BACHELOR OF EVENT
MANAGEMENT
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
(BGN3302)
A STUDY OF FACTORS
Influencing AUDIENCES’ DECISION MAKING TO PURCHASE THE EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS AT
THE EVENTS ORGANIZED BY SUCCESS RESOURCES MALAYSIA
LEO TRAN DUY THUYEN
(BTS102009116)
1.
Title
A
study of factors influence audiences’ decision making to purchase the educational
products at the events organized by Success Resources Malaysia
2.
Research Background
Event
industry is a part of tourism industry. It has existed together with human many
thousand years ago, however it was only considered as an industry since the 19th
century (Patterson,2008). This event sector becomes one of the fastest
and most prominent growing industries worldwide. It has grown at an average pace of 6.2% each year
globally since 2003 (Phillips, 2008). There are various types of event depends
on the functions and scale such as sport event, gala dinner, meeting, convention, exhibition, special event,
etc. In addition, most of the events under five main categories: leisure
events, cultural events, organizational events, personal events and educational
event. Additionally, in this paper researcher only focus on educational public
event.
Introduction about Success Resources Event Company
Success Resources(SR) is Asia’s largest seminar company was found by
Richard Tan, a Singaporean. There are 17 offices worldwide of
this huge event organization. Since 1992, Success Resources Global have
supported individuals, enterprises and organizations through educational
programs around the world, impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands from
more than 35 countries. In fact, they have invited successful and world most
influential people such as Bill
Clinton (former President of the United States), Sir Richard Branson(founder of
the Virgin Group), Tony Buzan mind mapping guru, Robert Kiyosaki, Donal Trump,
Tony Blair ( former president of UK), Joel Neoh ( Malaysia Groupon CEO) and
many more come to share their own success stories and teach audience by their
own programs. (srpl.net,2013)
There is a gap between event audiences/
customers and the event products. Normally, the number of participants or audiences
attend events organized by Success Resource is very huge around 1000 to 6,000
people. However, the percentage of those purchase the products is very low less
than 5% ( Emily,2013) SR is an educational event organization. They invite good
and famous speakers, all of them are successful and millionaires. Those provide
different training programs (wealth creating products) such as self/ personal
development, stock investment, business programs, change the wrong mindset, property
investment, IT program, online marketing program, public speaking program,
public book program, financial program and so forth. The company wants to increase sale but they
do not understand the expectation of customers. The problem is after audiences
listen to speakers for long days and there are many of them come to the selling booths during the
event. They asked, they showed their interest and they would like to sign up
for the program, which they prefer. Nevertheless, the end of the day there is
very few audiences sign up/ purchase the programs. Therefore, the researcher
would like to find out the factors influence their decision-making, what
stopping them to buy the products.
SR Event Company can use this research to come
out with better strategies for the quality products, variable
price, reach audiences expectation, and fulfill their need of the products then
can increase the sale volume.
Research framework:
|
Product Quality
|
|
Product Price
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Convenience
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Audiences purchase making decision
|
4.
Problem statement
Educational
event industry brings or delivers different knowledge to societies to change
people mind, better mind – better life. There is the gap of understanding the
important key factors which influence audience or customer decision-making on
purchasing the products during the events, the research aims to explore what
stopping them from buying the event products and what is the improvement that company
need to change to reach customer’s expectation. Furthermore, there is no any
current research about this problem. Therefore, the researcher would like to
take this opportunity to solve this gap between customer and products.
The
result of this research will pave the way for the company to increase sale
volume buy improve the strategies for their productions to reach and fulfill
customer expectation. As well as customer can have a chance to buy the products
without thinking, considering so much.
5.
Research Objectives
The
aim of the research is to find out the reasons, factors make audiences purchase
the educational products during the event.
1. To
determine the factors from audiences/ potential customers opinions
·
This is to find out what make/ motivate
them purchase educational products in the events.
2. To
identify what reasons stopping audiences buying buy products when they attend
the events
·
This will help the company to improve
the strategies for their product ( price, quality, timing) to fulfill customer
needs and increase sale volume for company.
3. To
get recommendations from the audiences on improvements needed for event product
This is to help company and the product’s
founder understand more about their clients then they can improve their
products to meet the expectation of potential clients
6.
Proposed Research Methodology
6.1 Research
Tasks
This
section discusses the ways to achieve the paper’s three objectives by sample
selection procedure, variables selection, the model used for the research and
data analysis to find out the relationship between the motivational factors of
the product with customer decision making.
Quantitative
method (survey questionnaire) will be used as the tool in collecting primary
data. In this exploratory research, the questionnaire will be divide in 4 parts
which closed-end questions, Likert scale questions and open-ended questions
including to focus and answer the 4 variables in this research framework. To
answer the research these objectives:
1. To
determine the factors from audiences/ potential customers opinions
2. To
identify what reasons stopping audiences buying buy products when they attend
the events
3. To
get recommendations from the audiences on improvements needed for event product
The researcher will do
population and sampling study, data collection, data analysis to fulfill each
objective.
6.2 Study population,
sampling, data collection
The
target sample for this research focus on customers of Success Resources event
company only.The sample of this study is 250 audiences. The sampling method in
this research is convenient sampling because of its ease to access the gathered
data. Besides that, this form of sampling allows for faster analysis and it is
perfect for quick study. In addition, this method can minimize the biased
problem which usually caused by this sampling method, participants/ audiences
will be approached selectively to be able to represent for the population. They
are customers in different sitting areas V.I.P, golden, premium and general
complimentary. Customers including male and female, young, elder, anyone as
long as they are audience of the event and above 16 years old.
The
researcher will go to the event organizing by Success Resource in PJ, Selangor
and distribute 150 hard copies survey questionnaires to 150 audiences in
different areas of the event hall. Each survey will take around 10 minutes to
complete. After they complete, during break time or the end of the day, the
respondents can pass up the survey back at the selling booths then researcher
can collect those surveys at the booths. Another 100 survey questionnaires
researcher will conduct online. It will be sent to the personal email of target
respondents. And these surveys will be collect back within 2 weeks’ time. The
end of the day, total of the real result expectation from online and direct
survey is around 150.
Ø Objective
1: to determine the factors from audiences/ potential customers opinions
There
is one whole part of the survey questionnaire focus to ask the respondents
about the factors influence their decision making to buy the event products
Ø Objective
2: To identify what reasons stopping audiences buying buy products when they
attend the events
Ø Objective
3: To get recommendations from the audiences on improvements needed for event
product
As
same as the way of doing objective 1, there is part of questions focus to ask
the respondents to find out the reason stopping them, questions will ask about
Price factor, Product quality, the convenience of the program venue. With the
objective 3, beside the Likert scale questions, there is 1 open question to let
respondent give their own comment for the product improvement.
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General
information/ basic questions
|
|
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Demographic profile of respondent
Question 1 - 4
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Find out demographic detail, who they
are, gender, age group, position etc
|
|
Research objective 1:
to determine the factors from audiences/ potential customers opinions
|
|
|
The factors ( product quality, price
and convenience) Question 5-13
|
Find out the factors influence their
decision making to buy products
|
|
Objective
2: To identify what reasons stopping audiences buying buy products when they
attend the events
|
|
|
Reasons: financial probem? Timing?
Venue?
Question 14- 21
|
Find out the reasons stopping them
from buying products, any current issue they are facing to stop them from buy
product
|
|
Objective3:
recommendations from the audiences on improvements needed for event product
|
|
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Product improvement, Question 22-28
|
what product specific areas need to
improve
|
6.3 Data
analysis
The collected data will
be keyed in and analyzed by SPSS tool for its reliability and accuracy.
The
SPSS system will do analysis using frequency tables, charts, percentages and
graphs to better illustrate the collected data to calculate Mean, Mode,
Cronbach Alpha value. Then base on the calculation result , researcher will
identify the relationship among the variables.
7.
Questionnaires
Dear Sir/Madam,
|
|
Your email address:
Instructions: Please
tick where applicable
- Gender r
Male
r Female
- Age ___ years old
- Present
Occupation r
Student
r
Businessman
r
Unemployed r
Government
r
Professional (Lawyer, Doctor, etc) r Retired
- Monthly
income r
Below RM 1,000 r
RM 1,000 – RM 3,000
r
above RM 5,000
Based on the following criteria,
please rate each according to the level of agreement by tick where
applicable:
1
= Strongly Disagree 2 =
Disagree 3 = Agree 4 = Strongly Agree
|
No.
|
Criteria
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
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Product
quality
|
|||||
|
1
|
The products provide by Success
recourse are quality
|
|
|
|
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2
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The products are helpful.
|
|
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3
|
The products are multiform.
|
|
|
|
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4
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I
like the event products of Success Resources.
|
|
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|
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5
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Products of SR are suitable for
everyone.
|
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6
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I think the product will meet my
expectation.
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7
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The
duration of the program is good
|
|
|
|
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8
|
The
speakers provided by SR are good
|
|
|
|
|
9.
What do SR need to improve their
product?..............................................................................
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Based on the following criteria,
please rate each according to the level of agreement by tick where
applicable:
1
= Strongly Disagree 2 =
Disagree 3 = Agree 4 = Strongly Agree
|
No.
|
Criteria
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
|
Product
Price
|
|||||
|
1
|
The products provide by Success
recourse are expensive.
|
|
|
|
|
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2
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Different products should have
different price range.
|
|
|
|
|
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3
|
Success Resource should have the
installment plan.
|
|
|
|
|
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4
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The product price should include the
accommodation.
|
|
|
|
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5
|
Success Resource should have different
price range for various products.
|
|
|
|
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6
|
Success Resource should provide early
bird price.
|
|
|
|
|
7.
Do you have any suggestion for the product
price?....................................................................
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Instructions: Please
tick where applicable
1.
Do Success Resource
provide convenient product?
r Yes r No r N/A
2.
Are you willing to attend the program
oversee such as Singapore?
r Yes r No r N/A
3. Do you like to buy the whole product
package or single package?
r Yes r No r N/A
4. Where do you prefer to attend the
program?
r hotel r resort r conference center
5. Do SR need to organize their program
during the weekend only?
r Yes r No r N/A
6. What are your comment to help SR to
improve their product ?.....................................
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
End
of Questionnaires
Thank
you
8.
References
pubexec.com. 2008. Fast Stats : Events Industry Shows
Consistent Growth. [online] Available at:
http://www.pubexec.com/article/events-industry-shows-consistent-growth-400439/1
[Accessed: 29 Jul 2013].
srpl.net.
2013. Who
We Are. [online]
Available at: https://www.srpl.net/who-we-are/ [Accessed: 29 Jul 2013].
Patterson,
M. 2008. Events
Industry Will Enjoy Robust Growth Through 2011. [report] Ispy Publishing, p. 4.
Mateja Kos Koklic, Irena Vida. (2011) Consumer strategic decision making
and choice process: prefabricated house purchase. International Journal
of Consumer Studiesno-no
Online publication date: 1-Jan-2011.
Udo Konradt, Regina Filip, Svenja Hoffmann. (2003) Flow experience and positive affect during hypermedia learning. British Journal of Educational Technology 34:3, 309-327
Online publication date: 1-Jun-2003.
Marieke de Vries, Rob W. Holland, Olivier Corneille, Eefje Rondeel, Cilia L.M. Witteman. (2010) Mood effects on dominated choices: Positive mood induces departures from logical rules. Journal of Behavioral Decision Makingn/a-n/a
Online publication date: 1-Jan-2010
Online publication date: 1-Jan-2011.
Udo Konradt, Regina Filip, Svenja Hoffmann. (2003) Flow experience and positive affect during hypermedia learning. British Journal of Educational Technology 34:3, 309-327
Online publication date: 1-Jun-2003.
Marieke de Vries, Rob W. Holland, Olivier Corneille, Eefje Rondeel, Cilia L.M. Witteman. (2010) Mood effects on dominated choices: Positive mood induces departures from logical rules. Journal of Behavioral Decision Makingn/a-n/a
Online publication date: 1-Jan-2010
Shy, O. (2008). ‘How to price. A
guide to pricing techniques and yield management’, Cambridge University Press.
Ahmat, NH, Radzi, S, Zahari, M,
Muhammad, R, Aziz, A & Ahmad, N,2011,
‘The effect of factors influencing the perception of price fairness
towards customer response behaviors’, Journal
of Global Management, Vol.2, No.1
Contents
