SEGMENTING THE POPULATION LEADS TO EFFECTIVE RESEARCH
by V S RANGARAJAN
SEGMENTING THE POPULATION LEADS TO EFFECTIVE RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION
Population definition is an important function in the Research Process. This is carried out as the first step in arriving at the Research Design
Population definition helps to plan the Research process ( Budgeting, Scheduling, Resource planning, etc ) more effectively
Well planned job is half done. To plan well the researcher needs to have all the information about the population
Only from the well defined population sample has to be drawn, data has to be collected, analysis has to be conducted using the statistical tools. Hence the population definition forms the foundation for the proposed research study
The author of this article wants to high light the importance of segmenting the population to derive accurate results more economically
SEGMENTING THE MARKET AND SEGMENTING THE POPULATION A COMPARISON
As we all know the first step in arriving at the Marketing strategy is the Segmentation of the total Market into many segments of market based on the homogeneous characteristics of the customers of the market.
Normally the marketers try to segment the market into many segments by considering more number of criteria ( one at a time ) which are influencing the demand of the market
The Market researchers also adopt the same strategy in segmenting the market / population into as many segments possible to identify the target potential ( useful / relevant / authenticated / less expensive data potential ) segment to decide on the single / two / multiple approaches in Research methodology adopted
This process not only minimizes the cost of the research work , quickens the time required to complete the work and helps to achieve great accuracy in the findings of the research
The same is explained with an example in the following paragraphs
A Study to find out the Demand potential for caustic soda an industrial product
Example in segmenting population to decide the research methodology
segmenting stage 1
Caustic soda is used in textile industry, sugar industry, cement industry, etc
All these industries contribute towards demand potential for caustic soda, hence when Marketing Researcher considers population he has to take into th number of units in each sector and the total determines the population size
Segmenting stage 2
As the second step the Marketing Researcher has to consider the Capacity of the Plant which determines the consumption rate of the Caustic soda ( viz ) small scale, medium , large and mega industries in all the sectors in which the product is consumed
Segmenting stage 3
As the third step the researcher may consider segmenting the consumers based on the location of the industrial unit ( ie ) at the consumption point
More and more segments arrived by the researcher helps to achieve more clarity on the population to be studied
These information can be got from the literature survey/ secondary data / exploratory research
Sample size
Population size of each segment decides the sample size
Data collection process
Characteristics of the population like consumption rate, buying pattern, etc decides the strategy to be adopted to collect data like Questionnaire, telephone survey, personal interview, e mail survey, etc
Analysis of data
What statistical tool to be used
CONCLUSION
The Researcher need to take extra care in defining the population more clearly by taking extensive literature survey, expert opinion survey, exploratory research, etc at the initial stages of the Research process to avoid the fundamental mistake in the Research methodology
educational qualification B Tech, MBA, MPhil, ( Ph D )
experience industrial consultancy 18 years
industry 3 years
teaching 5 years
Article Source: U Publish Articles
Original Source: SEGMENTING THE POPULATION LEADS TO EFFECTIVE RESEARCH