Company K Research Project

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Company K Research Project Company K opened their first store in 1898, with only $392 initially invested. Now, with more than 2,000 stores in 35 states, Company K today ranks as one of the world’s largest grocery chains. The company’s main goal is to serve their customers. Take into consideration two specialty departments that today are normal sights in the company’s supermarkets; bakeries and meat and seafood shops. Because Company K is always pursuing quality as the key ingredient for profit, they were able to recognize that if they baked their own bread, they could reduce the price for customers and still make money. So, in the early part of the 1900’s, they became the first grocer in the country to establish bakeries. Company K was also the first to sell meats and groceries under one roof. The current market for organic products is growing at an accelerated pace. Company K would like to expand their sales into this market. The team would like to analyze and determine the cost effectiveness of Company K expanding their current market base into the organic foods market and be able to make a substantial profit in doing so. Independent Variables Independent variables are a variable that can be changed or controlled in experiment or research. Within this research, our team plans to expand the company’s services by researching a theory that if Company K expands their organic department this could extend the business into different market areas. We decided to do research in this area because in today’s world it is believed that foods grown using pesticides and fertilizers do more damage to consumers, so promoting organic foods, which are foods that are naturally grown & do not use those types of harsh chemicals are the future. Since the company is continuing to expand by acquiring competitive businesses, our team would like to take Company K into a new marketing arena.

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The independent variable we are using in our research model is the amount of organic products we are going to put out into our stores. Dependent Variable The dependent variable is based and affected by the independent variable. A dependent variable is what you measure in the experiment and what is affected during the experiment; the dependent variable responds to the independent variable. The dependent variable the research team will be using is the amount of organic products sold in the stores. The amount sold is based on availability of the product as well as the price and quality of the product. The amount sold can be measured, predicted, or monitored easily in the store. Also, it is directly related to the amount available for sales. Research Questions Therefore, our research questions are these: 1) Based on current market trends, will increasing the amount of organic products or expanding the existing organic foods section increase profitability? 2) Through this expansion, will it make Company K more competitive in the organic foods market? Hypothesis

Making organic foods more readily available in grocery stores will not only help the store to appeal to organic food buyers but it will also help the store compete within the organic food marketplace. Expanding the organic food section will give shoppers more options which will also increase productivity for the store.