laptops we can see huge lost in cooperate sector and JKOA loosing most of the Toshiba customers and brands like HP overtaking those cooperate Accounts for some reasons.

Analysis of the issues on selling laptops in cooperate sector is a one of the ongoing topics in the industry. Promoting the brand is getting harder as the tight competition between others, therefore people in the industry tends to invest more on promoting their brands to the corporate sector.

The management of JKOA has identified that there is decline of the sales of the corporate sector and government sector while re-sellers do exceptionally well in their out-lets specially in Unity-Plaza shops where they did a revolution in the country by offering very cheap prices while focusing on Advertising and Promotions. It was identified that the laptop users have switched to deferent brands for different reasons while many users switch to Toshiba for cheap price with basic machine and others were existing Toshiba favorites with their user experience.

As mention earlier john keels office Automation has noted that Toshiba is not performing the expected level in Cooperate sector and Government sector as initial stage of it, whiles re-sellers has shown the growth. Now Company has put similar effort to promote both segments.

Research Problem

“Identifying the reasons for declining the demand for laptops in cooperate sector with special reference to Toshiba Laptops”

Research Questions

• Why demand has drop down from Toshiba in cooperate sector
• What strategies can be implemented to overcome the Problem?
• How to enhance demand and raise profit margin levels

Research Objectives

• To identify reasons and facts on why demand has drop down from Toshiba in cooperate sector
• To analyze alternatives and implement strategies to overcome the Problem.
• To find solutions and options to enhance demand and raise profit margin levels
• To analyze the sales and identify the trends

Brief Literature Review

A laptop computer is a small, portable computer that is small enough to sit on a person’s lap. While the personal computer (PC) Industry began in the early 1970’s, it was not until 1981 that the first commercial portable computer became available. The next big event in the history of laptops came in the summer of 1995, after which Microsoft and Intel became the standard for the software (windows) and hardware (Intel processors) used in laptops.

Over the past fifteen years, the increasing price-performance ratio, consumer performances for mobility as well as increased hardware life has resulted in higher growth of laptop than the desktops since 2004.

Demand- Is defined as the customer’s desire and ability to pay a value for a specific good or service. Demand can be referred to the quantity value of the product or service is wanted by customers at different values. [Steven M. Sheffrin (2003)]

Consumer Behavior- The observation of consumers and the processes they use to choose, use (consume), and dispose of products and services.

"All marketing decisions are based on assumptions and knowledge of consumer behavior," (Hawkins and Mothersbaugh, 2007). Basing the aforementioned statement, a diplomatic solution for the declining demand could be implemented.

Price- Is the payment which is given by a buyer to a seller in exchange of a product or a service. This one of the variables that affects the product demand, thus the price effectiveness and the payment terms will deviate from one brand to another.

Promotions- Is an entire set of activities that communicates the product, brand or service to the customer. The initiative is to make people aware, attract and persuade to buy the product, in preference over others.

Features of laptops- One of the main facts the triggers consumers to choose Toshiba Laptops above other brands is the features that the laptops contain. Modern customers are often attracted to the laptops which are armed with lots of features.

Methodology

Figure 1 Conceptual Framework

Above figure 1 indicate one of the key methods that can be used to identify independent variables and dependent variable is call conceptual framework. And also, a conceptual framework is an analytical tool with several variations and contexts. It is used to make conceptual distinctions and organize ideas. Strong conceptual frameworks capture something real and do this in a way that is easy to remember and apply.

The approach to the data collection and analysis will be conducted in 2 ways where the primary method will be via an online questionnaire by google servey which could be easily filled. Following that, an indepth Interviews with the procurement manager, logistics manager & the IT managers in my organization will support a general perspective to the research.

The sample size will be decided inaccordence to the below calculation .

Figure 2 Sample Size

As per the figure 1,in previous page, the sample size of 40 will be given a link via an email with a breif explanation of the purpose of this questionare and proper instructions will be given to respondents where they could fill same online. Snowball sampling method which is a non-probability sampling method will be used in this research. The data was collected from the few members of the target population that could be located, then the individuals will be asked to give information required to locate other members of that population whom they know. The snowball sampling method benefits the research by providing access to the population which cannot be easily located by the researcher otherwise.

Secondary data will be collected from a wide range of sources such as; books, journals, official websites etc..

Data analysis techniques for this study will include:

• Computing frequencies, percentages, proportions and charts
• Computing means (averages), median, mode, range.
• All analyses wll be done in Microsoft Office Excel

Delimitation of the study

• People can be bias in the selected sample of the focus group.
• Most of the representatives will be from the Colombo District hence samples will not represent the other areas of the country
• Time frame of the study will not be enough to do a in-depth and accurate research
• Sample Size Not Sufficient

References

Fonseka, Chandana. Understanding consumers, Colombo:Sri Lanka Institute for Marketing of Sri lanka

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Saunders, J. and Wong, V. (1996). Principles of marketing. Hempstead: Prentice Hall, p.588.

Punch, K. (2000).Developing effective research proposals. London: SAGE.

Vithal, R. and Jansen, J. (2008).Design Your First Research Proposal. Cape Town: Juta & Co.