Project Report Of Exploratory Market Research On Cargo Shipping Industry

Submitted to:

Prof. S Mohanty

Submitted By:

Souvik Sil (13) Manan Zavrei (85) Rakesh Kumar Soni (62) ITM B-School, Kharghar Navi Mumbai.
(September 2, 2011)

Report Comprises of

Sr. No.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9

Content
Acknowledgement Executive Summary Introduction to Project Research Design Result for Project Recommendations Bibliography Appendix

Pg. No.
3 4 5 7 9 10 11 12

pg. 2

Acknowledgement
Firstly, we thank the almighty God for blessing us with strength and wisdom to complete this project. We express our sincere thanks to Prof. S. Mohanty, faculty of ITM business School for his valuable guidance during the research project. We take this opportunity to extend our sincere thanks to Aashirvad Shipping for offering a learning platform to earn exposure and garner knowledge in the field of research. We thank o ur mentors at Aashirvad shipping Mr. Narendra Ramanie and Mr. Sumit Valecha who guided, supported and encouraged u s during the entire tenure of the project. W e also thank Mr. Chintan Shah for his cooperation and valuable advice throughout the project. Finally we thank our parents for their support and blessings which have always been an inspiration to us.

With Regards, Rakesh Kumar Soni (KHR2010PGDM20F062) Manan Zaveri (KHR2010PGDM20F085) Shouvik Sil (KHR2010PGDM20F013)

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Executive Summary
This project report comprises of exploratory research work done on Gujarat shipping industry. In recent times Gujarat has emerged as a center of attraction for most export companies as it is one of the fastest growing states in India. This has led to new companies venturing in the field of shipping services with advanced technological support. This was initially not seen as a major threat to the shipping companies as their clients were more inclined to the already existing and dominant players in the industry. But now-a-days there has been observed some attrition among few companies. So in order to find out the effect of this shift in the industry on Aashirvad shipping company, we have conducted a survey which compares the requirements of the clients with the services offered by the company. This report is a collection of findings of the research. The report mentions the introduction to the research problem, research methodology and research design, the results and the recommendations that can be concluded from the research findings. The report focuses mainly on the client satisfaction index. This is a good measure to determine if the clients are satisfied with the services provided by the company. If the clients are not satisfied with the service provided by the company there will be a high attrition rate of clients and the company will need to adjust its services to the requirements of the clients, on the other hand if there is more satisfaction then the attrition will be low and the company need not immediately spend on the advanced technology to retain its customers.

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Introduction
Study contains exploratory research to carry out the client satisfaction study in shipping industry with a clear objective as: To identify the factors affecting quality of cargo shipping industry in order to satisfy the clients and explore the level of clients satisfaction level for Aashirvad shipping. The relevance of study is that now-a-days Gujrat shipping industry is facing a huge client attrition rate due to many reasons, two prime reasons are as:

Many shipping companies are not updating themselves with todays fast moving world, i.e. they are using same culture since their inception.

Many global as well as domestic players, who are working with latest technical inclusion, have entered into the industry after seeing the scope of the industry.

So in above mentioned condition all the shipping organizations of Gujrat shipping industry are more or less facing an adverse condition, to find out a solution for this market research was one of the best tools to use. The study was conducted to find out the level of satisfaction of clients for this industry assuming Aashirvad shipping as a true representative of the industry because it is accountable for about 35% of all the cargo handling being done here. It was also an ease for the project to be accomplish as we have access to the client database of Aashirvad shipping. The scope of study was to cover all the aspects of cargo shipping services being provided by various providers in Gujrat shipping industry, to accomplish the above said objective as to explore the factor for client satisfaction & level of satisfaction for the clients of Aashirvad

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shipping. So in order to find out the stabilizing standards for Gujrat shipping industry we studied all the clients of Aashirvad shipping. After conducting the study we can say that there is no such issue that would affect the marketing decision but one thing we came across is that for senior organizations all the threatening factors become immaterial if they are flexible enough for change and the best example for this is Aashirvad shipping, a two decade old organization which is always ready for change, today enjoys the market leadership with about 35% of market share of cargo shipping industry. So we would like to mention that technical advancement is not the biggest factor for service industry but how you serve is the biggest factor. However, to serve in a better way we need technical inclusion of the organization but that is not an obligation.

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Research Design
In order to conduct the client satisfaction study the following parameter were followed as research methodology:

Research Methodology
As mentioned in project title it is an Exploratory Research, which explores the level of satisfaction for the clients of Aashirvad shipping. The study was conducted by online survey method, in which an email containing questionnaire was send to each of the sampling unit in order to get their responses regarding their level of satisfaction with Aashirvad shipping.

Sampling Technique
The following parameter was considered in order to get respondent for the study of clients satisfaction:

Sampling frame: All the clients of shipping industry who uses any kind of shipping service was considered as sampling frame for this study.

Sampling Unit: Each individual client whether it was shipper, consignee or vessel owner was studied as a sampling unit.

Sampling Size: The whole client database of Aashirvad shipping was selected for this study, in which there were 78 sampling units.

Sampling Method: As we had access to client database of Aashirvad shipping company we used the convenient sampling method.

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In order to justify we would like to add that as per our consideration we are able to explore the level of satisfaction of clients of shipping industry up to a good extent as Aashirvad shipping is one of the leading company of west cost of India and we can assume the movement of industry with its standards. In order to indentify inadequacies in our sampling selection we would like to mention one thing that though Aashirvad shipping is market leader but we cant be depend only on its clients for industrys estimation, if we had more recourses it would not have affected this situation because any corporate house is not provide us access to their client database.

Data Collection Method

Whole data was collected by online surveys, as it was the most convenient and economic way to tap globally scattered clients of Aashirvad shipping. In this study we received both qualitative as well as quantitative data as per the questionnaire, which was completely a primary data.

Measurement
We needed to measure preference of clients regarding several industrial parameters for shipping industry as well as their rating for these parameters to service providers.

Analysis Procedure

Mainly clients satisfaction index (CSI) along with performance matrix was used to analyze the satisfaction level of client for this industry with the help of SPSS as supporting software assistance to provide an ease and reliability to the research analysis.

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Results
The shipping industry is facing a new set of globally renowned competitors equipped with advanced technologies. Thus there has been observed rising client attrition rate among the companies. This led us to find out if this shift will affect the business of Aashirvad shipping company. Hence we have done this research to identify the requirements of the clients of the shipping industry and compare them with the services provided by Aashirvad shipping company. The research indicates that the CSI for Aashirvad shipping company is 8.64 or 86.4% in the On Target quadrant of the performance matrix. This means that the client satisfaction is high and thus the attrition rate in Aashirvad is less as compared to other companies. In support of the above inferences we have included the highlights of the research findings in this section. The data is mentioned in the Appendix.

The clients were mostly introduced to the company through referrals from other clients. Organizational efficiency was found to be 4.33 out of a maximum of 5 Client perception of the overall organizational image as good Clients having confidence regarding the well accomplishment of project between 80 to 90%. Clients have given feedback stating that they have seen an improvement in the services over a period of time

Last but not the least, 100% of the clients of Aashirvad shipping are willing to use Aashirvad shipping for their requirements.

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Recommendations
It is very difficult to give recommendations to a company like Aashirvad shipping which has left competition far behind by riding on high client satisfaction. However we would like to extend the following recommendations in the context of the entire shipping industry and not just Aashirvad shipping company As per the factor analysis, we found the four important factors for the industry; i. A combination of communication clarity, understanding business requirement and time effectiveness of service ii. Combination of Timeliness of project completion, value addition to organisation and project documentation iii. iv. Keeping the client informed about the progress and providing value for money Project coordination and prompt response to the problems.

As mentioned earlier in the results Aashirvad has an efficiency of 4.33 out of 5 thus it has a good operational efficiency. Deliver the services with new and innovative approaches like for example Aashirvad shipping provides its port agency services through port tariff accounting. Aashirvad shipping company need not spend heavily on advanced technology to retain clients. However those technologies which give them a benefit over their current procedures must be implemented sooner or later to gain the cost and time advantage.

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Bibliography

Summer internship report @ Aashirvad Shipping

http://www.kandlaport.gov.in/

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Appendix
Copy of the questionnaire with the basic results

Personal Detail: Name: Designation: Contact No.: Organization: _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________

1. How did you come to know about us?

(You can choose more than one option)

Referral from other client By our website Media By our employee Other _________

2. Your project with us is

Ongoing Completed

3. How often you use our services, in a year?

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 4.

Up to 5 times 5 to 10 times More than 10 times

Please rank, your criteria to select an organization for using its services.

Most Important_____________________Least Important Industry / Market Knowledge (8.78) Time Span in Business (7.85) Market Goodwill (8.90) Price competency (8.55) Responsiveness to Clients request (7.49) Value added services (8.77) 5. Where do you find Aashirvad Shipping Co. on these criteria? _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

Most Important____________________Least Important Industry / Market Knowledge (9.55) Time Span in Business (9.990 Market Goodwill (9.90) Price competency (6.04) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

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Responsiveness to Clients request (8.86) Value added services (6.13)

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

6. Please rate the following aspects of our Organization.

Excellent__________________________________Unacceptable Understanding your Business needs (4.44) Communication clearly and effectively (4.04) Keeping you informed of process (3.83) Time effectiveness (4.31) Providing value for money (4.42) Responding promptly to problems (4.97) Meeting overall Project objectives (4.23) _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ________

7.

By and large how do you rate the entire quality of services we provide?

Excellent Good Adequate Poor Unacceptable

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8. What degree of confidence you have in us to deliver the services that you require? 0 9. ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ 80 90 % ______ ______ 10

Our current performance as compared to earlier is?

Getting better At par Getting worse We dont know ( as it is our first project)

10. What is your degree of satisfaction with our performance and its result?

Highly Satisfied________________________Highky Dissatisfied

Our project coordination and management _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ (4.49) Project documentation (4.28) Timeliness of completion (4.46) _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Value addition to your organization (4.29)

_________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Overall quality of the Service Provided by us (4.35)

_________ _________ _________ _________ _________

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11. What is your degree of satisfaction with our team members?

Highly Satisfied______________________Highky Dissatisfied

Communication skills (4.36)

_________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Understanding your Organizations needs ________ _________ _________ _________ _________ (4.12) Knowledge and expertise (4.38) Responsiveness (4.36) _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

12. Based on your satisfaction, would you like to use our service again?

Yes No

13. How could we improve our services?

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Result Table Client Interaction

We came to know that maximum no of clients interacted with the organization either through referral from other client or by our employees approach so we can conclude it as Aashirvad shipping is having such an image in its clients mind that they also are promoting it and its employees are proactive enough to tap all the opportunities as a new client.

Project Status
It was required to know the pattern of clients responding behavior; generally in shipping industry it is assumed that during the project no one is going to give you a bad rating or remark they only open provide a correct feedback after the completion the project, but in case of Aashirvad it did not happen.

Service Frequency
It was required to know to categorize the clients on the basis of their contribution to our total revenue, or we can serve a more frequent client in his desired manner of service specification.

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Clients satisfaction Index (CSI)

In order to quantify satisfaction weighted average method was used as follows: Calculation of average weights for parameters Calculation of average ratings for parameters Calculation of client satisfaction index (CSI)

Calculation of average Weightage

Parameter
Industry / Market knowledge Time span in Market Market Goodwill Technology and Tools provided Price competency Responsiveness to requests Value added services

Sum total of All responses

685 612 694 667 584 684 454

No. of responses
78 78 78 78 78 78 78

Average Weightage of the parameter

8.78 7.85 8.90 8.55 7.49 8.77 5.82

Calculation of average Ratings

Parameter
Industry / Market knowledge Time span in Market Market Goodwill Technology and Tools provided Price competency Responsiveness to requests Value added services

Sum total of All responses

745 779 772 698 471 691 478

No. of response s
78 78 78 78 78 78 78

Average rating of the parameter

9.55 9.99 9.90 8.95 6.04 8.86 6.13

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Calculation of CSI
Parameter Weighti ng (A) Rating (B) Weightin g based On Avg. of A (C)
1.09 0.98 1.11 1.07 0.93 1.09 0.73

Weighting Scores (D)

Industry / Market knowledge Time span in Market Market Goodwill Technology and Tools provided Price competency Responsiveness to requests Value added services

8.78 7.85 8.90 8.55 7.49 8.77 5.82

9.55 9.99 9.90 8.95 6.04 8.86 6.13

10.46 9.77 10.98 9.54 5.65 9.68 5.45

Average

CSI = 8.64

Here; A = Average Weighting assigned by all respondents for each parameter B = Average Rating assigned by all respondents for each parameter C = Weighting based on average of A = [Individual Weighting / avg. Weighting] D = Weighted Score = Rating * Average Weighting = [B * C] Client Satisfaction Index (CSI) = Average of Weighted Scores

Since the scale used was (1 10), so satisfaction in term of percentage can be calculated as follows:

Satisfaction = 10 * (CSI) Satisfaction = 10 * (8.64) Satisfaction = 86.40 %

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Its now obvious that Aashirvad shipping is having a good degree of clients satisfaction but to confirm its significance we need to create Performance Matrix, it is a matrix stating the relevance of scores with their corresponding Weightage.

Performance Matrix

As we are having all the service parameter into the On Target quadrant towards the upper end of it shows well utilization of the resources.

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 Organizational Efficiency
It was calculated as cumulative mean of all the ratings regarding the industrial parameters. As follows:

Response for Organizational Efficiency (Q. 6)

Parameter
Understanding your business requirements Communicating clearly and effectively Keeping you informed of progress Time effectiveness Providing value for money Responding promptly to problems Meeting overall project objectives

Sum total of All responses

346

No. of responses
78

Average rating of the parameter

4.44

315 299 336 345 388 330

78 78 78 78 78 78

4.04 3.83 4.31 4.42 4.97 4.23

Average

4.32

Response for Organizational Efficiency (Q. 10)

Parameter
Our project coordination and management Project documentation Timeliness of project completion Value addition to your organization Overall quality of the services provided by us

Sum total of All responses

350

No. of responses
78

Average rating of the parameter

4.49

334 348 335 339

78 78 78 78

4.28 4.46 4.29 4.35

Average

4.37

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Response for Organizational Efficiency (Q. 11)

Parameter
Communication skills Understanding of your organization's needs Knowledge and expertise Responsiveness

Sum total of All responses

340 321 342 340

No. of responses
78 78 78 78

Average rating of the parameter

4.36 4.12 4.38 4.36

Average

4.30

In order to quantify organizational efficiency we need to take cumulative score or mean of all these as follows:

Efficiency = [(4.32 + 4.37 + 4.20) / 3] Efficiency = 4.33 We can conclude it as a good score in terms of efficiency of the organization.

Organizational perception
It indicates overall image of services provided by Aashirvad shipping, its having five-point Liker scale as the response ranging from excellent to poor. We analyzed it by using students t-Test on SPSS as follows: First we assigned numeric values to the responses as; Excellent = 1, Good = 2, Average = 3, Bellow Average = 4 and Poor = 5. Following is the outcome of SPSS:

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SPSS outcome

Here; N = No. of samples Mean = Mean value of response Std. Dev = Standard Deviation of sample t = outcome of test Degree of freedom = (N - 1) By using SPSS when we took test value as 2 (Good) the significance level came to be 0.095 which is greater than 0.05, i.e. this test value lie between the acceptance region and for test value 1 & 3 it lie outside the acceptance region. So we can say overall services of Aashirvad shipping are assumed to be good in the mind of its clients.

Clients Confidence
It indicates the degree of confidence of clients in Aashirvad shipping and its capability. It can be assessed by taking average value of individual confidences. As the average value is (162/20=8.1) so we can say the confidence level lie between 8 & 9, and in terms of percentage we can say clients of Aashirvad shipping on an average having 80% - 90% confidence in it.

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 Improvement in Performance
It indicates comparison of Aashirvad shippings current performance with previous one as follows: Here observed values are: 1 for getting better; 2 for at par; 3 for getting worst; 4 for we dont know. All the expected values are taken by providing equal probability to the each response as: [(1 + 2 + 3 + 4) / 4] = 2.5 As its a qualitative question so it was analyzed by using Chi-square Test and the test value came out to be equal to (0.735) which indicates closeness with response value 1.0, which is getting better. In minds of clients Aashirvad shippings services are getting better.

Service Reuse
It indicates willingness of Aashirvad shippings current clients who wants to work again with it.

Responses for Service repetition (Table 3.11)

Response
All YES

Observed Value
1

Expected Value
1.5

Chi Square Value = 0.999

Here observed values are: 1 for yes; 2 for no. All the expected values are taken by providing equal probability to the each response as: [(1 + 2) / 2] = 1.5

As its also a qualitative question so it was also analyzed by using Chi-square Test and the test value came out to be equal to (0.999) which indicates a great degree of closeness with response

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value 1.0, which is getting better, that means none of its clients want to move with any other service provider.

Details of the Respondents Personal Detail of Respondents Sr. So. Name Con. No. Address

As per the policy of Aashirvad Shipping Co. the client database is confidential and can be used only by the employees of the company for the companys business operations only. As Rakesh has done Internship with Aashirvad Shipping, he was allowed to use the client database of the company for this research project. However the client data still remains confidential and cannot be shared for any purpose.

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