Business Research 1

Research Report and Presentation

Sarah Birkholz, Shonethia Cooper, Quintin Graves, and China Hendricks

QNT/561

May 18th, 2015

Derek Blythe

Research Report

Trifold Investment Group is a three year old, fairly small organization that provides investment advice to customers. They utilize the knowledge of employees as well as a database in order to offer up-to-date stock market data to their customers. Trifold Investment Group currently employees the database Agevest in making their investment decisions. However, top management is considering updating their database. Currently they are considering a new system known as Invest.Live, which will allow employees to retrieve global financial information in a matter of seconds in order to provide optimal investment recommendations. As a relatively new organization, it is necessary for Trifold Investment Group to evaluate the benefits of Trifold Investment Group, and if the cost of purchasing the new database would be advantageous. Over the past four weeks, Learning Team C has been analyzing these two databases in order to aid in the database dilemma and determine which database will help make the best possible investment decisions.

Research Question

Independent Variable

The independent variables are the use of Agevest and Invest.Live databases.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable is the customer profit based on the use of each database.

Hypothesis Statement

Trifold Investment Group is seeking to answer the question as to whether or not there is a correlation and relationship between the use of Agevest and Invest.Live databases (independent variable) and customer profit (dependent variable)?

The following are null and alternative hypothesis:

Null Hypothesis: The true average profit when using Agevest is equal to the average profit when using Invest.Live.

Alternative Hypothesis: The mean profit when using Invest.Live is greater than the mean profit when using Agevest.

Hypothesis Test

The null hypothesis will be accepted unless proven false. In contrast, the alternative hypothesis will only be accepted if significant evidence is present to show proof of truth of the research hypothesis.

Sampling and Data Collection

In order to answer the research question, Learning Team C conducted a research experiment. Learning Team C created a survey using Survey Monkey, an online survey tool, for review from customers about customer profit when using each given database. The survey was formatted in a manner that allowed customers to anonymously post their profits for each database.

Trifold Investment Group is a relatively small organization serving approximately 1,000 customers. The study is looking to compare profits of all customers served, based on the use of each database. Every customer will receive the survey and all results will be collected. Random sampling of the responses will then be used to obtain data. One hundred responses from each database used were selected through the use of random sampling in order to obtain a reasonable sample size that provides relative accuracy of the customer profits, showing a good representation. This data can be observed in Appendix A.

The data collected is highly personal information. Therefore, it was collected in an anonymous manner. Once it was collected it was stored in Trifold Investment Group’s secure network. It was made available only to the researchers involved in order to further protect clients.

Descriptive Statistics and Interpretation

In order to evaluate the truth of the hypothesis statements, statistical tests were performed based on the results of the survey. As the data was collected and measured on a numerical scale, it was able to be analyzed in both graphical and numerical manners. These statistics were then used to forecast potential trends in order to aid in making managerial decisions.

Graphical Statistics

The data was evaluated in a graphical manner in order to assess the variables of interest. A frequency table was made, see Table 1 and Table 2 in Appendix C. Histograms were also made in order to provide a visual representation of the data, see Graph 1 and Graph 2 in Appendix C. These graphical representations were used in order to determine that the data was normally distributed.

Numerical Statistics

Agevest

Uniform Distribution

Central Tendency (Mean): 299.88

Dispersion (Standard Deviation): 57.92

Number: 100

Min/Max: 202.80/ 399.88

95% Confidence Interval: 311.23

Invest.Live

Normally Distributed

Central Tendency: 349.69

Dispersion (Standard Deviation): 23.74

Number: 100

Min/Max: 276.54/ 435.28

95% Confidence Interval: 354.34

Study Conclusions

Hypothesis Test

Recommendations

Study Observations

Challenges

Minimize Future Challenges

Future Research

Appendix A

Raw data used in the analysis

Agevest (Old System)
parameters
Minimum	200
Maximum	400

Invest.Live
parameters
Mean	352
Stdev	25
calculated
mean	353.2
std. dev.	25.9
n	25
min	308
max	412

calculated
mean	308.6
std. dev.	59.2
n	25
min	203
max	392

Uniform
341	260	259	384
307	325	276	326
316	330	260	326
258	253	390	286
260	256	396	220
355	366	280	312
203	365	256	339
352	318	232	383
363	397	233	367
342	382	329	205
209	245	282	309
283	339	283	383
373	396	343	286
358	249	265	336
275	307	327	300
392	221	242	303
374	400	237	293
211	335	317	271
390	203	216	281
273	315	292	254
305	220	381	211
353	221	252	249
211	360	357	396
318	257	276	212
294	209	258	278

Normal
386	360	345	370
377	336	307	359
361	361	355	327
373	372	375	327
344	313	334	349
345	358	350	329
372	330	367	351
412	412	344	353
322	333	347	283
373	361	323	394
311	340	349	362
384	362	384	380
361	370	360	342
363	364	380	289
346	359	385	304
328	330	348	322
313	379	356	309
356	348	381	344
347	346	372	400
322	339	366	397
367	370	326	381
342	348	395	359
308	319	366	343
364	367	336	353
353	385	347	367

Appendix B

Charts and Tables

	Uniform						cumulative
lower		upper	midpoint	width	frequency	percent	frequency	percent
200	<	220	210	20	11	11.0	11	11.0
220	<	240	230	20	6	6.0	17	17.0
240	<	260	250	20	14	14.0	31	31.0
260	<	280	270	20	9	9.0	40	40.0
280	<	300	290	20	10	10.0	50	50.0
300	<	320	310	20	12	12.0	62	62.0
320	<	340	330	20	10	10.0	72	72.0
340	<	360	350	20	9	9.0	81	81.0
360	<	380	370	20	6	6.0	87	87.0
380	<	400	390	20	13	13.0	100	100.0
					100	100.0

Table 1. Frequency Distribution Agevest

	Normal						cumulative
lower		upper	midpoint	width	frequency	percent	frequency	percent
290	<	300	295	10	1	1.0	1	1.0
300	<	310	305	10	6	6.0	7	7.0
310	<	320	315	10	5	5.0	12	12.0
320	<	330	325	10	13	13.0	25	25.0
330	<	340	335	10	14	14.0	39	39.0
340	<	350	345	10	13	13.0	52	52.0
350	<	360	355	10	13	13.0	65	65.0
360	<	370	365	10	11	11.0	76	76.0
370	<	380	375	10	13	13.0	89	89.0
380	<	390	385	10	6	6.0	95	95.0
390	<	400	395	10	5	5.0	100	100.0
400	<	410	405	10	0	0.0	100	100.0
					100	100.0

Table 2. Frequency Distribution Invest.Live

Graph 1. Agevest Histogram

Graph 2. Invest.Live Histogram

Appendix C

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics - Agevest
	Uniform
count	100
mean	299.88
sample standard deviation	57.92
sample variance	3,355.22
minimum	202.8035283
maximum	399.8829126
range	197.0793843
population variance	3,321.67
population standard deviation	57.63
confidence interval 95.% lower	288.53
confidence interval 95.% upper	311.23
margin of error	11.35
z	1.96
Descriptive statistics - Invest.Live
	Normal
count	100
mean	349.69
sample standard deviation	23.74
sample variance	712.47
minimum	276.5401841
maximum	435.2752147
range	158.7350306
population variance	633.50
population standard deviation	25.17
confidence interval 95.% lower	345.03
confidence interval 95.% upper	354.34
margin of error	4.65
z	1.96

References

Cooper, D. & Schindler, P. (2014). Business research methods (11th ed). McGraw-Hill Education. The United States of America.