Business Research takes you back to business research
The so-called business investigation is a way to obtain business information, and the specific content of its investigation can include many. Many of the world's largest companies attach great importance to business surveys, and there are various consulting organizations that provide business surveys. Even a very radical approach is to obtain competitors' prices, channels, manpower and other information. Because the competition of chain industry is becoming more and more fierce, commercial investigation constitutes a special landscape of chain business. In each home appliance war, it is always possible to see some people active in many chain stores, constantly monitoring each other's prices. It's all part of a business investigation. This article aims to discuss some issues related to business research. 1. In the chain industry competition is increasingly fierce today, commercial investigation methods are used very obviously. Many companies have launched various investigative methods to obtain information about competitors, sometimes even walking a legal tightrope. Case 1: A national large electrical chain recruitment "mystery customers" After a national large electrical chain settled in East China, a local personnel network suddenly published "recruitment of part-time mystery customers" information. Immediately, the response gathered. The so-called "mysterious" customers are only customers who help the company to conduct letters and visits, and the "mysterious" is for its internal sales staff. First of all, do not mention whether the setting of mysterious customers has personal respect for employees, even if this setting is accepted by all employees, it is doomed to be a tragedy. In the current sales link of home appliance chain, the front-line sales staff not only have businesses, but also manufacturers, so if the results of the petition are unfavorable to the marketing personnel, then it is bound to cause the contradiction between businesses and manufacturers. Even if the sales staff of the business, if their own enterprise says that they are not at ease with their work, and at the same time send some supervisors and secret agents to peep at their work, under the influence of this psychology, how can they have a good sense of belonging to work? Case 2: The "information clerk recruitment" of a national large electrical chain If the mysterious customer recruitment of a large electrical chain has a mysterious taste, then the other electrical chain has long been fully armed. At present, when the holiday promotion, there are always some special customers, holding a mobile phone in the hand to watch the other party's price, but the other party in the price action, then immediately notify their own party to execute the price, so that some counters have to prepare a lot of price tags, in case of need. And ordinary people say, look again, look again, maybe it will go down. Since Chinese buyers have a tendency to buy up rather than down, and the attitude of holding money to wait and see, this activity is actually only a means of intensifying commercial competition. Surprisingly, this activity is not only in the field of home appliances, in recent years in the supermarket chain is also common, there was an "information clerk" in the Su Guo copied price information, and finally was sent abroad by Su Guo Li. Case 3: A large commercial high-end department store "visit survey system" If the home appliance chain will be the above two as a means of competition, then the investigation as institutionalized is a radical measure. A large high-end department store shopping center in Nanjing has proudly defined its internal visit as a system, and promoted to each branch, and the visit to the salesperson is also carried out in accordance with the time. Of course, these personnel systems are generally more punitive than rewarding. Finally, some excellent salespeople have to the ocean department store, commercial department store and other competitive units jump. Although I have never been involved in front-line sales, I also know that although front-line sales personnel are not paid much, they are actually the direct source of all profits. If even the most basic respect is not achieved, then there is no personal value. Even more ludicrously, an employee at the mall (now called International Shopping Group) went to the trouble of devising a method for doing this kind of survey, so effective that I wonder what the front-line salespeople would think of it. Case 4: The factory salesperson is not willing to withdraw the counter At present, a common situation in the chain industry is that the factory salesperson and the business salesperson coexist. This is a very strange situation in China, of course, and the development of our national chain is not long, and the operation means of various business models are different. But in general, the existence of this situation is not a good phenomenon. First: different pay for equal work. Because the policies of manufacturers and businesses are different, so there is this situation, so the employees who do the same work always tend to move to the place where the salary is high, which objectively causes people's hearts to fluctuate; Second: management is not standard. Because of the existence of this situation, the chain industry generally has to develop two sets of standards, one set is for the factory salesperson, one set is for the business salesperson, and even due to financial reasons, sometimes even uniforms can not be unified. This is also an objective reason. Of course, this situation also has its objective reasons: First of all, because the front-line salesperson is sometimes the salesperson of the manufacturer, responsible for monitoring the price of the competitor, so the manufacturer is not willing to lose this information channel. Secondly, because the deduction points of various goods are different, the profit rate is different, and the business commissions are not available, it is really difficult for businesses to configure salespeople in the fixed position and salary; Thirdly, due to the popularization and use of professional marketing technology at present, business to do marketing professional training is not very suitable, objectively speaking, in order to deal with fuzzy marketing the best way is to let each manufacturer to train their own salespeople. In summary, the general chain investigation focuses on: internal investigation of oneself, external investigation of opponents. Of course, at present, several widely developed ways are relatively low-level ways. The people surveyed are not quite right, so let's explore this question in depth. Thousands of miles of rivers and oceans, lighting fish dragon competition for photography chain industry enthusiasm for commercial investigations quickly gave birth to a group of professionals engaged in commercial investigations. Of course, before that, some organizations engaged in corporate planning and investigation have long existed. Since investigation agencies rely on investigation to obtain income, the objects, results, methods and means of investigation are naturally more professional than simple commercial espionage. Business investigation reports issued by general investigation companies generally have: A) a large number of tables and data drawings, which can clearly explain the problem; B) Be able to systematically make reports and give analysis structure and basis, and explain data display problems according to certain scientific and technological or economic principles; C) Can put forward certain decision support methods, policies and countermeasures according to the situation; D) Comprehensive and complete, focusing on the cause of the data rather than the data itself; E) Have industry experience, have an understanding of the business environment, and be able to extract effective characteristic variables; With the increase of the market, and itself because the survey report is a thing that can not have a measurement standard, the biggest problem brought by the rapid development of this market is: the market is not standardized, and the fish dragon is numerous. You can buy back a research report on a particular unit for anywhere from 1,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. And you don't know how the value of the report compares to the money you're spending. In fact, with the standardization of the industry, business investigation, as an indispensable part of business, will sooner or later enter the commercial link, and will gradually be accepted by the majority of businesses. In terms of business costs, the cost of using a survey agency is roughly 50,000 yuan, while the cost of maintaining an investigator who knows specific data analysis techniques is roughly the same. Because the author has carried out commercial adjustment, but does not understand the market of commercial investigation, and can not know the operating procedures. However, it is certain that when choosing a business investigation agency to conduct a business investigation, it is generally necessary to look at: 1) whether the historical report provided by the agency is professional or meets its own needs; 2) To understand its industry visibility and investigation channels, the breadth of business investigations; 3) the industry influence of the organization, the working background of the personnel conducting the investigation and whether they are qualified for the job; 4) Ability to analyze problems in investigation work; 5) Investigate whether the tariff is open and reasonable, whether it is flexible in price, and companies with high flexibility recommend not to use it. 3. The current business survey often focuses on the investigation of competitors, and the investigation of the current business environment has been driven by the different priorities of decision makers, which has led to the investigation focus of business survey agencies. A typical academic investigation method is: First understand the needs, analyze the requirements of the whole investigation; Establish an appropriate investigation model and determine the investigation approach; Ø Conduct preliminary sampling, reanalyze the survey structure, and determine the basic data indicators and derived indicators of the survey; Adjust the mathematical model according to the preliminary sample survey results, and use technical means to adjust the work if necessary; Ø Conduct survey, obtain data, record the original data of the survey; Filter the noise of the raw data (that is, the data that does not conform to common sense and only occurs in special cases), train and adjust the mathematical model, and finally obtain feedback and results; Analyze results and write reports; The corresponding decision basis and appropriate prediction are given according to the results. Is business research just about finding out about your competitors? We suggest that when conducting business surveys, in addition to the current research on the industry, the business environment, policies, investments, consumer tendencies and psychology should also be studied, and the entire business survey should be viewed as a systematic project. At the same time, as a chain enterprise, the business investigation should form a own idea, and put it into practice. You should not rely on short-term behavior in the promotion phase, but should do detailed and careful work. The combat work is done in peacetime, and the work is more refined and regularized. The art of war says: temples count more and win more. Our enterprises should be good at calculation rather than fighting. The competition should focus on planning and design, not on face-to-face resistance. Business surveys should provide the basis for a strategic decision, not general price information or personnel monitoring information. 4. As the entire chain of competitive formats and environments continue to intensify and deteriorate, business investigation as a part of this emerging industry has been highlighted. Especially today, with the continuous combination of commercial chains and commercial real estate, many chains themselves, as investors, are good at planning rather than focusing on research, and are good at operating projects rather than planning and analyzing projects. As a participant and builder in the first line of commercial real estate projects, the author has witnessed a series of commercial real estate operations. Many of them put more energy on planning, and less research on the audience or investors. When many commercial chains and real estate are combined, they tend to focus on the land project first, and lack of investment in the preliminary research of the project. This is a pity for the project. Many times, a misunderstanding of the chain industry is that business research is understood as obtaining a simple few data information, so the implementation of the specific implementation is often limited to low-level tactical operations. Our understanding of the business survey is that it should focus on the grasp of the development of the whole industry, the understanding of the environment, and the overall grasp of the strategy. In this respect, foreign countries have to do better, we see that Walmart's Nanjing store is more successful, because its early business investigation is more adequate. The investigation of the environment, the investigation of the policy level, the investigation of the economic situation and the consumption power, these are what we should learn. As a channel to sell to the final consumers, the chain industry should put the investigation of consumers in the first place. If the chain industry does not seriously study the consumers, the cause of the chain is doomed to failure. Sometimes, you don't need to pay attention to your competitors, you just need to keep setting up competitive barriers, and you can make your competitors out of the competition through your own competitive barriers. Should the barrier just be price? The author believes that price is certainly a factor, but definitely not the first. Just as many consumers are willing to pay more for a branded computer than for a cheaper compatible computer, your sales strategy and overall sales structure are more important, and price is only one of the more important aspects.
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