The business I am going to set up is a snooker club,

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                                                   Business Coursework

1. The business I am going to set up is a snooker club, which will be situated in Batley.

This project was set by Paula Husbands as part of our A level Business Studies coursework; I will use many research methods to observe business objectives and analyse the feasibility of the project.

1.1 Primary Objective

The overall aim of the project is to analyse the feasibility of starting up a business project.

1.2 Secondary Objectives

These are the activities I will undertake to complete the Business plan. They are,

 Examine, what type of market the business operates in, and build a questionnaire relating to the consumers, analyse them and then make a decision on what they tell you.

 Identify competitors of the business, and analyse references to the business such as local, regional, national competition.

 Identify key locations within the area and comment upon the features for when deciding a location.

 Identify, a list of the suppliers for my business; also comment upon the timing and quality levels of the products.

 List all the physical, human and financial resources and comment on them.

 Create a sales budget, which involves the prediction of the sales and average price of the businesses product.

 Create a Cash Flow Forecast, to get a brief idea on the inflows and outflows and the overall bank balance of the business for a period of time.

 Project a profit and loss account which is a prediction of the sales revenue and the revenue expenditure of my business, it also identifies if the business is predicted to be in profit or loss at the end of the year.

Analyse the profit and loss account and the balance sheet by looking at return on capital employed.

Examine, the long and short-term financial needs for my business.

Examine the different types of ownerships and select a type of ownership for my business.

Analyse, each areas of, SWOT and PEST analysis for my business.

2. Procedure/Methodology

I have used many methods of research throughout out the investigation. I have used questionnaires, which were given to 50 respondents in Huddersfield and Batley. I also undertook research methods such as focus groups within the college, I interviewed ten students from college on their views on competitors and other things related to the business. I also used the internet for research on properties and other resources and equipments i needed for my business.

2.1 Primary Research

Primary research is collecting new data, which are not present before the research began. The researcher generates the data for a new purpose. Primary research can also be called field data.

If the business is large or the method of collecting the data is complex, a market research organisation may be used, this where a business specifies in collecting data.

There are a number of primary research methods such as Surveys, postal surveys, Personal interviews, Telephone interviews, focus groups, Internet based surveys. However I will choose the method, which is most suitable to my business for seeking information.

I undertook a survey to find out information from the consumers. Surveys include individuals or businesses contacted and interviewed; Questionnaires are the main method of gathering data in surveys. Questionnaires have a list of questions which can be closed and open, closed Questions have a range of responses set by the researcher for example a respondent might be asked, have you visited a local snooker club never, once, twice, or more than twice a week. An Open Question asks respondents to answer in their own words such as how do you think the services in the snooker club could be improved?

Each method of primary research has advantages, and disadvantages these are:

Questionnaires

These are the most common method of primary research as it is the easiest.

Advantages

ü      Detailed information can be gathered

ü      Customers options can be obtained

Disadvantages

û To carry out a questionnaire it will take time, then it will also take time to analyse the results obtained.

û The questions must be well thought out, other wise the results will be misleading

Another method of primary research I used is Interviews; this is when a person asks questions to a person.

Advantages

ü      Questions can be explained if the interviewee does not understand the question

ü      Very detailed information can be gathered

Disadvantages

û       Interviews are very time consuming

û       The interviewer may lead the interviewees answer to the questions

2.2 Secondary research

This is research that already exists, it may have been compiled for another purpose and it is available for anyone to use. This type of research comes in two forms internal and external.

Internal data - This is information that has already been collected by your business, and is available for other departments to use. As the information has already been collected, it is easy and cheap to use. However I won’t be able to use internal data because I am starting up my business, therefore there is no internal data available.

Advantages and Disadvantages

 Data can be collected which directly applies to the issue being researched.

If the Questionnaire is poorly worded, then the findings may be poor.

 Primary data is usually gathered from a small number or sample of the population this suggests that it doesn’t represent the whole of the population and this may provide insufficient information.

 Primary data is expensive to gather and it is time consuming.

External data - This is when the information is gathered outside the business. There are many sources, but they vary according to what you are researching. This data has not been gathered for any specific purpose, so it is very general.

Sources of External data are,

 Other Businesses, Sales figures and accounts may be published and made available to the public by other businesses and competitors.

 Governments, international organisations and research institutes- data published within the public sector or by government funded organisations, such as Statistics and Economical trends.

 The local, national press and international press and media- Newspaper, magazines may publish stories about competitors, industries and other countries.

 Trade associations- associations which represent the interests of a particular industry may provide a variety of services which may include market research.

Advantages

   Secondary research is relatively cheap to collect.

 Secondary research can be collected in a fairly short period of time. Whereas primary data might take months just to set up.

 Accurate data can be obtained without using sophisticated research techniques.

Disadvantages

 It could be complex to find the right information for the research I’m undertaking.

 The data can be outdated and irrelevant because of social and economical changes’

What is the difference?

Primary data is data that is collected just for that specific purpose. While secondary data is data that was collected for other purposes.

Which is better?

Primary data is better as it normally more accurate, and as it has been carried out just for your purpose it will have more specific information.  Also the information that is collected is of a neutral viewpoint.

What is sampling?

Sampling is the number of people chosen for the sample from the whole population. The sample chosen should be representative of the population; this means that the people surveyed should have the same characteristics as the whole population.

Random or Quota sampling?

This is where every one in the country has an equal chance of being picked. People are picked at random often by computer to complete a survey. The advantage of this is that very one has an equal chance of being picked, but there is there a chance that some of the people that are picked do not use your product or service.

Quota sampling- this is where people picked to do a survey because they meet certain characteristics. These characteristics can be:

     Age

    Gender

    Ethnicity

   Occupation

However people are not selected for surveying by random. Quota sampling can be cheap to carry out but it’s not representative of the whole population,

My method of research

The method I will be utilizing is Random Sampling. This is so that I can receive a representative response from the local population; also the data will be more relevant to me because many people from different age groups will be surveyed. I will use primary research, in the form of questionnaires. This is because the primary research will be accurate, and more relevant, as it is being carried out for a specific purpose. The reason that I am using a questionnaire is that it allows me to gather very detailed information. However there are some limitations to my research methods, the major one being that it is very time consuming. I will survey 50 people from the local area. I chose 50 people as it represents a fair amount of the population also there is a time limit for the project, therefore intense market research cannot be undertaken.

Market Segmentation

Market Segmentation is the method where the market is divided up into separate sets of customers who have different needs. An example would be age group; a sixteen year old is more likely to go to a snooker club than eighty year old.

The most common methods of Market Segmentation are;

Age groups - People of different age buy different products. This means that an old person will buy different products to a young person.

Sex- Men and Women often have different spending patterns

Ethnic groups- many new religious and racial groups have appeared over the last fifty years, each requiring specialised products and services.

Region- People in different areas of the country will buy different products. A person in a wet part of the country will buy clothes for wet weather, while in a dry part people wont. This also applies to when a product is exported.

Income- these are created depending on a person’s income. The highest in the groups are the managers while the lowest are the unemployed. A product that is to aimed art the highest income group will have a high price; while a product aimed the lowest will have a low price. This also means that the advertising campaign will be different for each group.

Market Segmentation can help my business in many ways, it can help with the Marketing of the business, and for example the advertising of the product, finding out the targets can make it easier to aim the product at the customers. Also if the business knows who its customers are they can create a product to suite its customers needs. Also if a company decides to go into a new market they can evaluate if a product will succeed in the market or by looking at the segmentation characteristics in the local area.

2.3 Evaluation of my research

2.4 Below is a copy of my questionnaire and Tally’s

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3 Background on business.

3.1 Background on my business idea

I have decided to set up a Snooker centre because I have recognised the interests of both the youth and the adults in snooker, I have talked to many people in my community about this and they have said that it would be a radiant idea as the local community can have a snooker centre that is close to them, although there are many other snooker centres within the Batley area. The local community seem to have a great deal of interest in this idea so it ...

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