Saving profitability through research design
...our historical database, the file rooms, and the training department. When searching for our history, do not forget to check the Internet, and do studies on companies within our industry and the Fortune 500. They will give a guideline as to what was happening in the economy at the time. There are not a lot of limitations to the study besides the timeframe. Strict adherence to the timeframe is essential for effectiveness and efficiency. Without limitations, we could go on forever. Therefore, for the sake of time and money you should stick to the before mentioned time. This will ensure we do not include information we do not want. Case Study A case study is detailed by nature. The level and depth of information in a case study delivers its validation and reliability. Some organizations see this as benchmarking, and benchmarking is extremely important, especially when the business world sees this particular technique crucial in evaluating our corporation. For example, it is with great pain that a PhD student defends his/her view extensively. A great deal of time goes into a dissertation and can contain or discuss a case study to defend the view of the student. For that reason the case study plays an important role in realizing where our company stands and why it stands where it stands. The case study for this company will focus on looking towards the future position of this corporation. It will define exactly where we are going and how we will get to our goal, but we must understand where we are right now in order to accomplish this feat. It is important to know where we are coming from also, i.e. a historical study. Therefore, with this understanding and intention, a fair assessment can be given to the leadership on where we stand, with the focus on where we are going. We must be able to prove in our case study that growth will not be affected by our decision to cut our training cost back down. There should actually be a reverse correlation between cutting cost on training and the growth and expansion of Big Corp. The case study should give the implication that through everybody’s cooperation, the corporation will succeed and the new plan will be a success. This will help in the philosophy of the self-fulfilling prophecy. When a person believes in a concept they have the power to make it come true. Let us look at relationships for this example. A man and woman are not getting along, and they begin to feel as though they cannot take one more day with this person. Then that one-day comes along and they finally leave. They have self-fulfilled in their mind that they could not take it anymore. They are the ones who set the limits on their behaviors. Nobody made them do anything, but they chose to take matters into their own hands. Therefore, in our case study we will make everybody feel as though we are the company everybody wants to work for in this city. With a little help from our advertising department, we will make people self-fulfill their content with the company; and retention will increase. This will be a small area of decreasing our training costs. The goals of the case study have many parts. They include putting into perspective where we stand according our competitors and where we stand in the industry. Another goal of the case study is to give the company a vision of where to go. Another area that is covered, in case studies, is assessing the company's relative stance in the world market. A continuous improvement tool is used to show how the company will be able to perform such feats. Job satisfaction is very important and this part of the study allows such usage to take place to measure how employees feel at work. Case studies/benchmarking can be shared with other companies to show how well processes work and how well other processes do not work. This could limit the entrants to market because they will see the sophistication of knowledge needed for such a program or process. At the same time, they may be able to overlook the immediate cash shortage for the long-term profit returns if the companies make a market too enticing. The case study is a balance between sharing with and taking from others enhancing performance in the end. Using these benchmarks and case studies can be done at anytime the corporation feels they need to re-evaluate the system. The re-evaluation process is the key to continuous improvement. We do not necessarily need to re-invent training; in this case, we just need to identify flaws and possible mistakes our company has performed in last year. Some current leaders in training are Disney, General Electric, and Ford. If possible, we should emulate these corporations; to be as proficient as they are. We will reap the benefits of their programs and learn our lessons through their mistakes. Once set in motion, our case study will show how and where we have improved. In addition, we will be able to measure our performance compared to the market leaders. Benchmarks can be found on other companies in the newspaper, the Internet, and personal meetings with top officials. ISQ may provide some help in this area, if you can interpret the data correctly. Making the system work is not hard. The market, consumer, individual employees, and the public, would suffer without benchmarks. Like mentioned earlier, Benchmarks will lead to success within the market. Benchmarking can save corporations money in the end, sometimes up to 40%. This is possible because through the extensive evaluation, companies outline many flaws and address the issue of reversing some outdated practices. The cost savings shows up sometimes in the form of cash flows because they can decrease the price of per unit sold, affecting contribution margins allowing the company to increase the bottom line. Survey A survey is a tool used to measure a certain entity and provide feedback in order for the entity to make or disregard a decision that could result in a policy change. For this reason, surveys are directed towards the people who will be affected most by a change in policy or procedure. Different people, depending on the wording and type of survey a person receives, could interpret the information many ways. Therefore, it is important that a survey measures something measurable and not subjective. Being objective is crucial when interpreting answers from the survey. Along with the answers, the questions on the survey must ask and provide adequate room for answers. If a corporation wants to know if you like their product, they should not ask if the product is blue, and then interpret the information that consumers like blue products. They should ask if people like the blue color on the product and then follow-up with a question like what other colors would like to see this product made in order for you to make a repeated purchase. This line of questioning will lead to clear concise answers with no room for misinterpretation. This type of questioning is what is expected. For example, did your trainer help you? Did he/she provide additional information without being prompted? How many days did it take you to complete certain tasks or projects? Yes or no answers are good. Numerical answers are also acceptable for most surveys. What do you think can improve the system? This would only be an acceptable question towards somebody who has just finished training and understands what went into the system because individual trainers can get in the way of the process, better known as one of the properties of the human effect. So, you have decided that you have the right questions and the answers are easily measurable and fit the question, but how do you interpret the answers? Analysis is the third key issue in deciding what it all means. For example, if 7 out of 10 people want pink balloons at the birthday party instead of blue do you automatically switch the colors or do you leave them as is? Analyzing information and understanding what would be best to do for the corporation has always been the key to the treasure of change. Analysts have many philosophies and nowadays are a dime a dozen. Whom do you listen to when it comes to change? What do you listen to when the crowd is yelling? There is no real clear answer to this one. One would assume that in this day and age, companies should stick to a philosophy or maybe they should go where the wind blows. One thing to consider when attempting to draw a crowd to answer your survey, make sure the questions are not construed as a poll. A poll is typically seen in an election when voters decide on what or whom they want for a certain position. A survey is used for information gathering purposes to decide how people feel. It is not used for the people to decide what will happen. The best surveys have more than just one feeling involved when asking the type of question that needs this type of answer. You would not give responses like “good or bad.” They should give degrees, such as: very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, satisfied, unsatisfied, somewhat unsatisfied, and very unsatisfied. This will lead to a true assessment of feelings toward a product or services. Surveys once gathered, interpreted, and acted on will be filed away and be the proof to the boss if something goes wrong. They will let the boss know that the decision maker was basing his decision on facts, leaving no room for personal blame, at least not initially. Ask the Former Vice President of Marketing for McDonalds. He thought it would be a good idea to offer hamburgers at $0.55 for McDonalds’ 55th birthday, but after two months and millions of dollars down the drain, he was the culprit for one of the biggest “bone head” marketing errors of the 1990’s. The problem is, he never surveyed anybody to find out if this would work. Surveys are very important. The strongest survey a company can hand out is a customer survey. According to an Internet site focused on customer satisfaction, it costs 8 times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing customer. Therefore, it is extremely important in this case for the company to keep its customers very satisfied. Not only are they less expensive to keep, but they are a good source of advertising, being that it is generally accepted that word-of –mouth advertising is the strongest in the industry, if a corporation can keep its customers satisfied, they will tell their friends and so on. Surveys have long been the evil of the American public. They are a hassle to fill out. They take up too much time in the evening. People would rather do other things on the Internet. To combat these negative connotations, companies have added a value to these surveys like free tickets, coupons, monetary compensation, pencils, and other gadgets. This is one of the reasons it costs so much to perform a survey. They are one the most expensive data gathering tools used by a business in America. Surveys are unavoidable because not only do they give input on customers’ ideas, but they also take the temperature of the climate at work. They, like benchmarking, lead to success and continuous improvement. They give employees a chance to vent their feelings about operating instructions. How management handles this information depends on the tone the boss is trying to set at the work environment. Even with an open door policy, people will not feel comfortable going to the boss and telling them they think they are doing a horrible job, in fear of repercussions. The survey gives employees anonymity, a shelter, from backlash from upper management; but it should also be noted that surveys are not the answer to every question or situation. How long should they be in order to gather a sufficient amount of data? First, they should be long enough to ask enough questions to get the bulk of information to understand the situation better. It is like asking why five times to get to the root cause of a problem. Ultimately, the length of a survey will determine on what the subject is and what is relevant to the company. Trying to perform a survey on why training costs have gone up would be difficult. The only survey that could be looked at would be on the topic of how useful the training was to the individual. This line of questioning could bring out the strengths and weaknesses of the training program. Identifying useless steps will help management cut out the bulk and return to the basics. It will advise management to reconsider shortening or lengthening parts of the training program. Quasi-Experiment A quasi-experiment is the equivalent to a statistical analysis, and a statistical analysis is the gathering of information from the surveys and exploiting the analysis to statistical methods. Experiments conjure up images of a seventh grade science assignment; the kind that mom and dad would help with, but quasi-experiments can costs companies millions. They are so detailed and manipulative that companies can use them to their advantage and feel good about taking advantage of the ignorant public. The can be twisted so far out of reach that even the person using them begins to believe them. A first impression of statistics can be negative and not forthcoming, but they do have some validity and reliability, making them very important for market research. They show tendencies in the market. They can be used to compare the preferences of customers by comparing various attributes of two or more products in the market. There are many more uses for statistics, but examples provided show the role they play when Consumer Reports, a trusted magazine by many, grades different products in the market. A quasi experiment has many features, but the features are all part of the whole experiment, meaning you cannot have entire experiment without one of the pieces. The theory and the hypothesis tests are considered the introductory phase. The theory gives a background on the experiment that is going to take place. It also pre-states other tests conducted in the past, while labeling and defining the variables to be used in the experiment. This is an important step in the experiment. The hypothesis tests can be any number of assumptions the experimenter or researcher wants to determine before the methods are...