Report+by+John+and+Jesse

1. Introduction

In light of the unsatisfactory performance of our MP3 players, the main aim of this report is to find out the possible reasons and make suggestions (for what?), as requested by Mr Connick, Marketing Manager. In this report, I present findings from the survey (which survey?). It is followed by the conclusion and recommendations.

2. Methodology

A survey was conducted by M&D Market Research Company recently, in which 200 users of our MP3 and IGADGET MP3 were interviewed respectively on aspects of design, functions, sound quality, battery life, headphone quality and overall satisfaction. In addition, the information of market shares comparing these two products was provided.

3. Findings

The bar chart clearly demonstrates the decreasing market share of our players in current months, while by contrast, that of our rival recovers. We can also discover the main problems from the customers' responses. The respects of headphone quality, functions and design are generally (no need for 'generally') not satisfactory.

3.1 Headphone quality Attachment 1 shows nearly half of the respondents are disgruntled with this field. The possible reason is that our headphones are made in Malaysia while iGADGET's are made in Korea where quality is emphasized and materials are better. As a result, our company may receive more complaints and have to assure longer guarantee periods. (but IGADGET satisfaction is not very high either)

3.2 Functions Regarding the operation of our products, fewer than two-fifths of the interviewees are contented. In comparison, over three-fifths are satisfied with iGADGET MP3. This is certainly due to the fact that a software program has to be installed before using our MP3 normally whereas our competitor's goods simply use drag-and-drop. An implication of this is that consumers are reluctant to bear the trouble and turn to other products.

3.3 Design It is illustrated that our design of MP3 satisfies under half of those interviewed while the majority of them are pleased with iGADGET MP3. This might be because of our old model designed decades (no mp3 decades ago) ago. This condition may be aggravated by our 49-year old spokesperson's promotion. Therefore, our main targeted customers, youngsters, feel our of fashion when they use our MP3 player.

3.4 Market share Our company's market share fluctuated from September 2009 to February 2010 and after that gradually declined to only 13 per cent nowadays. As opposed In contrast, iGADGET enjoyed the much higher level of market share around 60 per cent. It rebounded from the bottom and leveled off at a plateau of 63 per cent. This may be the aggregated results of the unsatisfactory aspects. As a result, we are losing a large amount of profits.

4. Conclusion

The findings clearly indicate that the headphone quality, functions and design of our products recorded the least satisfaction. The effects of these are the decreasing market share and the fall of income. (spokesman?) Therefore, it can be concluded that in order to boost our business, those three aspects should be paid attention to and make improvement.

5. Recommendations After considering the report, the following recommendations are made:

5.1 Headphone quality Given the low level of quality satisfaction, it is strongly proposed that our company employ more skillful workers and implement stricter regulations to ensure high quality. Compensations should also be related to the production line performance as an incentive.

5.2 Functions Our findings have shown the troublesome software requirement in case of transferring music files. In light of this, simple operating methods are recommended like the drag-and-drop or auto download when connecting to computers.

5.3 Design In order to capture the young people's interest, we should add more fashionable elements to our player. Examples are those colorful shells and varied shapes. In addition, our company should film advertisement starred by popular singers and actors instead of old spokesperson.

Generally good but note the comments above.