Consumer Preference and Buying Behavior

towards BSNL GSM Mobile Service at Imphal

East and Imphal West Districts

Submitted by
Somorjit Yambem Cha
Roll No. - QET/027

MANIPUR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

MANIPUR UNIVERSITY, CANCHIPUR
IMPHAL, 795001
 RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Title: - Consumer Preference and Buying Behavior towards BSNL

GSM Mobile Service at Imphal East and Imphal West Districts

1. INTRODUCTION

The expectations of the customers are quite high. Many expect high
performance. The experience of the consumers and their rating of the mobile are
moderate. Proper awareness should be given importance. As the study was limited
to Imphal East and Imphal West Districts only, it will be possible to understand the
demographic profiles and consumers preference.

The preference of individual consumers depends mainly on annual income and

actual performance of the product as well as external influencing factors like society
and consumers prefer the advices of other also. Consistency in performance,
level of satisfaction has a major impact. The study of consumer preference towards
mobile users gives an idea of individual preference towards the product based on
various influencing factors like price, group influences, social influence and
psychological influences. It also gives an idea on rating of product done by the
consumers generally etc. particularly relating to Imphal.

Communication is the life blood of modern and a part in life style.

Telecommunication industries grows from earth to sky in a short span of time. In the
earlier days thre was no or less competition because the demand was more than
supply. After globalization the scenario has changed entirely. Many players entered
into the business and privatization came into existence. Whatever the business may
be there is one in common consumer preference.

Now-a-days even they try to delight the consumers. This play a very vital role
because one satisfied customer will bring many others customers. In the present
media world one can take up many promotional methods. For any brand a satisfied
customers is the best ambassador because of the trust factor. Customers will tend to
believe in those words of people whom they know than that of the third person in the
name of brand ambassador. This research deals with the service industry. Servicing
in India is found to have a continuous growth in the past. that also divide as
organized and unorganized, in the past market was filled with the unorganized
services. But now the emergence of organized services benefits the customer than
ever before.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, a government of India Enterprises, formed in

October 2000, previously DOT( Department of Telecommunication) , Govt. of India is
Worlds 7th largest telecommunication company providing comprehensive range of
telecom services in india wireline , CDMA mobile, GSM mobile, Internet, Broadband,
carrier service, MPLS-VPN,VSAT, VoIP services, IN services etc. Presently it is one
of the largest & leading public sector units in India that provides quality telecom
services at reasonable rate to the citizens of India. Its corporate office is at New
Delhi. In order to cater country wide services it divides into Circles.

BSNL has installed Quality Telecom Network in the country and now focusing on
improving it, expanding the network, introducing new telecom services with ICT
applications in villages and winning customer confidence. Today it has about 48
million line basic telephone capacity, 8 million WLL capacity, 52 million GSM
capacity, more than 38302 fixed exchanges, 46565 BTS, 3895 Node B (3G BTS),
287 Satellite Stations, 614755 Rkm of OFC cables.50430 Rkm of Microwaves
Network connecting 602 Districts, 7330 cities/towns and 5.6 Lakhs villages.

The North East II telecom circle, with Head quater at Dimapur, was carved out
of the erstwhile composite NE Telecom circle on 21st January 2001. The jurisdiction
of the NE-II telecom circle is co-terminus with the combined territorial boundaries of
the far- east three of the seven states in the N.E. region viz. Arunachal Pradesh,
Manipur and Nagaland. The circle is responsible for the provision, operation,
maintenance and development of the telecommunication service and facilities in
these three states serving a population 5254792 spread over an area of 1,22,649
Sq. Kms. The circle is headed by a Chief General Manager. There are three (3)
Secondary Switching Areas (SSA) and each of the SSA are headed by General
Manager with their head quarters located at Dimapur(Nagaland SSA),
Imphal(Manipur SSA) and Itanagar( Arunachal Pradesh SSA). The opearation,
maintenance and developmental activities in their respective SSAs are looked after
by these General Managers Telecom located in each of the three states. In Manipur
SSA, for catering GSM /Mobile services one(1) MSC(Mobile Switching Center), Two
(2) BSC (Basde station Controller) and one hundred forty (140) BTS( Base Terminal
Station) were functioning. Not only this,OCB-283 Switches(Made by M/s CIT-Alctel,
France), RSUs(Remote Switching unit) and AN-RAX(Access Network Rural
Automatic Exchange) are also installed that provides basic telephone services,
Broadband, IN services, CDMA(Code Division Multiple Access) werer also operating
and provides service to the subscribers. In GSM Mobile services, there are about
10873 numbers of postpaid subscribers and 129207 numbers of prepaid subscribers
in Manipur SSA. Within these SSA, Franchises systems were operated for
interfacing with consumers. Thehy also enable to avail RCV, TopUp, C-TopUp, Easy
Recharge to the consumers. DSA (Direct Selling Agency) are introduced and
functioning in both the two districts and remaining part of Manipur.

2. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY:

Mobile service industry is found to have continuous growth in the past due to the
growing competition and also plays an important role in modern business and in
every part of life. As a service company, BSNL need to undertake many steps to
remain in the industry and being profitable. One of such measures is to conduct a
survey to understand the consumer preference. It help the service to identify the
strengths and weaknesses of the outlet from customers; perspective. This research
aims to reveal the consumer preference towards the mobile services offered by
various mobile services providers and also the buyer behavior. The study is to
mainly focus on different attributes that contribute to the consumer preference and to
provide suggestions to improve the quality of mobile service being rendered by
BSNL and to focus on building market share.

3. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:

The objectives of the study are:-

1. To identify the attributes of various mobile services that influences on an

individuals choice among alternatives.
 2. To identify the primary objectives of a mobile connection.

3. To find out the various offers expected by the customers in future.

4. To discuss the brand preference over the various brands and their services.

5. To examine the problems faced by the consumers.

6. To give suggestions on the basis of findings.

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this research, research methodology is adopted to achieve the objective of

the study. It includes the scope of the study, research design, collection of data,
analysis of data and limitation of the study.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

It helps the organization to understand the consumer psychology on choosing

the service so that easily the service can be positioned. It assesses the preference of
choosing the BSNL Mobile by the respondents. This study helps us to know the
consumer perception towards BSNL mobile and other competing brands. It also
helps to asses the real opinion and mindset of customers and aids to meet their
expectation in future in turn that will increase the volume of sales. It helps the
company to understand the efficiency of existing service providers to the customers
so that it can create the root for further improvement. It identifies the usage level of
the consumers so that it helps the company to educate the customers towards the
services availability. So that it really creates an impact on consumers preference
towards the services.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Research design is the conceptual structure within which research is

conducted. It constituted the blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis
of data. As such the design include an outline of what the researcher will do from
writing the hypothesis and is operational implication to the final analysis of data.

The present study is based on description research design. Descriptive

research is defined as fact finding with accurate interpretation. Fact finding would
involve just data gathering. in descriptive research more is involved in the form of
reflective thinking. Reflective thinking relates the fact gathering to the objective and
assumption of the study. Descriptive research is used to obtain information
concerning the current status of the phenomena describe what exists with respect
to variables in a given situation.

SOURCES OF DATA

The task of collecting data begins after a research problem has defined and
the plan has been chalked out. This study pertains to collection of data through
primary and secondary sources.

Primary data

Secondary data

Sampling design

Sampling design It is used to selects some of the elements in a population in

order to draw conclusions about the entire population.

Universe

Universe is the infinite numbers of elements which the researcher is targeting

in the study. Here in this research, all the BSNL Prepaid SIM owners in Imphal East
and Imphal West Districts is the universe of the research

Population
 Population is the finite number of elements which the researcher is going to
target in particular area. All the BSNL GSM SIM owners in Imphal East and Imphal
West Districts form the population for the study.

Sampling Unit

Sampling unit is the single unit of the population. i.e. person who owns BSNL
GSM SIM.

Sampling Technique

It is the specific process by which the entities of the sample have been
selected. Here it is on the basis of convenience technique based on the non
probability method of sampling.

Sample size

Sample size is the size of sample drawn from the population which is the true
representative of the research. The number os respondents to be included in the
study will be . For convenience in evaluating and analyzing the data.

Time

=========

Technique of Analysis

In this research, for the purpose of analyzing, raw data will be summarized in
a master table and from this table the result will be carried out. The question having
multiple/alternative choice question will analyze by taking percentage, tables, graphs
etc. Mean scores will be calculated in case of questions on Likerts scale

In case of ranking questions, total score will be added and final ranking will be
given by calculating mean.

INSTRUMENT DESIGN:

Questionnaire Design
 Designing and implementing the questions is one of the most interesting and
challenging tasks of conducting research and analysis. This questionnaire has
revealed the importance of the above.

The researcher has used questionnaire for the following purposes:

For analyzing the consumer preference towards BSNL GSM Mobile and other
competitors brand services.
To study the interest and awareness level towards the BSNL GSM Mobile.
To know the opinion of different set of consumers towards a particular brand
and identifying the reason for choosing a particular brand over the other
brands.

5. PERIOD OF STUDY

The period of study shall be from 2005 to 2010 of BSNLGSM Mobile service
in Manipur.

6. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

1. Firstly the present research is confined to the area of Imphal city only.

2. Only BSNL GSM service will be study.

3. The number of respondents is limited.

4. Some of the respondents were not open in giving their opinion.

7. FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

More and more companies are coming up with new mobile services (like
inclusion of 3G, GPRS, video conference etc) and MNP (Mobile Number Portability)
which is recently introduced in the cellular sectors and as stated before there is a
huge potentials market India as well as Manipur, thereby making this BSNL GSM
Mobile service a competitive one. To serve in such an environment, all mobile
service providers will have to undertake bold effort towards as a designing their
service in such a way so as to meet the requirement and expectation of the
consumer. It, therefore calls for a continuous research in this field as consumer
preference keep changing with time and so thus their buying behavior. Hence, it
provides basis of a scope for a further research.

8. REFERENCE
1. Kothari, C.R.(1989), Research Methodology - Methods and Terchniques,
Wiley Eastern Limited, New Delhi.
2. IGNOU study Materials.
3. BSNL Website: www.bsnl.co.in
4. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India website: www.trai.gov.in
5. TesaFlash: The monthly journel of BSNL SNEA (Sanchar Nigam
Executive Association), CHQ, New Delhi.