Seeing this as an opportunity, we decided to create a new company which produces frozen shrimp products to fulfill the demand of the domestic and the world. Our products are made from frozen shrimps which after processed and being pack to be used for many purpose of consuming. The special things about our product is the source of raw materials, they all come from the trusted and qualified farm in Thailand. They are fresh and high quality so the outcome from those materials will have an excellent quality.
The report will briefly mention about problem that a new entry might face when starting new business in this field such as competitors, internal and external factors that affect it. Research objectives are our main focus in this research paper and those questions developed from the objects.
- Introduction
- Product Background
- Product Description
Shrimp is processed or boiled under standardized manufacturing process before proceeding to freezer, being packed and ready for shipment to consumers worldwide. Frozen shrimp products are available in a wide variety, ranging from whole, headless, tail-on, headless and shelled, boiled and to value-added products, e.g. sushi and breaded. In addition, pouched products are also available for more convenient preparation.
Product category:
- Current Market Situation
Thailand is now the world’s leading exporter of shrimp products, supplying over 20 percent of the world trade in shrimps and prawns. Under the HS code “030613 – Shrimps and prawns, frozen, in shell or not, including boiled in shell”, Thailand is No.1 exporter in the world with the exported value $1.7 million and keep 12% annual growth since 2007 to 2011.
Sources : ITC calculations based on statistics.
Export 2010 -2011 Export 2011 – July 2012
Export Jan-May 2012 Import Jan-May 2012
Source:
- Competitors
Our direct competitor is CP, they sell similar product like us. At the moment, they operate three shrimp processing facilities on the nation’s east coast. Combined capacity is 180,000 tons per year, with product forms ranging from raw and cooked commodity shrimp packs to tempura shrimp, garlic herb shrimp ready meals and other value-added items sold under the proprietary CP, Captn’s Pack and Authentic Asia brand names, as well as under private labels. Shrimp exports in 2010 topped 50,000 tons, of which branded products accounted for approximately one-third of total volume sales.
Currently 70% to 80% of the shrimp packed and processed by CP comes from company-owned and operated farms, with most of the rest supplied by independently-run farms in Thailand. Its vertically-integrated system includes hatcheries and aquatic feed mills.
Our indirect competitors are those who supply shrimp to CP
- Problem Statement
2.1- Business Situation
Even Thailand is one of the leading countries in producing and exporting frozen shrimp. However, the Thai shrimp industry is beginning to face a number of obstacles in the world market, such as stronger competition, trade policies and non-trade policies of major importing countries in particular. So establishing a new company for us now is a big challenge, we are trying to enter to the domestic market and soon expand business in order to perform international business trading.
2.2- Key symptoms
- In term of industry, recently the domestic demand decreased affects to our sales
- We don’t have many customers yet as a new entry
2.3- Problem
- The awareness of customers about our brand is low
- We are not strong enough to compete with several big competitors such as CP
2.4- Decision
- How do we expand our business to compete with CP and gain market share?
- How do we build our brand name?
- How do we motivate customer to buy our product?
- Research Objectives & Questions
3.1- Research Objectives
- Find out consumers’ perception and attitude toward our brand in order to enhance the awareness of customer about our brand
- Find out how situational factors can influence frozen shrimp food consumption
- Find out what factors influence customer’s satisfaction
- Find out what factor influence customer’s needs
3.2- Research Questions
- What are consumers’ perceptions and attitudes toward frozen shrimp products in general?
- What do customers think about our products?
- Why customers choose to buy our products?
- What make customer think about our products?
- What are the characteristics of people who consume frozen shrimp?
- How much do people understand about the use of frozen shrimp?
- What make customer happy in buying frozen shrimp?
- How to make customer happy after purchasing our product?
- What kind of service make customer feels satisfied?
- How to make our product match customer’s expectation?
- What kind of product that makes consumers need to choose our brand?
- What kind of extra promotion that consumers expect to have when they consumer our product?
II- Research Methodology
The research process was divided into two stages:
The first (qualitative) - based on Phenomenology - stage consisted of 30 minutes in-depth interview a small group of consumer (4-10 people) who has high frequency of purchasing frozen shrimp products to find out the answers for those research questions mentioned above. The purpose is to explore the thoughts that occur to people and the things they spontaneously say when led into a discussion about frozen shrimp foods. To ensure the research will be resulted to the expected outcomes so we create the interview that reflected to the structure of the population generally, a mix social classes and locations were included, and light, medium and heavy buyers of frozen shrimp products represented.
We can interview people from many classes and occupations to differentiate the buying behavior of each ones. Question used could be “what are their first thought when they decide to buy frozen shrimp products?” Why do they choose shrimp products? And when they feel like want to consume shrimp products?
After that, with these finding, questions will be formed and use for larger group of consumers to give a qualified view.
The second (quantitative) stage consisted of survey and questionnaire (100-200 people). Based on the result of qualitative research, we can issue other question form that related to those issues answered from the qualitative question form. For example, if we get the answer from the question “what are their first thought when they decide to buy frozen shrimp products?” – There are many possible answers depends on customer’s perception. Suppose they might answer because shrimp are good for health, other person answer: I live in a condo, I don’t want to wait my time for cooking so frozen food is convenience and quick for a meal, others might say, frozen shrimp is cheaper than fresh ones in the market etc. So from those different answers, we can see the way to create our construct for MTB and also open for us something for segmentation and generate questionnaire or ideas for survey.
- Expected Outcomes
- Target Market
The expected outcomes for target market are the market in Bangkok and other big cities which have high consumption of frozen shrimp products.
Other outcomes could take longer time after research is the huge potential international market such as U.S.A, Japan, China and Europe countries.
- Target Customers
We’ll be able to identify clearer our customer needs and satisfy them. Understanding customer’s perception toward our brand help us to improve in term of product development or marketing strategy, depend on the result of the research.
Out target customers are those who have average income and above. They are consumers those who want fresh, clean, pure, nutritious frozen shrimp products. They have an industry lifestyle, like home cooking but simple and convenience. They are economical, like those products are ready to hand and time-saving.
- MTB construct
- Timing
- Cost
The estimated cost for research
IV- Conclusions
In conclusions, the frozen shrimp market in Thailand has a huge potential because of the nature source and the demand of domestic as well as international market.
The report is a practice of making a research proposal that makes me understand more and have more experience about those steps in conducting a realistic research. Creating the curious to explore and desire to try and take part in the real research that would make those theories have learnt become more practical.
Table 1:
by
rhythm90 (student)
