Answer to Question #206571 in Management for Prince

Question

SUBJECT : CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 

Explain in detail in points with elaboration , How understanding consumer perception is a big challenge for a multinational company before entering a new market ? Give examples

Answer 1

Every consumer is entitled to a right of either choosing or denying a company's product or service. Perception is the way people react to different sensations. Consequently, consumer perception is the act of selecting, organizing and interpreting stimuli and information attached to a company's product or service. It should be one of the factors to be considered by a company which intends to bring a new brand or service into the market. However, it's not easy for all companies because it is a big challenge especially to multinational companies.

Consumers from different countries have different tastes and preferences for any new product in the market. Some may prefer a product basing on their culture while others may weigh it basing on their religious beliefs. Therefore, it becomes a problem for the companies to produce a uniform product to cater for the needs of consumers from all the countries. A good example is a textile company that manufactures the Muslim clothes. It is worth to note that such clothes can only be supplied to countries with Muslims. This hinders uniforming and stands as an unavoidable challenge.

Lack of enough personnel also poses a great challenge in understanding consumer perceptions. A multinational companybis known to operate in more than one country. Moreover, before setting a brand into supply, it should reach consumers to know the demand. However, a good number of consumers are not reached in this case. Take an example of a company operating in ten countries. Reaching the whole range of consumers for such companies is a great challenge hence making them unable to understand consumer perception.

Companies do need funds to understand consumer perception. This may be done through advertisement and survey then the feedback is recorded. This is a tedious process which needs a lot of financial and human resource input. Most multinational companies vie this as a loss and themay end up not understanding the consumer perception. Consider an example of a multinational company which has to collect views from consumers in more than ten countries. It really needs a lot of input of which multinational companies like Amazon may not be in a position to spend.

Generally, multinational companies should seek to understand the consumer perceptions by all means. It is one of the ways of increasing the sales and being sure of some profit at the eventual outcome. However challenging it may be, they should ensure that they understand consumer perception before entering a new market.