BUSN20016 Research In Business

Introduction

XIAOMI mobile phone company is a Chinese based company formed in 2010, under the leadership of Lei Jun and other seven partners in China. The mobile phone company has since, proved to be among the telecommunication firms adopting and integrating the new dynamic technologies in the mobile phone industry. This is evidenced by the company’s announcement of the first smartphone model, the Mi 1, which attracted an extensive market both in China and in the global market (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2177). This implied that the young company had the chance to compete favourably with the old players of the industry such as Techno, Itel, and HTC among others. In August of 2012, the company also announced the manufacture of another new model smartphone, the Mi 2. This followed the company’s massive revenue that resulted from the sales of over 1omillion Mi 2 smartphones (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2178). Research indicates that in September of the same year, Lei Jun announced company plans to launch Android new smartphone of 4.7inch which was looked at as the best strategy to penetrate the market. Due to the company’s early success in the market, it was induced to maintain its trend of innovation and development of new model smartphones. This was at a pace of almost every year (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2179). Reports show that in 2014, the company announced its effective plans to enter the Indian market. Following the company’s plan to expand the market outside China, the company announced its first model smartphone MI 4i on the Indian market (Paik, & Zhu, 2016, .1416) The global expansion stylized, increasing coverage up to brazil. In other words, due to the company’s success anchored on innovation and integration of new technology, a global expansion was an optimistic decision as it would improve on their market share globally as well as gaining industry reputation

The company continued to expand both locally and on the international scene. In 2016 XIAOMI company also introduced another new model smartphone named Mi 5 and other various smartphone models (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2178)

However, in December 2014 there was a temporary ban on the company’s products on the Indian market due to the investigation that was done about the company’s products due to complaints from the customers concerning the decline in the company’s quality of smartphones which customers complained to overheating, lowlife butteries among others. This affected the company’s sales and revenues overtime that called for the redesigning of its products which could not enable the company to compete favourably on the market thus calling for the redesigning of its smartphones (Cecere, Corrocher, & Battaglia, 2015, p.75)

Problem Statement;

Due to the stiff competition in the market, companies are continuously inventing new technology and improving the existing ones as a strategic way of gaining a highly competitive advantage over other firms (Maghnati, & Ling, 2013, p.2). This gives a background of the redesigning of smart phones in the telecommunication market. The redesigning is however believed to have effects on other firms like the XIAMI smart phone company in India. This is based on the analogy put forth by market experts, that customers prefer the new inventions with high versatility, which in turn affects the volume of sales of the firm’s products (Dickinson, et al., 2014, p.101). In other words, the invention and redesigning of smart phones is believed to change the customers’ tastes and preference. It therefore becomes significant and imperative to critically analyse and evaluate how the redesigning of smart phone in the market have impacted on such companies. The impact of redesigning of mobile phones impacts on the volume of sales of Xiaomi smartphone manufacturing company in India (Joo, & Sang, 2013, 2518)

Research Aim, Objectives And Questions

The major aim of this research study is to clearly explore the benefits of redesigning of smartphones in India and the corresponding effects on the   volume sales of the  Xiaomi company in India.

Objectives of the study

• To understand the effect of redesigning of smartphones on the manufacturing companies in India.
• To enable the firm, adopt to new changes in technology.
• To clearly help the company to know its current market share in the smartphone manufacturing firms in India

Research Questions;

As the strategy for streamlining the research into measurable and attainable format, the study will make use of research questions such as.

• What are the core impacts of re-designation of the smartphone industry of the Indian market in XIAMI?
• Could the restructuring and re-designing of the Indian smartphone market be the base of alteration of the volume of XIAMI smartphones sold
• What are the main issues or problems that have risen as result of the redesigning of the smartphones in India?
• How can the problems identified be handled?

Justification Of The Project And Potential Research Outcome

The rationale for this research is to investigate how redesigning of smartphones have affected the volume of sales in Xiaomi manufacturing company and clearly propose the substantive mechanisms for adopting to this change in technology (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2178). A critical analysis and evaluation of the impact of redesigning smartphones in the Indian market will help the firm to adopt to new changes and provide a clear thoughtful of the customer demands. as earlier discussed in the introduction on the new smartphone models the company was able to make initially. Literature review has revealed that for companies to gain a significant market share, it should adopt with the changes in technology (Hur, Kang, & Kim, 2015, p.508)

This research will also help the firm to know how redesigning of smartphones will be a good practice for the company to address its problems like too much competition, low sales among others which is almost making the company to exit the market.

Potential Research Outcome

The potential research outcome for this study is to explore on the significance of redesigning of smartphones on the volume of sales of the firm. As a strategy to penetrate in the smartphone market, redesigning practice in the firm will help to achieve the following.

Attract more customers. Customer demands change time and again and it changes with the change in new brands and designs. Redesigning of smartphones in Xiaoma, company will be a very vital tool for customer attraction (Mosemghvdlishvili, & Jansz, 2013, p. 1618)

Competitive advantage; New designs of phones will bring a very high competitive advantage to the company whereby the company can penetrate any market in the world due to the best smartphone designs.

Revenue earnings; with a very high customer base globally and competitive advantage, the company s will be in position to make to much earning out of this project once implemented.

Any successful project proposal should be in position to earn the company potential output to be considered successful and solve the problem that is being investigated.

Conceptual Framework

According to reviewed literature, technology is changing every day, and this compels firms to adopt to this phenomenon in order to maintain their market share and favourably compete with other firms. Reviewing different literatures reports from different sources including google scholar and other online journals, it has been witnessed that for smartphone manufacturers to maintain their reputation in the market, they have to effectively integrate in technology change management (Watkins, Kitner, & Mehta, 2012. P. 697). Change management refers to the way in which a company trains and equips its staff towards adopting new changes into the organization, aimed at accelerating and improving outcomes.

An Overview Of The Smartphone Industry

Smartphones may primarily be defined as phones built with advanced mobile operating systems that supports the features of both telephonic functioning capacity and computer programs. The invasion of smartphones has significantly changed the way the world operates, right from shopping to communication (Gupta & Dhillon, 2014, p. 2178). The era has significantly been dominated by social media communication, online shopping and mobile banking among others. Reports have shown that the first smartphone was manufactured in japan in 1999 by NTT DoCoMo and since then, 0ver 1.5 billion smartphones have been sold (Sujata, et al., 2015, 87)

The Competitiveness In The Smartphone Industry

The ability of a fir to keep a favourable competitive edge is the key to long term survival in the industry. The attempt of the firms to keep a high and favourable competitive position in the market has been the main drive for the continuous innovation and invention of new technology. This has been seen the re-designation of smartphones by manufacturers (Ghose, et al., 2012, p. 491)

Taking a critical analysis and evaluation of the Indian market, it is seen as one of the most lucrative and growing market in the world as it is listed among the growing market. This has attracted a series of smartphone manufacture (Malviya, Saluja, & Singh, 2013). This has consequently affected XIAMI company that recently expanded its operation to the promising Indian market. Nonetheless, reports indicate that new smartphone manufacturers crowding the Indian market has caused significant impact. Reflecting this scenario, it is typical that this may have a significant effect on the companies that are not engaging such trend (Pon, Seppälä, & Kenney, 2014, p.991)

Hypothesis;

H_0: The re-designation of smartphones has positively impacted on the XIAMI smartphone company in India

H_1: The re-designation of smartphones have negatively impacted on the XIAMI smartphone company in India

H_0: The volume of sales of XIAMI smartphones in India have been affected by the invasion of new smartphone manufacturers in the Indian market

H_1: The volume of sales of XIAMI smartphones in India have not been affected by the invasion of new smartphone manufacturers in the Indian market

H_0: XIAMI smartphone company is adopting the latest technology to meet the robustness and dynamism of the smartphone market in India

H₁ XIAMI smartphone company is not adopting the latest technology to meet the robustness and dynamism of the smartphone market in India

Research Methodology

This basically looks at the best research method used to gather and collect relevant data that that will provide the researcher with the best research report.

Social researchers have recommended the use of a mixture of all the methodologies to escape biased results (Brophy, & De, 2014, p.90)

In order to understand how redesigning of smartphones have impacted on the sales and demands of the customers in this company, mixed methodology will be applied

Mixed methodology of research is the integration of reach methods to collect relevant research report such as both quantitative and qualitative research methods. According to researchers, the integration of all the research methods permits a clearly approach for coming out with the best research report by making complete data utilization. It is believed that mixed method of research takes its origin from social sciences and due to its relevancy, it has been recently expanded into the health and medical sciences (No, & Kim, 2014, p.545).

Researchers have proposed the underlying possible characteristics of a mixed research methodology as explained below

Involves use of both quantitative and qualitative data. For instance use of open and ended data.

Use of several research procedures. At every research stage all the data is regarded as relevant for the best research report.

Procedural framework of data during data collection process.

Mixed methodology has been considered as the best approach to research due to the following reasons (Lee, & Lee, 2014, p. 355)

Validation of findings. As it has been highlighted, ixed research provides validated findings by involving quantitative and qualitative data sources. Mechanisms can be used to compare all the findings by involving the collection of both of both data types.

Involves the stakeholder’s views.  Mixed research methodology  collects data from all the sources to ensure that the findings are not biased . for instance, it is open to all the data sources.

Literature Review

In order to come up with reliable and dependable research report on the technological advancement and redesigning of smartphones in India and how this is affecting the sales of the company, different reports , books business directories and journals, articles and business magazines and  case studies will be used and this will help to provide secondary data for the company. Google will act as a source of published journals (Chakrabarti, 2013, p. 4)

The study population; The study population will basically be the employers within the company, and the customers to the smartphones of the company in India. This research is also intended to ensure that resigning of smartphones is in conformity customers demands

The sampling method; This method involves picking samples on the population to provide information on behalf of the entire group. The research study will make use of purposive sampling technique to enable the collection of wide research data (Giachetti, & Marchi, (2017, p. 364). In this regard, the sampling technique will involve the collection of data from all the stakeholders within the organization especially the top managers of the Xiaoma company.

Data collection; This research study will make use of different data collection methods including use of use of questionnaires and interviews. Guided questionnaires will be designed with the use open ended questions. This will help to provide data needed in redesigning process as it will help to provide validated information. The proposal will also involve use of interviews to collect the views of the people concerning the new redesigning of smartphones (Jena, et al., 2016, p. 224)

Data analysis; All the raw data/information collected from literature reviews, interviews and questionnaires will be thoroughly analysed with the help of a mixed research methodology .This will involve both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Justification Of Mixed Data Analysis

Many researchers have got different views about the choice of data analysis that is whether to use quantitative or qualitative data .It is justified that the trend for recommendation and provide a combination of advantages to come up with a complete research

Qualitative data analysis; This will be collected from primary study held using interviews that will be provided by the interviewers. The information collected from the study sample will subjectively be analysed without any bias while qualitative findings will be gathered from the literature reviews (Handel, et al., 2014, p.70)

Quantitative data analysis ; The questionnaires designed will help to provide information in form quantitative data and numerical data will also be collected from the literature review containing the numerical expressions .This is according to quantitative research data that is provided in the in the previous years by the company especially concerning the sales and volume of smartphones produced in the previous years (Batra, & Juneja, 2013, p.65)

Organization Of The Study

Like any other research report, the research study will be written in an academically order way as recommended by the researchers.

Chapter one; This chapter will basically include all the research proposal that was previously presented in the assignment. This will summarise the introductory part of the report, statement of the problem, research objectives, aim and questions

Chapter two; This chapter will entail the justification of the project and potential research output. In other wards what will be the potential benefit of the project to the company when the project has been completed.

Chapter three; This section of study will recapitulate the conceptual framework of the project and detailed review of the literature review.

Chapter four; This chapter will include all the methodology used for the research study and how the methodologies were used. All the literature review , data collection methods will also be discussed in this section, population and the sampling methods .

Project Budget

Any research study to be successful and be completed in its timeline, a budget should be drawn and funded. In this case, planning was made and a budget drawn. The estimated budget for the execution of all the project activities was drawn. The originality of the anticipated budget is justified below (Gnanasambandam, et al., 2012).  The estimated budget for the project will be $130,000

Training of the research team.  A project team was shortlisted, evaluated and trained to ensure that output is realized . A team of experts was selected to do all the project activities. This will cost $1000

Reviewing and research of literatures. Different research journals , internet costs ,renting of books both physical and online books for scholars will cost $1200.

Data compiling and analysis tools like computers smartphones , data collectors and entrants to compile a relevant research study will consume $3000

Topic identification and development; All the necessary documentation, submission of the topic for approval will cost $2500

Miscellaneous expenses is expected to cost $2000

Feeding and maintaining of the study team will cost $2000 .

Tabulation of the above data

S/N	Activity	Amount needed
1	Training of the research team	$ 1000
2	Reviewing and research of literature	$ 1200
3	Data compilation and purchase of tools	$ 3000
4	Topic identification and development	$ 2500
5	Feeding and maintaining of the study team$	$ 2000
6	Miscellaneous	$ 2000

Timeline Of The Study

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
identification and submission of the research topic to the project sponsor to lobby funds	7 days	Sun 7/1/18	Mon 7/9/18
submitting the study topic to the responsible authority for ethical approval	6 days	Wed 7/11/18	Wed 7/18/18	1
selecting, shortlisting and training of the research team	8 days	Fri 7/20/18	Tue 7/31/18	2
submitting of the pre-research survey to the potential stakeholders of the research study to highlight research agenda	5 days	Thu 8/2/18	Wed 8/8/18	3
identifying the reliable data sources for literature review	3 days	Fri 8/10/18	Tue 8/14/18	4
purchasing and reviewing diverse literature reports relevant to research study, both qualitative and quantitative	5 days	Thu 8/16/18	Wed 8/22/18	5
conducting questionnaire study in the selected population	3 days	Fri 8/24/18	Tue 8/28/18	6
compilation of the research findings from different sources	9 days	Thu 8/30/18	Tue 9/11/18	7
critical analysis of the findings using both quantitative and qualitative techniques	10 days	Thu 9/13/18	Wed 9/26/18	8
careful discussion of the research findings and identifying research gaps	8 days	Wed 9/26/18	Fri 10/5/18	9
making of recommendations for the identified problems and highlighting points for further research	15 days	Sun 10/7/18	Thu 10/25/18	1,10

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