Research Report Tine Bjornlund,

Research Report

Tine Bjornlund,

QNT/561

December 22, 2014

Heidi Carty

Research Report

Orange company started in 1976 when the first Orange I computer was rejected by HP. By 1980, Orange Company went public. Orange Company went through profit losses during the mid-90’s, but the company rebounded with successful product releases in the 21st century; mainly the Orange Z-phone 1.  Recently some issues have been brought up regarding sales of the Orange Z-phone to customers 55 years and older, who seem to be more interested in Smart-phones.

Z-phones face the same competition that all Smart-phones face. However, the combined force of all the Smart-phones put together includes heavy weights such Nokia’s newest Smart-phone which commands almost 50% of the total Smart-phone market excluding the Z-phone (Financial Times, 2009).

The biggest issues will consist of customers’ allegiance to the product they purchased initially. According to Yu, (2013), “Smart-phone buyers stick to familiar brands: Even with more choices, people go with what they know” (p.1).

Headlines such as these have caused Orange company’s management to hire Team A to investigate which phones are preferred by customers 55 years or older.

Problem Statement

Although the Orange Z-phone has been and is very successful, the Orange Company would like to clarify why the product is mainly appealing to teens and young adults, as was found to be the case in a sales report, which included demographic such as age.

Research Objective

The variable is numeric versus numeric.  Variables are profitability, numeric, and sales, numeric data.

• Business problem: Why older adults do not purchase Orange Z-phones as much as other smart phones.
• Research questions: Are there more consumers who buy other smart phones over Z-phones (DV) because of their age (IV)?
• Ho: Older adults do not buy more smart phones than Z-phones because of their age.
• H1: Older adults DO buy more smart phones than Z-phones because of their age.

Data Collection Plan

The population will be chosen randomly at shopping malls. The target population is adults 55 years and over. This group is the identified target population because teens and adults under 55 years tend to choose the Orange Z-phone over other Smart-phones.

The method will be a survey consisting of two questions. The first question is: “How old are you?” If the subject is 55 or over, they will be asked what kind of phone they have, which is then noted. Since no personal identifiers are collected, there is no need for data confidentiality.

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