Marketing Research at Barclays' Bank

Barclays is a British bank (headquartered in London) which is working multinational and thus providing financial services all over the world. It is also termed as a Universal bank. It was founded in 1690.  It is providing, retail, commercial and investment banking services to its customers. Barclays have an extensive network of branches and ATM machines so that they can cover a large area of customer market. Barclays also offer some personal banking services. It also sponsored many big and major events also. This list of sponsorships may include Premier League, certain sports events e.g. tennis, golf and foot ball tournaments, the Churchill cup etc. Barclays is second-largestgest bank in the United States.

There are also certain controversies which are associated with the name of Barclays as it is very usual matter that every banking institution is usually supposed to be involved in the money corruption cases. Same is the case with Barclays, most of the competitors tried to create a bad word of mouth regarding the Barclays bank but it was not successful and the popularity of the Barclays bank is still in the minds of its potential customers.

Due to difference in the customer needs and choices the Barclays bank is also trying to serve them at every level. That is the reason of having different banking products and services so that customers of different segments can be targeted easily. When any company has such a versatile kind of target market and customers then there is a need of market research so that new and prevailing trends in the market can be analyzed efficiently. The promotional tools of the banking products and services would also be different for different customers. While doing market research the company should be capable of covering costs and also sell the product at a profit. They should also be able to handle the expected problems of the new segment.

There is so much competition in the banking industry that every bank has to be vigilant about the opportunities arising in the customer market so that it can be grabbed at once and then have a first mover advantage in offering new services to its potential customers. To achieve this vigilance by the company the marketing research should be very much active and effective also. Marketing research actually means to collect the customer related data from the market segments and thus analyzing it in comparison with the company’s resources and also the cost involved. This marketing research also helps to devise future plans for the company.

Barclays have analyzed the potential in the students target market and thus do a market research to find out whether this would be a profitable decision to launch any product regarding this segment. Barclays have considered the students as the major segment to be invested in. They did a marketing research in order to analyze the potential of this specific market segment. Barclays has a competitive advantage over other companies due to the geographic area it has covered. On the basis of this advantage Barclays can compete over them in the future also by serving more and more segments.

The research and development department of the Barclays is very effective. The research team provides actionable ideas that are based on the consumer preferences.  At first the company which is going for market research should focus on its own image created in the customer’s eye. In this way it can be easily analyzed that how the population of that segment will perceive that company’s product. The research and development department at Barclays efficiently try to cover all the possible segments of the consumer market and even also made valuations and other steps on the basis of research findings.

There can be variety of tools which are used to do the market research. All the companies use variety of them as per their access and affordability. The primary tools and the secondary tools are very much important. At Barclays the research and development team focuses on both ways of doing researches. Due to technology advancements in all the fields of life, it has also its impact on research. The research has been made a little easier as earlier before. Internet and World Wide Web has made this research process very much interesting. The internet research tools may include competitor’s websites, blogs, online surveys and sometimes social networking websites are also very important.

When doing a primary research, it is very much necessary to be sure that the researcher is experienced and have command over all aspects of the matter. Otherwise there is a risk of biasness influence on the research findings. Now the research findings can be of two types that are of quantitative and also the qualitative one.

When the research findings are calculated then there is a need to devise an action plan which is according to the resources of the firm. At fist the research team should select the proper channels through which it can enter the targeted market segment. After that a well organized promotion plan should be implemented so that the target customers can come to know about the product.

At Barclays there are different researches which have been conducted in order to compete with not only the local competitors but also with the global ones. This list may include Global market structure, quantitative portfolio analytics, equity strategies and Global macro research. All the policies are usually made on the basis of feasible research findings.

Barclay bank is providing its banking services in many of the major areas of the world that includes United Kingdom, Europe, America, Africa, Middle East and Asia. So the opportunity is very much clear to offer more and more products in these countries and states to grab over market existing there. The bank is providing a large range of products already but it can also take steps to grow further in other related fields. Due to borderless competition among different companies, there is an opportunity that a bank can adopt the policies and procedures of any other bank which are more effective and feasible for it. While going for any other economy the merger with the good companies is also an opportunity to gain the potential customers of that economy. Although the cost and affordability element should be considered before implementing the action plan.