Research Methods: Primary Research for a new Product Launch

Research Methods
Name:
Institution:
Research Method
Conducting a market research before launching products, whether new or revised is significant as it ensures that business organizations produce what the consumers want and not what the organizational leaders think the customers want. Two types of research methods exist including primary and secondary research methods. Primary research design involves a person or a group of individuals collecting original data about the market while secondary research method involves using existing data that others have already collected (McDonald, Gan, Fraser, Oke, & Anderson, 2015). These two approaches of research have advantages and disadvantages in respect a new product or a revised product.
For instance, launching a new mp3 player product using primary research design would be better than using secondary research. Using primary research design would ensure that an organization tests the market before making an investment by conducting a group survey. It will help producers find out the preferences of the consumers concerning the new mp3 player and in turn, would contribute to reducing the risks associated with a new (Kellog’s, 2010). In addition, collecting primary data for the new mp3 player product would make the researcher the owner of that information, giving the company an edge over its competitors who would be relying on secondary data. On the other hand, primary research design on the new mp3 player product would be costly, as a marketer has to be involved all the time and plan everything. Apart from cost and time consumption, it requires more resources such as materials and human resources to carry out surveys and collection of data.
Using secondary research design for the new mp3 launch is less costly as one can easily access related information on the Internet, journals, magazines, other research studies, and books. Data from secondary research would provide sources for hypotheses that the business organization can explore through primary design. Moreover, they can use secondary as a reference base to measure the accuracy of primary information on the new mp3 player. The cons of using secondary research method in t...