obtain information that could be used to help increase
of laptops to college students. Would you
use the same questions on a mail questionnaire as
a personal interview? If not, what questions would
you use if you were going to mail the questionnaires?
CASE APPLICATION
RESEARCH SAVES THE DAY AT CASE
In today's combative marketplace, making any significant progress against skillful and large rivals is nothing short of a colossal achievement. Case Corporation, a manufacturer of construction and farm equipment, can make such a claim, but only after spending two years digging itself out of decline-operating losses for 1991 and 1992 reached $900,000-and finally showing growth. Case's net income increased more than 300% in 1994 to $165 million. WiUl a 14%
increase, and 1995 revenues
reached $4.2 billion.
Significant headway toward recovery began in 1994 whe n new CEO Jean-Pierre Rosso launched
a new era at Case. His matter-of-fact pronouncement, "We need to be asking what the farmer and contractor need," triggered the company's turnaround and kindled a new respect from its customers.
Basic as it may seem, for most of the 1980s,'asking" was not a part of
product-driven
orientation. Res ult: Underperforming products such
low-horsepower tractors entered the market-
place, fueled by low prices and sales incentives.
Worse yet, when market demand eventually plumrncled, dealers found themselves stuck with
a glut of unsold Case equipment. To further aggravate the situation, relationships with dealers were increasingly greeted
In the face of those dire conditions, Rosso issued his market-driven directive that pressed Case managers to determine the wants and needs of its customers. One incident showcases the process they used to obtain reliable customer feedback: A contractor was flown in to Case's Burlington, Iowa test site and put to work for three days testing a piece of Case equipment and comparing its performance that of comparable Caterpillar and Deere machines. Each day managers grilled the customer
about features , benefits, and problems.
In another approach, Case sent teams of engineers and marketing personnel to talk to key customers and users of competitors' equipment. Applying what they learned from the feedback , engi-
neers developed prototype machines and shipped them to hundreds of participating users for evaluation.
The engineers then incorporated actual field data into final prototypes.
The bottom line: All this market-driven "asking' is a far cry from the Case's rep utation during the 1980s of being one of the most mismanaged compallies in
field.
Questions
1. Although things seem to be going well for Case, can you identify any potential mistakes they made in doing their research?
2. How could they gather secondary data on
product category?
REFERENCES
1. Ralph H. Sprague, Jr. and Hugh J. Watson, Decision Support Systems:
3. Ian P. Murphy, "Research with Bottom Line in Mind Only," Market-
PUlling Theory Into Practice, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Ha ll,
ing News, March 3, 1997, p. 10.
1986, p.
4. Pamela L. Alreck and Robert
Settle, The Survey Research
2. Claire Selitz, Lawrence S. Wrightsman, and Stuart W. Cook,
book, Richard D. Irwin , Inc., 1995.
Research Methods in Social Relations ,
York: Holt, Reinhart and
5. Seymour Sudman , Applied Sampling, New York: Academic Press,
Winston, J976, pp. 11 4-115.
1976
