BUSINESS DECISION MAKING

LO1
SUBMITTED BY: HUMA ALI

1.1: Create a plan for the collection of primary and

secondary
Data for a given business problem
Secondary data
Secondary data refers to the information that has already been
collected for other purposes and thus readily available. Secondary
data can be collected from two different sources.
Internal data sources:

Sales by country

Sales by products

Sales by volume

Pricing information

Communication mix information

Sales representatives

External source of data:

The Government (www.statistics.gov.uk)
Competitors
Trade Publications e.g, the Grocer
General media
National and local press / magazines
Internet
Informal contacts
Trade directories
Libraries

Professional institutes and organisations

Census data
Public records
Primary data
Primary data refers to the information that is collected first hand,
generated by original research tailor-made to answer specific
current research.
Primary data can be collected by two ways.
Quantitative research: Provides Quantitative research is a
method which involves collecting numerical data (which is
analyzed at a later stage) in order to test a particular hypothesis
or analyze a certain assumption about society. Quantitative
research is empirical research where the data is in the form of
numbers. (Punch, 2005, Pg. 3)
Qualitative research: Provides a holistic view of a research
problem by integrating a larger number of variables, but asking
only a few respondents.
In quantitative and qualitative research, the commonly used
methods are:
1.

Questionnaires

2.

Surveys, and

3.

Structured interviews.

The best example of quantitative method is questioner that

means numerical data will be used like calculation etc. whereas
qualitative method in which data cannot be calculated the best

example is interviews. In this research I used both the method

questioner and interviews. I shall prepare the questions like about
the choice and likeness of the mobile handsets in UK market.
1.2: Present the survey methodology and sampling frame
Used:
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this case
study by following mix & match approach to get accurate
results.
Focus group interviews were conducted with four groups of
students. Indeed, there was a open-invitation to participate in it
and anonymity was respected. Help was taken from couple of
colleagues to act as Moderators. A project brief and list of
questions was developed for moderators. This helped to achieve
the objectives of the focus group interviews.
After designing questionnaire for the survey, I decided to take
random respondents. A few national & under-ground stations were
visited in London city to get random respondents.
Permission was gained firstly from respondents that they would
receive call, email or postal survey (as per their convenience) for
this study.
Following table will describe the classification of the respondents
Types of Survey
No. Of Participants
E-mail survey
70
Telephone survey

145
Printed survey
13
Flexible approach were adopted throughout the research process
in order to ease respondents. Questionnaire had following topical
coverage in the questions.
a.

The basis of decision-making in phone selection

b.

Price

c.

Brand

d.

New features

e.

Recommendation or prior knowledge