MGT-491 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FOR MANAGEMENT

Session 6 MGT-491QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FOR MANAGEMENT OSMAN BIN SAIF

Summary of Previous Session • Potential Sources of Errors • Total Error • Budgeting and Scheduling the Project • Marketing Research Proposal

International Marketing Research • While conducting international marketing research, it is important to realize that given the environment differences, the research design appropriate for one country may not be suitable in another.

International Marketing Research (Contd.) • Example; • Consider the problem of determining household attitudes towards major appliances in the United states and Saudi Arabia. • While conducting exploratory research in the United States, it is appropriate to conduct focus groups jointly with male and female heads of households. • However it is inappropriate in Saudi Arabia.

Sources of secondary data • Internal sources; • Company accounting records • Company reports • In-house journals • Miscellaneous reports • Internal computer data base

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • External sources; • Computerized data base • Reports of association • Reports and publications of government agencies • Other publication

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Company accounting data; • These include accounting and financial details maintained in computers or ledgers, inventory, purchases, manufacturing activity logs, shop order files, worker files, payment ledger, cashbook, and so forth. • These provide data close to primary data.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Company Reports; • These consists of annual reports and regular reports submitted to the board of directors or statutory reports submitted to the government. • A great deal of routine data can be obtained through these reports on operational and performance aspects.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • In-house journal; • Most corporations usually support in-house journals and useful general data may be obtained from them.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Miscellaneous reports; • These include consultancy reports, special reports of research supported by the firm, special reports to the top management in specific areas of management when new methods are introduced or new activities are taken up, or when the report is needed for trouble shooting or large improvements in the firm’s operations.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Company computer databases; • The use of internal data for decision making has increased so much in recent times that intranets have begun to operate successfully. These are connected to the distributed organizational databases.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Enterprise data warehouses and data marts; • These have started coming up during the last 20 years, and seems to be gaining a comprehensive approach. • The competitive edge seems to be coming from using available information properly with optimization approaches.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Enterprise data warehouses and data marts; • A data warehouse is a collection of key pieces of information used to manage and direct business for the most profitable outcome and includes process managers who put the data into tables and the analyst make informal decisions from the tables.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • External Sources; • Public computer data bases; • These large data bases, which can be accessed with desktop computers, are fast growing and cover the area of financial information, product sales and marketing channels, performances, manufacturing and inventory values, employment and so forth

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Public computer data bases (Contd.); • Sometimes access to these data bases are available at a charge. • Software with updating services are also available.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Report of association; • Association of industries like the electrical manufacturer association, automobile association and so forth have developed their own reports, which provide details of industry’s sale, growth, operating characteristics, etc.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Report of association; • They also publish special reports and research statistics. • Newspaper and magazine collect information from these associations and publish it.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Report of Government Agencies; • Both central and state government departments provide large amounts of aggregated data and information on financial and operational activities and R&D activities in publications like the State Bank of Pakistan newsletter, details of industries in industrial classifications, census, industrial surveys and annual reports

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Report of Government Agencies (Contd.); • The reports cover demographic details, housing, wages and income, production and sale of manufacturing and service organizations, agriculture and general employment. The relevant reports are surveys of current business, economic census, current industrial reports, census reports etc.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Industrial syndicates; • Organizations also provide data on industrial services, plant wise / area wise information on manufactured products, inventories, sales and movement through marketing channels, financial ratios etc.

Sources of secondary data (Contd.) • Other publications; • Other sources of useful data / information are academic publications such as books, professional journals, project reports, and dissertation abstracts. Computer search systems and computerized bibliographic services are also coming up fast in support of the individual researcher.

Computer search for secondary data • There is an incredible potential source for research data in worldwide computer databases, electronic libraries and the internet. For integrating the use of these sources into research efforts, a research scholar needs skills different from those required a decade ago.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • These sources are not orderly arrays of files and documents and they cannot be considered as catalogues. • Since a large quantum of information is changed and updated possibly every hour, every day, the researcher must be prepared for constant change.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • However there are a number of ways to search these sources and find what is needed. • Electronic searching sources also have to be used by the researchers along with the electronic research sources.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • The necessary information my be had from electronic databases, e-libraries or the world wide web. • In finding and getting information or data for research purposes, it is desirable to follow some well planned procedures.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • The following steps may be useful in searching data and information; • Specify your data needs • Select a keyword / search query • Select a suitable electronic library search sources/ data base search engine for the internet search. • Save useful information resulting from search. • If necessary, repeat steps 2 and 3 with modified keyword.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Specify information data needs; • The problem of research should be defined as clearly as possible in order to be specific about the data / information needed. • Since electronic requires ‘keyword’ use, the more specific / clear the research objective, the more suitable a keyword would be for close search.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select Keywords; • A keyword is used for querying the data base or web. Single keyword give very general information, which is not very useful. • To be more efficient in search, use an appropriate ‘key phrase’.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select Keywords (Contd.); • Truncate the key word. • Limit the data / information searched by specifying periods or range or type or language

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select Keywords (Contd.); • Use ‘Boolean search’ – ( AND, OR, NOT) • Example; • Instead of using key word ‘scheduling semiconductor’, you may use ‘scheduling AND semiconductor’ for searching for information on scheduling particularly in semiconductor maufacturing.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select a library data base / website search engine / business data base; • In selecting a particular website for particular data, the user has to look for scope of the data / information and authority of the sources of data / information.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select a library data base / website search engine / business data base (Contd.); • Library searches; • Many university and college libraries have catalogues that can be searched electronically thorough internet connection. • Using tools like sociofile, current contents and silver platter, it is possible to conduct fast catalogue searches.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select a library data base / website search engine / business data base (Contd.); • Library searches; • Data sets of secondary sources and questionnaires are available to students and faculty members of universities.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select a library data base / website search engine / business data base (Contd.); • Web searches; • There are number of search engines available for web searches. • They differ in matters of display/ presentation, options for keywords and speed of updating.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Select a library data base / website search engine / business data base (Contd.); • Web searches; • These deals with web addresses, names of sites, and names of documents used in generalized searches. • There are a large number of competent search engines that connects a large number of websites.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • Store Information; • The useful information obtained in each cycle of search should be saved and stored suitably so that at the end of the search phase, the several bits can be organized systematically into a meaningful review of literature or a researchable data set.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • From the above discussion, it is clear that larger amounts of secondary data are available at present to the researcher than ever before and at a much quicker time. The computer has brought most libraries and data sources around the world nearer to every researher.

Computer search for secondary data (Contd.) • To be efficient at using such secondary data, the researcher needs to devote additional skills and care at every step of research.

Summary of This Session • International Marketing search • Sources of Secondary data • Computer search for secondary data

Thanks

MGT-491 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FOR MANAGEMENT