Title/topic: Local and International Brands 

 Total marks awarded : 25 

Proposals are assessed on the information provided in Sections 6-9 of the proposal pro-forma. Indicative weights are shown. 

This is very confused. It is unclear in what context you are proposing to study this. You talk about Sainsbury and Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart does not operate in the UK and (if you were planning to do it in India) Sainsbury has no presence there. So what are you planning to do? 

If it is in a UK context there are no ‘local’ brands of any significance, only national brands, some of which may be used in other parts of Europe. Is this what you mean by ‘international’? How would this be of relevance to the consumer in the UK? It doesn’t make sense. 

You cite lots of articles. I cannot see the relevance of any of them. 

I cannot see one. 

Intended methods of data collection [20 marks in total]

“almost 15 to 20 customers are interviewed from each supermarket”? How? To what purpose? 

No evidence of anything here. 

Branding plays a vital role in determining the purchasing behavior of the customers across the world and each and every customer has a specific list of reasons to choose or not to choose a particular brand. Most of the brands focus on their marketing strategies to attract a particular customer based always and leaves an impression on the consumer’s side. In simple words branding can be defined as the strategies followed by a company to attract the target customers through different means of marketing techniques like ads and logos and try to maintain a great and long lasting relationship with the customers all the time.

In general customers maintain a good relation with a particular brand always and they always notify the product with the well known logos. Branding has a great influence of the purchasing behavior of the customers and there is lot of research done in this area. If a famous brand comes up with a new or upgraded version of their product, they need to focus on many aspects to take the product to the customers and follows different strategies to market the product and in most of the cases; they are successful in using their brand value rather than other marketing strategies. The main aim of this project is to investigate and critically review the impact of changes in brand positioning on the consumer purchasing behavior. Following are the aims and objectives of this project 

Aim: To investigate and critically review the impact of brand positing and changes to the current brand positioning on the purchasing behavior of the customers against different products. 

Objectives 

Following are the research objectives 

• To understand the importance of brand positioning and different strategies followed by the companies for their brand positioning.
• To analyze the customer purchasing behavior towards the changes in brand positioning followed by different companies
• To evaluate the impact of brand positioning on the overall business value of the organization. 

Hypothesis 

• Brand positioning has direct impact on the customer purchasing behavior
• Changes in brand positioning has no significance in attracting the customers 

Literature Review 

Customer behavior towards branding is always an important research area to be focused and many research scholars have explained the concept of customer behavior in different aspects. Customer behavior can be broadly categorized in to two different types like cognitive and experience oriented. Cognitive behavior of the customers always leads the customers to choose a particular product in terms of rationalism and logic and they don’t have any particular relation to any product. Experienced behavior of the customers always has an emotional attitude to a particular product and always chooses the product irrespective of the new arrivals. Most of the customers come under the category of emotional behavior attitude and they always have an emotional bond to an age old product and never try to choose any other good quality or better product. Their preferences are fixed towards a particular product and always purchase the same product until unless the quality of the product is degraded. Rational behavior of the customers makes them to choose a product based on the requirements and always think what the market actually offers for a particular product.

Once they get the enough knowledge on the market and the product, the actual choice to purchase or not is made across them. Learned behaviors of the customers make them to choose a product as a habit and test them and fix to a particular product and this type of attitude can be observed with the customers while choosing a newspaper. Social behavior of the customers make them to choose a particular product based on the social environment they are living and always depends on the opinion of other people while choosing a product. In most of the cases, the purchasing behavior of the customers depends on the cultural environment from which they are brought up and even there are many other factors that influence the attitude of the customers to choose a particular product always and few of them are as listed below 

• Cultural factors refers to the actual culture of the customers from which they are originated and their regular habits
• Social factors refers to the social group a particular customer belong to and choice of the product made by that particular group always
• Personal factors like age and personal interest of the customers towards a particular product. Personal attributes of the customers like profession, lifestyle and status of the customer are the driving factors towards this attitude.
• Psychological factors like beliefs, motivation and perception make the customers to choose a particular product. 

Thus there are different driving factors that make the customers to develop their attitude towards choosing a particular brand always across their purchase. According to , the decision process in choosing a brand for a product by a customer has different steps like recognizing the need, search for the required information, evaluating the results, decision towards a particular product and post purchase behavior. All these steps are really common in most of the customers and the market search plays a vital role in decision of a particular brand for a particular product.

The decision process holds five key steps and in most of the cases, all these steps are not followed by the customers and that too during the purchase of daily commodities, where the customers skip the search information and evaluation phase in general. These five stages are passed by a customer when they are making the purchase for the first time and if they successfully pass the five steps and even satisfied with the post purchase attitude, the corresponding customer develops a positive corner towards a particular brand and try to be in the same corner always. 

Involvement of the customer during the purchase period also plays a vital in deciding the brand and in most of the cases, the level of involvement shown by the customers when buying a big product is not shown in case of smaller ones. Customers can be categorized based on their choice when buying a new product for the first time and few customers always like to take an experiments and rest of the customers follow the decision of the first category customers .

Estimating the buying behavior of the customers of a particular country is really tedious job and cross culture issues also play a vital role in deciding the internal buying behavior of the customers.  Thus there are different factors that decide the buying behavior of the customers and the impact of branding on the purchasing behavior of the customers. Both these two terms are interrelated and many theories are proposed towards this concept.

 Research Methodology 

Qualitative research methodology is used to do this research and a case study based approach is used to gather the required information. Semi structured interviews are used primary source of data and the opinion gathered from different respondent like customers and store managers in the research process is used to analyze the research hypothesis. Few customers are selected from the two supermarkets in London to gather the required information. A research sample size of around 5 to 6 customers is chosen in this project and the opinion from them is used as the primary source of information. Secondary source of information is also used in this research and mainly gathered from different published articles, books, journals and websites as given the source section of this proposal. 

The purchasing behavior of the customers vary according to their perceptions on the brands, be it local or international. Customer perception plays a key role in determining the buying behavior of the product along with other factors like price and quality. The perspective of the consumers depends on how well they are acquainted with a particular brand whether it is local or international.

Some people perceive that local brands are deemed to be less superior in terms of quality and the brand value. But this is more of a perception rather than the ground reality as it is a known fact that quality is independent of a brand’s national or international presence. The main difference between the local and international brand would be its market presence where the local brands are concentrated on tapping the consumers of a particular region while the international brands cater the needs of consumers from various countries. Even though the brand image of the international brands is large, it is not always the brand image that is the driving factor to influence the consumer spending behavior.

The customers perception is quite complex to understand where some people stick on to the same brands whether it is local or international while some other customers keep changing the brands from time to time. Brand loyalty plays a key role here. The focus of the research here is to examine the factors that affect the consumer purchasing behavior on local brands versus international brands. The research concentrates around examining the perception of consumers towards local brands and international brands.

Aim

To identify and critically review the factors that affects the consumer behavior in choosing local brands versus international brands.

Objectives

• To understand the customer perception on local and international brands.
• To critically review the buying behavior of customers in general
• To understand the difference between local and international brands in terms of price, quality, availability and how it influences customers

Hypothesis

• Customer buying behavior depends on the presence of the brand rather than quality and  price
• International brands attract more customers rather than local brands
• International brands are superior in quality and durability compared to local brands

Literature review

                  John.A. Howard and Jagadeesh attempted to explain the buying behavior of the consumers over a period of time. This theory attempts to explain the behavior of consumers in choosing brands. This theory states that brand choice is systematic and not random. This theory provides the structure for this type of behavior so as to explain that it is a system. Some of the assumptions are considered while attempting to explain this phenomena. The first assumption is that buying behavior is a rational approach where the individual applies his limited cognitive ability and knowledge while choosing a brand. The second assumption is that buying behavior is dealt in a normative approach rather than a positive approach.

The third assumption is that brand behavior is systematic in the sense that it follows some set of standards. The fourth assumption is that buying behavior is considered as systematic in a way that it triggers some stimulus either in the buyer or in the buyer’s environment. This stimulus leads to an event of buying. The stimulus is the input which leads to the output of purchasing. The purchasing behavior is considered more or less repetitive. The buyer follows a purchase life cycle that depends on how often he will buy. This life cycle vary according to the different types of products. Some of the products like durable appliances observe a lengthy purchase life cycles while products like food, personal care items and other perishable items witness a short purchasing life cycle.

When the purchaser goes for repetitive buying, he simplifies his task in choosing the brand as he possess some relevant information about that brand and it some how happens to be a routine in choosing that brand. The buying behavior is determined by a set of elements that are considered while making a purchase. Some of the key features that determine the brand choice are a) a collection of notions about a brand which are deemed to satisfy the consumer’s expectations b) various options available in choosing a course of action c) decision intermediaries where the motives are evaluated against the alternatives. Alternative are other brand options available to the buyers that could satisfy the motives of the buyers.

Three important factors are considered while defining the alternatives of a brand. 1) Two or more products can be considered as alternatives by the buyers when they pertain to the same product class. 2) The alternatives must belong to the evoked set .An evoked set is that kind of set where the alternatives form a small proportion of the brands that are preferred by the customers from various available brands in the market. Finally, no two customers may possess the same alternatives in the evoked set.

Decision mediators are the collection of rules that determine the structuring and ordering of buyer’s choice and it also affects the brands in a way that how the brands keep their competitive edge. Decision mediators aid in evaluating the buyer’s motive against the potential of the brands to satisfy the buyer’s motives. Decision mediators develop from the buyers knowledge about his past experience of a brand or they are developed from the information about a brand from his commercial or social environment.

The buyers experience relatively narrow decision mediators when they are new to a product class or they don’t have prior information about a product. When a buyer is satisfied with a product, he develops a set of decision mediators about that product. These decision motives aid in purchasing that brand repetitively as he is satisfied with that brand or product . In that way, the decision mediators enables the consumers to potentially choose the best brand from the evoked set. It then becomes a practice of routine purchasing where the decision motives are well established. The buying then becomes structured where the event triggers the process and even completes it. 

The repetitive purchasing affects in reduction of the product class, thereby making the evoked set large Aspects like time pressure, financial position, personality characteristics, social and organizational environment, culture largely affects the buying behavior. Stimuli may be internal or external . Generally , the marketing decisions are made on orienting these stimuli in consumers. The marketers provide such kind of environments so as to trigger stimulus in the customers in order to encourage buying .

Intended method for Data collection 

Qualitative research methodology is implemented in this research to gather the required information. Both the primary and secondary source of information is used to proceed with this research and they are as mentioned below

Primary source of information: Primary source of information is gathered in the form of semi structured interviews conducted with the respondent’s choosen for this research. Case study is considered as the research design process in this research. Two supermarkets are considered as the case study in this research and almost 15 to 20 customers are interviewed from each supermarket to gather the required information. Sainsbury and Wal-Mart are considered as the case studies and the customers visiting these places are interviewed with respect to their purchasing interests regarding national and international brands of different products.

Secondary source of information: Secondary source of information is gathered from different books, journals, user reviews and websites as given in the source section.

In general there is lot of impact of the duplicate brands in the market on the branded companies. In most of the cases, each and every brand is copied and a duplicate product is developed with same features and facilities and sold out a cheaper price than the original price and even most of the customers look forward to purchase a similar product at a lower price.

Thus there is lot of business downfall across the branded companies due to these duplicates and they are always coming up with lot of copyright and trademark laws to protect their business against the duplicates. The affect of duplicates and the branded products is high in particular with fashion industry and that too specific with clothing industry. There are many famous brands that offer wide range of varieties to their customers and they are affected with duplicate and imitation products.

In general the customer perspective towards the branding will be large and always expects high quality products at a lower price and if they cant satisfy the price, definitely they will compromise with the quality and choose the duplicate or imitation product. Even there are some customers who always look for the quality and never comprise at price.

The main focus of this research is to identify the impact of duplicates on branded clothing and textile companies and with specific to the case of Pepe Jeans. Customer behavior towards purchasing the duplicate brands and the corresponding impact on the business value of branded companies is analyzed in this research. Following are the main aim and objectives of this research 

Aim: To identify and critically review the impact of duplicates on the branded companies business value and the consumer buying behavior towards duplicate brands.

Objectives: 

Following are the research objectives 

• To identify the impact of duplicates in the competitive market
• To analyze the impact of business value of Pepe Jeans due to the duplicates
• To identify the consumer buying behavior towards duplicate and branded clothes
• To review the customer purchasing habits against quality and price attributes. 

Hypothesis 

• Duplicates have positive impact on business value of branded companies
• Pepe Jeans is the most favorite brand to be duplicated inLondon
• Customers always look for price rather than quality while choosing the product. 

Literature Review 

In general the purchasing attitude of the customers changes based on the product they are purchasing and in most of the cases, customers always opts the price as the primary determinant than the quality while choosing a product. Quality and price are the major determinants for a customer to choose a product and many studies proved that customers are always attracted towards the branded products. Branded companies always focus on the quality and offer their products at a higher price based on the level of quality of the product they are offering to the customers.

Quality and variety is the main business objective of the clothing companies and always shows their interest towards innovate their products and attract a wide range of customer base. To meet the competition from the market, always the companies come up with wide range of varieties in their products and try to offer them at the best quality and price to the customers. Duplicates are the major threats to the branded products and the business value of branded products has reduced a lot due to these duplicate products.

In general these duplicate products look similar to the original brand and even the name of the brand is copied in most of the cases, by just replacing few letters in the brand name. In most of the retail stores, these duplicate brands make occupy ample space in terms of sales and even the customers are attracted towards the look of the clothes and tend to choose them. 

When the customers feel that a particular brand is imitated at a lower price, they never consider the quality in most of the cases and purchase the same. Here the quality of the product is not given that importance and even customers feels of affording a low price towards the lower quality product and feels comfortable with the design and model of the product in most of the cases.

Duplicate products look similar to the original ones and that the primary reason in most of the cases, why a consumer chooses the duplicate on and tries to save enough money always.  Business of the branded companies is affected a lot due to these duplicates from different countries and even there are some website, which take the order to make a duplicate or imitation product and sale them online. In most of the cases, duplicate brands are successful in expand their market in remote areas and even the ample number of retail stores .

Customers are deceived in few cases with the duplicate brand across the retail stores and this come to their notice while using the clothes and the quality of the duplicate product is the main factor that differentiates it from the original brand. Duplicate brands has emerged a lot in the existing market and the main source of their marketing will be in the links of chain marketing, delivery on order and most of the retail markets are occupied with the duplicate brands.

The main business impact of the duplicates on the original brands will be mainly in the rural and retail markets when compared to the stores and urban markets. If a customer is habituated to a duplicate product which exactly resembles the original product in terms of model and variety, he or she never prefers a branded product, as they are getting a similar product for a lesser price.

Quality is not considered as important factor in these cases, as the consumers are getting a similar product for a lower price and even the expectations on the durability of the product would be from the consumer’s perspective. Company retail outlets and large stores are primarily affected with these duplicates and in turn the purchase order will be low from their side to the branded companies and thus the overall business is affected not only at the company side, but also from the side of retailers and stores. 

Brand image also plays a vital role in developing the ideas to create the duplicate. There is a separate customer based in the retail market, which always choose duplicates of a particular duplicate. If a particular brand is successful in creating great models and varieties to gain the competitive advantage in the market and this inturn laid the paths for the emergence of duplicate brands in the retail market.

Thus it is clear that, branded companies are facing competition not only from the core competitive brands, but also from these duplicate brands in most of the cases. Labels also play a vital role in making the duplicates of a successful brand and there are many cases, where the label of a famous brand is replicated and attached with a duplicate product. Customers are deceived in this context and they pay the same original price and at the end of the day they are with a duplicate and less quality product with a cheap quality in their hands.

Reputation of the original brand is also affected in these cases a lot and the actual business value of the brand is degraded a lot. Thus there are number of affects with these duplicates for a famous brand and there are many existing techniques to resolve these issues and in most of the cases, they are partially successful and still it is always a research area to evaluate the solutions to the problems with these duplicates. 

Intended method for Data Collection 

The basic research methodology implemented for this research is qualitative and both the primary and secondary source of information is used to complete this dissertation. The actual process implemented to gather required information is as given below 

Primary source of information 

Primary source of data required to proceed with this research is gathered from semi structured interviews conducted with the respondent’s choosen. Case study is choosen as the research design process in this research and few respondents are identified against this case study to gather the required primary source of information. A research sample size of 10 is choosen to gather the required information towards the customer buying behavior for duplicate brands and how the duplicates are emerged in the market from two retail store administrators. Opinion from the selected respondents is used as the primary source of information. 

Secondary source of information 

Secondary source of information is gathered from different Economic reviews and Books stating the information about customer purchasing behavior and most of the stated in the Source section. Few websites as mentioned in the Source section are used to gather the statistics regarding the impact of duplicates on the branded companies and Pepe Jeans website is referred to gather the information related to the range of products and varieties released in the market. 

QUESTIONNAIRE TO CONSUMERS:

1. Gender?      Male/ Female
2. How old are you?
a. 18 – 22        b. 23 – 30        c. 31 – 44        d. 45+

3. In which income group you belong to? (Annual)

a. £12,000 – £15,000      b. £15,000 – £25,000

c. £25,000 – £40,000      d. £40,000+

4. Have you ever encountered any part-time service employee who is international student?

a. Yes    b. No

5. Are you a first time visitor to the store?

a. Yes     b. No

6. Do you prefer interacting with the same service employee in the concerned department of the store every time you visit?

a. Yes     b. No

7. Did you ever have bad experience while interacting with the service employee?

a. Yes        b. No

8. Are you comfortable with the body language of part-time service employees who are international students?

a. Yes       b. No

9. Do you experience any difficulty in understanding the slang of the service employees who are international students?

a. Yes        b. No

10. Do you think the qualities of care, friendliness, empathy in customers contribute for the satisfaction of customers?

a. Yes        b. No

11. Do you find the service employee knowledgeable enough to explain about the product specifications and features?

a. Yes        b. No

12. Did you ever experience any difference in the knowledge levels between local employees and part-time service employees who are international students?

13. How often do you visit the store?

a. Regularly                   b. Occasionally                       c. Rarely

Additional comments:

14. How friendly are the part-time service employees who are international students?

15. How did you find yourself difficult in interacting with part-time service employees who are international students?

16. If you had any bad experience with the part-time service employee who is international student, can you share the experience?

17. What are the general observations you made in the communication style of part-time service employees who are international students while interacting with them?

18. What are the common qualities you expect from a service employees while interacting with them?

QUESTIONNAIRE TO SAINSBURY STAFF

1. What is your name? (optional)
2. What is your role in the store?
3. What is your nationality?
4. Since how long are you working in Sainsbury?
5. Does the three-day training program help you to perform better on job?
6. How did the three-day program help you to perform better?
7. How do you deal with harsh and adamant customers?
8. What are the changes you made to the style of your communication to meet the demands of the job?
9. Do you share a friendly relationship with any of the customers? If so, how did the relationship develop?
10. How did your manager help in improving your communication?
11. How Sainsbury’s is attracting ethical consumers?

The findings and analysis section attempted to answer the research questions.   The research focuses on the investigation of the barriers in the communication of service employees who are part-time international student employees and the role of management in improving the communication of these employees. The research proceeds in the investigative manner that attempts to attain a holistic view about the communication process of service employees in Sainsburys Richmond branch.

The investigation on the key issues like the major shortcomings in communication observed in international employees, the measures taken by the management in training the part-time international service employees, the managers’ role in improving the communication of part-time international service employees, the customers’ experience in dealing with part-time employees who are international students in comparison with the  customers experience with local employees, the challenges faced by part-time international student employees.

       Based on the findings, it is concluded that role of management is significant in improving the communication of  employees who are part-time international students. The training program provided by the management is observed to have a marked impact in improving the communication of part-time international student employees. This conclusion can be drawn based on the following evidence that is deduced from the following finding

“A three day training program is conducted to the part-time international service employees to handle the customers in the desired manner characterized by empathy, kindliness, friendliness etc. In the first two days, a special certified trainer is appointed to clearly deliver and explain the key aspects of communication process. In the first two days, a special CD is shown to these service employees that highlight the key issues in handling the customers.

The CD talks about issues like how to handle abusive customers, how to stay calm in customer service as a part of good communication process and how to empathize with the customers. The CD demonstrates that the communication process of service employees should not match with the angry tone of the customers. Moreover, the CD suggests the service employees to concentrate more on what you can do rather than what you cannot do. The CD talks about empathy in detail which defines that empathy means a deeper understanding of customer’s problem by focusing on what customers have to say.

This focus on others dialogue leads to a feeling of trust and reliability on the service employees which is a part of effective communication process. The aspect of staying calm in dealing with angry customers is dealt in more detail where the stress is rendered to the tone of the service employees when the customer is angry. The service employ can pacify the situation by maintaining a regular tone characterised by professionalism.

This automatically helps in reducing the tone and anger of the customers thereby easing the situation. Moreover, the importance of courtesy should not be undermined. This is hallmark of good communication skills. To be courteous is to talk to the people the way you wanted to be talked to. Another highlight of effective communication process includes helpfulness.

To be helpful, a service employee should be resourceful enough to clear the doubts of customers so as to provide the required information needed by the customers. Another important aspect is to follow up. A good communicator follows up regularly with calls. If a service employee makes any promise that is to be fulfilled in the next visit during the negotiation process, he should not fail to keep up the promise. Else, it is not advisable to promise the customer .”

The role of management in improving the communication skills of service employees is not only in the perspective of training but also in the direction of maintaining good relations with the service employees in an effort to involve employees in problem solving. Moreover, the emphasis on empowerment in improving the communication of service employees is highlighted from findings.

“I feel that recognition of employee performance also plays a key role in the betterment of his performance as a good communicator in the service context. I regularly review the performance of service employees to identify who is performing well so that I can encourage them to perform better. I focus on the identification of star performers so as to provide leverage in some issues in order to nurture problem solving skills. This is a sort of empowerment of service employees. I feel this exercise of empowerment of service employees reinforce self-efficacy which leads to self-confidence and the results can be reflected in their performance ”

The notable communication barriers in the communication of service employees are identified by examining the difference in the communication styles between local employees and part-time international student employees.  It is concluded that one of the communication barriers is the slang of part-time international student employees. Other notable communication barriers are related with the style of the service employees who are part-time international students that is generally affirmative, apathetic, impatient  and often perceived as aggressive and rude as indicated in the statements by Employee A?B? C?.   

I have been working as a part-time employee for the last six months. I am from India and I used to struggle to pick the slang of local customers initially. I used to ask some customers to repeat their words. This irked many customers and as a result of that I received negative feedback from the customers when they mentioned their views in the feedback form. However, I slowly improved with the time and now I am quite comfortable in picking the slang of local customers. In my early days I was shocked to see a customer complaining that I am rude. I was shocked because I felt that I didn’t speak in rude manner. When I spoke to my department manager, I was asked whether I missed some of the words like “thank you”, “hello”, “sorry”, “please” and “cheers” in my conversation. I came to know then that I seldom used those words. My manager explained the importance of such words in my communication style

“I have been working in the store for the last two months. I found my job challenging when i was put in a situation where I had to rush while dealing with customers. This hampers my ability to effectively deliver the intended service to the customers. Besides that, I had to tell lies at times to convince the customer in order to encourage buying. This is a kind of gamble as it carries the risk of attaining negative feedback if they spot out that I am lying. But if can convince them, my performance is enhanced in terms of the number of items sold per month”

“I have been working in the store for the last four months. At times, I had to face some tough situations when I had to incur the wrath of their anger. It is very challenging to stay calm so as to not match their turn”

Recommendations

The recommendations of this research were presented to the management. Although the research proved the effective role of management in terms of the training provided by the management and the involvement of managers in improving the communication of part-time international service employees, it is suggested that management use communication in such a way that they regularly interact with part-time international student employees so as to monitor their performance.

Besides that, the management should play a key role in nurturing the communication skill of part-time international student employees by providing a healthy work environment envisaging fair treatment of the employees and the management should find ways in improving the job satisfaction of service employees who are part-time international students. This makes the service employees passionate towards their jobs and facilitates them to learn new things in aspect of communication.

What are the common problems faced by Sainsbury customers in dealing with part-time staff who are international students? 

The answer to this question can be attained by the understanding the statements of the customers in the light of their experience with part-time student employees along with the findings referring to the challenges faced by part-time international service employees in dealing with customers.

It is observed that the customers find it difficult to understand the accent of the part-time international student employees. This statement is backed by the following finding when one of the customer responded in this manner: 

It happened when I visited the store for the first time when I faced a part-time international service employee. As I was looking around the store, a Nikon camera caught my eye and one of the service employees came forward to explain the features of the camera. He initially gave a brief demo about the camera. Then as I had some doubts, I asked few queries for which I received irrelevant answers. I asked him repeatedly the same question so as to make it clear. Then, I thought that it is my accent that is troubling him in understanding my queries 

Another concern was that shade of rudeness observed in the communication style of part-time international student employees. This was revealed when Student Employee A was asked  about the challenges faced by part-time international service employees. He or she (depending how you describe him/her)  talked about his/her experience in the following manner.

“I have been working as a part-time employee for the last six months. I am from India and I used to struggle to pick the slang of local customers initially. I used to ask some customers to repeat their words. This irked many customers and as a result of that I received negative feedback from the customers when they mentioned their views in the feedback form. However, I slowly improved with the time and now I am quite comfortable in picking the slang of local customers. In my early days I was shocked to see a customer complaining that I am rude. I was shocked because I felt that I didn’t speak in rude manner. When I spoke to my department manager, I was asked whether I missed some of the words like “thank you”, “hello”, “sorry”, “please” and “cheers” in my conversation. I came to know then that I seldom used those words. My manager explained the importance of such words in my communication style 

Summary

This section presented the findings that facilitated to answer the research questions. The research questions mainly revolved around the difference in communication styles between part-time international student employees and local service employees along with the focus on the role of manager in improving the communication of part-time international service employees. The answers to these questions aim at solving the research problem by meeting the research objectives and it could help in suggesting suitable solution to the problem. 

Summarize what was found, how it needs solving? This is one of the most important sections of your research!

What is the difference in communication style between Sainsbury staff who are local students compared with staff who are international students in the process of service provision? 

The answer to this question is derived from the findings gathered from the opinions revealed in the semi-structured interviews conducted to the customers. The opinions of the customers are interpreted to understand the difference in  the communication style between local service employees and part-time international employees.

It is inferred from the findings that the communication style of part-time international employees is characterised by apathy. It is evident from the response of one of the customers where he revealed his experience with the part-time international service employees. The following finding confirms the above argument 

“It happened when I visited the store for the first time when I faced a part-time international service employee. As I was looking around the store, a Nikon camera caught my eye and one of the service employees came forward to explain the features of the camera. He initially gave a brief demo about the camera. Then as I had some doubts, I asked few queries for which I received irrelevant answers. I asked him repeatedly the same question so as to make it clear. Then, I thought that it is my slang that is troubling him in understanding my queries. He not even bothered to call his department manager to clear the issue. I found that he is not concerned to clear the issue and simply let the issue pass on .”

The communication style of local service employees is characterised by the features such as friendliness, trustworthiness etc. This can be said because of the rapport they share with one of the customers which is clear from the opinions revealed by the customer through  semi-structured interviews where he mentioned that 

“I usually prefer interacting with the same service employee whenever I make a purchase from the groceries department. He is quite helpful for me in giving information about the new arrivals and new offers .He understands my needs and utilities as we have developed a sort of personal connection with repeated visits to the store. The reasons for strong personal connection may be due the fact that he is empathetic, friendly and reliable.”

Apart from this, the part-time international student employees possess affirmative communication style. Moreover, the impatience is other negative feature of the part-time international service employees. This is evident from the findings when Customer C reacted in the following manner 

“I am a regular customer to the store. In my shopping experience till date with the store, I observed that the part-time service employees are less patient in hearing my concerns and my requirements. They tend to rush off without listening to me completely. I observed that they interrupt me in the middle of my dialogue and they start talking without completely listening to my opinions. This is generally not observed in local service employees” 

However, the communication style of local service employees is characterised by cheerfulness and activeness which usually passes on the moods of the customers making it a satisfying shopping experience. This is known from the opinions of Customer C when he shared his experience about local service employees. 

“I found local employees to be more active and characterised by socially acceptable facial expressions. This creates a cheerful environment at the time of purchase. Moreover, this ultimately leads to a satisfying shopping experience.”

The findings presented in the previous section are categorized and collated to answer the research questions. The findings are analyzed in relation to the concepts identified in the literature review.

The answer to this question is derived from the opinions of the managers. The findings pertaining to the role of the management in improving the communication and the elements involved in training the part-time service employees are useful in answering this question. The opinion expressed by Manager? are in close alignment with Douglas (2010) study about relational coordination The findings stress the importance of managers being friendly with service employees to develop sound relationships for better results. This argument is backed by the findings from Manager A who mentioned that

“I feel that the manager should be friendly and affable towards part-time international service employees for improving the communication of service employees.”

The three day training program where the managers play an active role in improving the communication of part-time employees also contributes largely to improving the communication of such employees. The training program is quite helpful to understand the key issues regarding the communication style to be adopted and practice in the course of the service delivery. This argument is backed by the answers of all three managers:

 “A three day training program is conducted to the part-time international service employees to handle the customers in the desired manner characterized by empathy, kindliness, friendliness etc. In the first two days, a special certified trainer is appointed to clearly deliver and explain the key aspects of communication process. In the first two days, a special CD is shown to these service employees that highlight the key issues in handling the customers. The CD talks about issues like how to handle abusive customers, how to stay calm in customer service as a part of good communication process and how to empathize with the customers” 

Another important issue is the emphasis on empowering employees for better performance as shown in the contribution of Manager? 

“I feel that recognition of employee performance also plays a key role in the betterment of his performance as a good communicator in the service context. I regularly review the performance of employees to identify who is performing well so that I can encourage them to perform better. I focus on the identification of star performers so as to provide leverage in some issues in order to nurture problem solving skills. This is a sort of empowerment of service employees. I feel this exercise of empowerment of service employees reinforce self-confidence and the results can be reflected in their performance”

This study specified the significant information on change management process and global outsourcing process carried out in the organizations by taking Infosys Company as example. According to this study, Infosys Company is facing many change management problems in the global outsourcing process. Even though Infosys Company is having many global operations, still it is outsourcing its IT and BPO services to many companies over the world. In order to identify the actual problems faced by Infosys Company, research conducted survey in Infosys Company of Hyderabad by including Infosys Employees as participants. Each participant specified their own views and ideas on global outsourcing and change management process.

Recommendations

Being an international company, Infosys is still outsourcing its IT and BPO services to many other global outsourcing companies over the world in order to reach the target customers from all ends. Infosys main motto is to expand their operations into all major countries. Rather than outsourcing their services to other companies, Infosys should expand their business by opening new projects in different areas over the world. Infosys is having a good global financial standard that is capable of opening its branches in many areas. Infosys can use this particular aspect in order to reach its target potential customers over the world. Many participants answered that global outsourcing process is more important for their companies in order to manage different locations where they are not able to manage their operations.

But because of outsourcing these services employees are facing some problems with the outsourced company management. Infosys should try to build efficient relationship among the outsourced companies and the employees in order to manage the international operations in a successful manner.  From the results, it is been noticed that even though Infosys Company is successful in aligning its change management and global outsourcing process, still it is facing many challenges and changes in the market. In order to overcome this problem Infosys Should try to use good alignment strategies in order to manage the alignment process of global outsourcing and change management process successfully. The shareholders and stakeholders of Infosys Company are even facing problems with the outsourced company management and Infosys should build a relationship between outsourced companies and their share as well as stakeholders in order to manage their share standards.

In the research interview process many participants stated that outsourcing companies are offering strategic alliance benefits, but Infosys should try to reach their target customers by opening new branches rather than sharing the profits and shares. Many participants from Infosys Company stated that globalization process has shown major impact on their company and for this reason Infosys should try to manage globalization process in a balanced way in order to overcome the problems even at the time of globalization period. On the other hand, most of the participants stated that change management process is aligned with their global outsourcing process; still Infosys is facing problems with change management process. Infosys should use many change management strategies and techniques in order to overcome the problems.

Many participants stated different reasons for the failure of global outsourcing and change management process in Infosys such as lack of appropriate change management plans, lack of experienced staff in managing the changes, lack of management interest towards the changes.  Participants from Infosys Company stated that they are looking forward towards some main European countries to outsource their products and services.

Rather than selecting European developed countries, Infosys should try to expand their services into undeveloped countries in order to develop themselves and support the undeveloped countries by offering employment etc Even though Infosys is following many global outsourcing strategies still it is facing many failures in the international markets. In order to succeed in the global market Infosys should try to use some new strategies and methods by replacing their old strategies. Finally, this study concludes that Infosys Company should follow the suggested recommendations in order to overcome the problems faced by their company in managing their change management and global outsourcing process.