Explain the significance of the Report Preparation and presentation. Explain the methods of Report Presentation.
Explain the significance of the Report Preparation and presentation. Explain the methods of Report Presentation.
Ans.
Significance of the Report Preparation and Presentation
The report preparation and its presentation are important parts of the marketing research project on account of the following reasons:
1. Tangible Products of the Research: There are the tangible products of the research effort. After the project is complete and management has made the decision, there is little documentary evidence of the project other than the written report. Thus, the report serves as a historical record of the project and can be used as a guide for similar type of research in the future.
2. Guidance for Managerial Decision: Management decisions are guided by the report and its presentation. If all the steps in the project are carefully conducted but inadequate attention is paid to the preparation and presentation of report, the value of the project to management will be greatly diminished.
3. Evaluation of the quality of the project: It is not feasible to many marketing managers to go through in detail regarding all the aspects of the project and hence their involvement in the project is limited to the written report and the oral presentation. These managers evaluate the quality of the entire project based on the quality of the report and presentation.
4. Usefulness for the future: When management wants to conduct marketing research in the future or to use the particular research supplier again will be influenced by the perceived usefulness of the report and the presentation.
Methods of Report Presentation
There are two methods of report presentation:
(1) Written Research Report: A written report is largely affected by situational differences in the personality, background and responsibility of the researcher and the manager to whom the report is addressed should conspire to give each report a unique flavor. Hence, no two people can prepare a written report in exactly the same way. But even so, most researchers agree that the following principles should be kept constantly in mind.
Many reports fail to achieve their objectives because the writers do not consider their market i.e. the individuals who will read the report. Failure to understand the nature and capacity of these individuals, their interest, or lack thereof in the subject area; the circumstances under which they will read and evaluate the report; and the uses they will make of the report may doom the report before it is written.
Research report should be written keeping in view the individual preference. Some executives demand a minimum report i.e. they want only the results and not a discussion of how the results were obtained. Others want complete discussion on the research methods used in the study. Some are interested only in the statistical results and not in the researcher’s conclusions and recommendations.
Thus, the report should be written according to the requirement of the audience. Researcher must make every effort to acquaint themselves with the specific preferences of their audiences. They should not consider these preferences as unalterable, but any deviations from them should be made with reason and not from ignorance.
The requirement of report may be different from different readers. Some readers may want more data on the technical aspects of the research process than others. Hence, there is need to reconcile these different interests. Thus, the basic report may include a minimum of detail but have appendixes that cover the technical details for the benefit of those who are interested. Researchers have to be aware of such conflicts and use their ingenuity in reconciling them.
(II) Oral/Verbal Reports: Often, the researcher is asked to present his research results in an oral manner. This can be done either by telling to the interested parties the research results in a face-to-face discussion. Or the results must be presented with the help of visual aids to strengthen the arguments by organising a seminar. The latter type of presentation is required when the audience involved is very large and elaborate details of the findings is required.
There can be two types of verbal reports:
1. Informal Verbal Report. This is a simple “sit-down and discuss” situation where much of preparation is not as significant on the part of the researcher. The researcher presents a summary of findings and the audience ask questions if some clarifications are needed on certain aspects. It is assumed that the audience has read the report before taking part in discussions.
2. Formal Verbal Report. A lecture or seminar is to be delivered first to a formal sitting audience by the researcher covering all the findings of the research work. The audience may ask questions and researcher answers them to the satisfaction of the questioner. Researcher may distribute a summary of findings before starting the discussion. It must be ascertained by the researcher beforehand that:
What type of audience is there?
(a) What is its size or number?
(b) Whether they are experts or laymen?
(c) Is room facility available?
(d) Is visual aids facility available?
(e) Which of the aids should be selected for explanation?
(f) Which portion of the findings must be emphasised most?
(g) What sort of sticky questions can be asked by the audience?
