Business Research and Data Analysis

1

Introduction

Primary research is meant to gather useful information or data from various stakeholders to get the answers for the questions that arose during secondary research. There are various methods to collect this data such as interviews, questionnaires and observations. Depending on the questions to be answered, we can use these methods to gain satisfactory responses so that we acquire enough data to be evaluated. In this phase, we have mentioned the report of the primary research we conducted for sports and fitness apparel store where-in we completed interviews and observations with few stakeholders to gain appropriate and relevant information from them.

This phase includes:

· Identification of stakeholders

· Preparations done prior to the interviews

· Description on interviews taken including the issues faced to take the interviews.

· Results of the interview.

· Copy of the questions asked in the interview.

Identification of stakeholders

Owner: the main stakeholder who is affected by the profit and loss of business. Owner is seen as the main decision-making power.

Customers : customers are important external stakeholders in any business as customer strength reflects the success of business. Customer concerns are the key point to look after for any business. If customer concerns are being ignored it means the company gives the business to its competitors.

Managers : they are internal stakeholders. Managers have strong hold in business as they are the one to implement the rules and regulations in store and monitor them on a regular basis. They are responsible to maintain the good work environment and train their employees of best customer service.

Employees : They are also internal stakeholders. Being the direct point of contact for customers they have a better understanding of the obstacles faced on floor and the concerns of customers. They are responsible to take care manage any inventory in the store.

Suppliers : They are responsible for delivering the inventory at appropriate time in the store. The are also responsible for the quality of the inventory which they supply.

Government bodies : their interest in the business is low but simultaneously their power is very high. They check if the practices comply with the government regulations.

Questions we are looking answers for :

In phase two we encountered certain questions for which we need to conduct several interviews and observations so that we get data which will help us to resolve these questions. The field of questions we need to focus on are:

· Marketing strategies to attract internet generation

· Demographic segment that need to be targeted

· Strategies to make business competitive

· Factors that can make business environment friendly

Preparations done for interviews and observations

· Made a list of questions to be asked from interviewees

· Limited number of questions to manage the time

· Designed questions in such a way that information regarding main areas of concern is revealed

· Time matches of interviewee and interviewer

· Made several copies of questionnaire and left space beneath each question so that it becomes easy for the interviewee to make notes for each question asked and hence, helps us to evaluate the responses later as well.

· Seek permissions from various places where interview was held

· Took the consent of interviewees before the interview

· Managed timings for observations in the store by self.

· Watched certain online short sessions on internet which brief about understanding the body language in face-to-face interviews.

· Watched training sessions for being unbiased during the interviews.

How the interview went

It was a great experience to interview different people at various places. It took us a few days to complete the interviews and observations. Finally, we were left with a huge data which we gathered as a team. We arranged a team meeting where we all shared our experiences and analyzed the data we all gathered. We generated the report on the findings. It took us several hours to come up to the appropriate conclusions, keeping the data from interviews and observations into consideration.

Issues faced for taking the interview

Overall the interviews were great we also got the answers that we were looking for but there were some issues that we faced during the process.

· Due to the busy schedule of the team members, time management was very much challenging.

· Time limit was a barrier with interviewees as well, as many people didn’t want to answer the questions because of shortage of time.

What we found

Based on our data collected from interviews and observation we found the information useful for the investor to invest in the sports and fitness apparel store in Kitchener-Waterloo area and ultimately helped us to gain the appropriate answers to our questions of concern:

We interviewed a total of 41 people and found the following percentage of maximum browsed sites:

1. 45% Instagram

2. 35% YouTube

3. 20% other

Hence this ratio helped us to answer our first question which was, a marketing strategy for the internet generation. Store must be advertised on Instagram and YouTube, so that maximum people watch it and get aware about the flashing sales and specialties of the store, which will help the investor to gain attention the competitive market.

With the help of the interviews and observations made by our team members outside various stores we were able to figure out which age group should be focused more. It was found that teenagers and adults should be considered as target customers.

Flow of crowd for the sports and fitness apparel was closely observed by our team members and interviews were done with the consent of the customers. Our team members found that lot of people shopped from inexpensive stores because they were more concerned about their budget and in comparison to that on an average lesser people seemed to shop from expensive store and those people were more concerned about the quality of the product.

Therefore, to catch the maximum crowd investor can come with a one stop solution for people with reasonable and quality product and can even start some unique deals on weekends.

Managers, supervisors and customers were interviewed about their opinion on environment friendly packaging. It was found that many stores are completely avoiding plastic bags, whereas some are yet dealing with the ones whereas all customers were encouraging the environment friendly packaging, even some customers don’t take the plastic bags instead prefer to take things in their own jute bags.

Hence, it can again be a big gain for the store to provide completely environment friendly packaging.

Conclusion

By using methods like interviews and observations we were able to find useful information which we evaluated and acquired appropriate answers to all the questions which arose in phase 2. This evaluation will turn out to be very fruitful for the business .

Appendix

1. Gender

Male Female Other

2. Age

15 to 25 26 to 40 Above 40

3. Internet user

Yes No

4. Maximum time given to internet in 24 hours:

1 to 4 hrs 4to 8 hrs 8 and above hrs

5. Most often browsing site on internet:

6. Store preferred to buy sports and fitness apparel:

7. Why this store?:

8. Accept plastic bags from stores yes No

9. Opinion about environment friendly packaging.