Examining the process of making a business decision - Free Essay Example

Business researches play and important part in the decision making process for any organization, decisions which are made without involving the right reaches and found to have less effectiveness then the decisions which are made with the involvement of the exploration of and availability of the information. For the research to be made accurate and the collection of the right pieces of information, it is very important to understand different data collection methods and data analysis methods. Choosing the right data collection and analysis methods enables the researcher to provide the company with correct information for the sake of decision making. Without choosing the right methods and tools the authenticity of the research and information becomes questionable, therefore it is very important for the organizations and researchers to make sure that their business researchers are using the right methods according to the needs of the business. In the lines below I have discussed different data collection and analysis methods which can be used in business research, I have choose a leading retail brand for this purpose and I will design the data collection and analysis methods keeping in mind that we have to explore the customer satisfaction and loyalty with the brand through the marketing research, which is going to be a qualitative research. By doing this we shall see that what are the available methods of data collection and data analysis and how one of these methods best suits the requirements of our research study. This will enable us to explore the current practices in detail and then see the practical implication of these tools. Data Collection Methods Secondary Data Secondary data is used when researcher wants to know the current and previous developments already been done on the topic or subject that they are studying at that point in time. Secondary data can be found in the previous researches on the topic from the reviewing the literature, doing the internet research and looking at the work of the different commentators and practitioners. Secondary data provide the basis to the researcher upon which the researcher makes the building blocks of his/her own research. Sometimes secondary data provides the researcher with some important links and useful information that they can use their own research and develop further(Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). Primary Data Primary data is a kind of data that is collected first handedly and by the researchers at the time of research; such data is not collected by any other researcher. In business and marketing researches primary data collection is widely used, research departments of the companies base their research on primary data because they want to collect the lasts and customized information on the subject as well as for the problem in hand (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). As we have stated earlier that our research would be looking after the customer loyalty and level of the customer service from the customers of a retail chain, then it would be advisable that primary data should be collect from the customers. Below I have presented the various data collection methods that are used in collection of primary data (Saunders et al., 2009). Questionnaire Questionnaires are one of the widely used methods in the collection of primary data, this methods is used in various types of social, business and marketing researches. This method provides the researcher with the flexibility of time and resources as number of participants can participate in the research and researcher can get the feedback and required information from the subjects in less time and cost. For this research, as the customers of the chain are involved, I have suggested the use of questionnaire methods of data collection so that more information can be taken from the customers of the chain store, and more number of customers can participate in the research (Coolican, 1994). Self Administered Questionnaires Self administered questionnaires are one the types that is used when questionnaire method of data collection is used. In this method the researcher or data collector presents the questionnaire to the participant the then the participant fill in the information and gives. This methodology can also be used in e-mail or mail questionnaire and also for the one-to-one data collection (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). One the advantage of this methodology is that it saves time and cost of the data collection. As this method supports the email and mail delivery, more persons can be contacted at one time and they can provide information, when used in one-to-one research, this can also save time of the researcher for the collection of data (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Interviewer Administered Questionnaire The second form of questionnaires is interviewer administered, where the data collectors have a designed questionnaire with them but they do not hand over these questionnaires to the participant. Rather they ask the participant the relevant questions and then mark the most appropriate answers. These questionnaires are used when either the questions are complex or participants have little knowledge or they have low literacy rate. These questionnaires help the researcher to get the most accurate information and minimize the risk of misunderstand at the part of participant (Saunders et al., 2009). These kinds of questionnaires are high in terms of time required to conduct the research and cost required to have the participant give the information. Therefore these kinds of methods are not recommended when the available time and cost is less. Interviews In data collection methods, interviews are one of the most widely used technique, this technique is very effective when used for qualitative data and complex researches. For business research or marketing research where we require the customer responses in complex buying behavior, or anything related to human psychology or decision making processes is to be explored then interviews are effective in letting the researcher know about the hidden attitudes of the target subjects (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). Since in our named research we are about to understand the consumer perception about loyalty and customer service then interviews also can be extremely helpful in making consumer speak up and let the researchers know about what they feel, how they feel, and why they feel and react in certain way (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Face-To-Face Interviews Face-to-face interviews are one of the techniques that are used when the qualitative data is to be collected. In this technique, the interviewer and the participant sit together and then interviewer starts questioning. The interviewer asks the participant about the information which is required and tries to explore the hidden patterns of their thoughts so that the required information comes out the minds and hearts of the participant. This technique is widely used when new product development is under process; this technique is expensive in terms of time and resources required. As one interviewer can contact one participant at one time therefore to get the research done, either the more time is required or more interviewers are required (Saunders et al., 2009). Telephone Interviews When the physical meeting with participant is not required then other techniques can also be used for interviews that are called telephonic interviews, in this technique the researcher calls the participant over the telephone line and if participant agrees for the interview then they can have conversation over telephone. This technique can be used when participant of the research are geographically away and their physical presence for the interview is not required. This technique has less response rate as compared to other data collection techniques but is less costly and time expensive because different data collectors can work simultaneously on the data collection part (Saunders et al., 2009). Focus Groups One of the most widely used techniques in business and marketing research under the interview section is focus groups. In this technique the researcher gathers few willing people to participate in the debate and give the information. The researcher act as the moderator and through questions among people who then discuss and provide their own feedback on the questions. The moderator encourages participant to give as much insights as they want so the accurate and relevant information can be collected (Saunders et al., 2009). Focus groups are costly in terms of time and resources required but they are highly effective in getting the insights of the customer perception and psychologically complex behavioral data. As our research would be dealing with consumer perception therefore I would suggest the we should also be using the focus groups so that we can get the insights of consumer perception (Saunders et al., 2009). Data Analysis Methods Qualitative Analysis of Data When it comes to analyzing the data then we have two kinds of data analysis techniques in place, as the data is of two kinds, qualitative and quantitative there both of data kinds have different kinds of analysis techniques. Presented below are the data analysis techniques for both kinds of data along with the advantages and disadvantages of both. I have also shared that which data analysis techniques should be used in our named research why this data analysis technique will be helpful in getting the desired results. Interviews Evaluation When the researcher uses the interview techniques for their business research then the data analysis technique choice which is with researchers is interview evaluation. In this technique the interviewer evaluates the responses by their own criteria; this technique is helpful in social researches as it provides the information which is not available in documentation format (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). The drawback of this technique is that it has the error of biasness on part of, interviewee and interviewer examiner, generally called social desirability bias. However when there is no other data collection technique is used the interview evaluation is the technique that can be used for the evaluation of the interviews (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). Observations Evaluation For the business research and for empirical studies observation evaluation is the techniques that is widely being used, this techniques is also useful when focus group technique of data collection is used. The researcher can evaluate the focus group by observing the responses by the participants in the research. There are expected errors of biasness on both parts like participant can hide the information in the presence of others, and researcher can show the biasness in evaluating and interpreting the research information (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Therefore to avoid such biasness it is recommended that researchers should have a pre defined set of responses and their corresponding results, and evaluates the responses on the basis of such pre defined response set. Quantitative Analysis of Data For the data collected in research there is another analysis technique which is called quantitative analysis of data, this data analysis technique presents the more unbiased data results as the data is presented in quantitative form. Quantitative data analysis can be used for both qualitative data as well as for quantitative data. For this researcher have to convert the qualitative data into quantitative form and then data can be analyzed by using various statistical analysis tools (Saunders et al., 2009). The drawback of such analysis is that this only presents the data analysis in numerical form and the hidden observations can be omitted that are important in some cased. More over to use this technique researcher can only go for questionnaires. Quantitative data analysis is limited when used with other data collection techniques. Below we shall see the various quantitative data analysis techniques that can be used to interpret the data collected in our named research. Measures of Central Tendency This one of the most commonly used technique in quantitative analysis of data, measures of central tendency provides the information about how data is clustered around the central point, there are different tools to measure the central tendency but three of them are most commonly used, these are Mean, Median and Mode. Among them Mean is mostly used and calculated as the sum of all the values divided by the number of values (Saunders et al., 2009). The advantage of using central tendencies is that researcher can easily have a look on the center point of the data and can calculate the average response of any kind of question, however the disadvantage of the using this technique is that, it is affected by the extreme high or low values and the overall calculation of central point is affected by the extreme values (Saunders et al., 2009). Measures of Dispersion Along with the calculation of central tendency, it is always useful to work with the measure of dispersion; this technique calculates that how much the actual values are away from their center. This technique is useful in knowing the spread of data, and shows that the how much data is spread out; standard deviation and variance are the popular tools that calculate the dispersion of the data. So it is recommended for the researchers that when they are working with the quantitative analysis of the business research then they should be having the measures of dispersion calculated. For our named research that will be measuring the customer evaluation of the customer services, I have also recommended that standard deviation and variance should be calculated. This will help us know that how many of the customers are actually differing from the result that came as result of calculation of mean of the responses (Saunders et al., 2009). Statistical Tests Another way to analyze data statistically is to apply test on it, then confirm whether the data presented and hypothesis made in the study have the significance. Statistical tests can be presented as in two king of test one being the parametric tests and other being the non-parametric tests. Parametric tests be supposed to only be used when the data gathered from a study is actually satisfying different requirements (Coolican, 1994). More particularly, there should be some interval or data, and in statistical terms, the data should be normally distributed. The variances in the two conditions should be rationally comparable. On the other hand, non-parametric tests can always continue to be used, even when the necessities of parametric tests are content. It is always handy to make the hypothesis at the start of the research study and then test that hypothesis on the basis of some statistical test (Coolican, 1994). Correlation Studies Correlation studies are important in knowing the relationship and dependency of two variables with each others. When in business researcher, if researcher wishes to understand the relationship on two independent variable, for example the advertising spend with sales, then the correlation analysis is very helpful in determining the relationship. Correlation coefficient is calculated by using statistical analysis tools and can be negative and positive as well, negative correlation shows the negative relationship and positive correlation shows the positive relationship of the variables. For our named research we shall be measure the customer perception about customer service of retail store and customer loyalty of the customers of the same store. In this kind of research measuring the correlation coefficient of the two variables, customer service and customer loyalty, will be helpful to determine whether there is any effect of customer service on customer loyalty, such relationship help the researcher to understand the cause and effect of variables (Coolican, 1994). Cross Tabulation Cross tabulation is very useful tool, presented in the statistical analysis software as well. This tool helps the researcher compare the responses of the participants if two of more variables are understudy. These responses are presented in a tabulation form that show that how many participants have responded to two variables in the particular way. For our named research I shall recommend to use this tool. As we know that in our research we shall be measuring two variables, one is customer service perception and other is customer loyalty and both variables are being calculated for the same retail chain. Therefore cross tabulation will show the researcher that how many participants have rated both of the variables high and how many participants have rated both of the variables low, this will help in determining the relationship of the variables (Coolican, 1994). Conclusion This paper presents the data collection and data analysis tools for business researches, so that business research can be made for decision effective, in this paper I have analyzed that what are the various data collection methods that are available for business researches and what are data analysis methods that are available for the researchers, I have chosen the customer services research as sample and selected the data collection and data analysis method that are appropriate as per requirement of the research.