The college canteen wants to increase its sales, and believes the issues are the quality and range of food it offers. This is what the brief will try to find out by researching information from a range of students that attend the Calderdale College.
Planning research:
There are various research stages that can be used to help increase the quality of the research carried out, to overall result in a better outcome.
Defining the objectives of the research to make sure that the objectives are SMART objectives so that they can make sure that the objectives is relevant and that they can be measured. This will enable the canteen to make and change objectives if they are not working so that they can achieve their aims of the market research.
Forecasting this helps to see how many products they would have to sell to make a profit and to see how much sales have increased after the marketing decisions have been put in place. Also forecasting allows the canteen to see when they break-even making sure costs are covered.
Planning this involves having a time scale and planning activities out to fit in with the time scale so that it can be on target. This can be applied to the canteen, as they should plan every thing out to make sure that it is achieved properly and on time. For example if this was not done then they might lose out on a lot of money as they may exceed the budget, timescale etc. Also things might be left or missed out due to not planning and organising the work.
Collection of data this is gathering information from different sources of research then putting it all together to see what you have found out, by analysing it to see what sort of information you have got for example primary/secondary then evaluating it to see if the information you have gathered is relevant and what you can do with the information you have got (how are you going to use it).
The above stages will be used to help get more relevant and specific information for the college to use and analyse to help make marketing decisions to overall help increase its sales.
*Planning Research*
Start date: 9th January 2008
Review of performance and analyses of data: 29th January 2008
To be completed by: 20th February 2008
Researcher: Miss Michaela Louise Burnett
Purpose: (objectives)
- To help increase sales, by researching information on what students at the Calderdale College think of the canteens food.
What they need to know: (defining objectives)
- The quality of the food, products it offers and what can be improved.
Most appropriate data collection source:
- Questionnaire will be used as it is a cheap and cost effective source that will help the canteen obtain the information required to meet the purpose of this research. This will be done, by using effective questioning techniques to overall obtain a variety of in-depth and specific information. Also the internet will be the other secondary research method, as it has access to a lot of information already at hand to help research healthy food options, so it can offer the same foods that are much healthier to help provide a better food range.
- These two data collection methods will help the canteen to keep within a limited budget of £350 and can be easily carried out and produced by the resources they will have available within the college.
Questions going to ask:
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There will be a set number of 20 questions that will be asked to each candidate. The use of open and closed questions along side different selected response formats will be used to help obtain a variety of different answers which can be easily put into statistic formats to help compare results. This will help obtain both qualitative data and specific information.
- At the end of the questionnaire, their will be a brief section that asks the user to fill in a short questionnaire about their personal attributes, to help monitor equal opportunities and to find information about the individuals who use the canteen, so then in the future the canteen will know who to target their promotional campaigns at the most.
Target audience:
- 16-25 year old male and female preferably students who regularly use the canteen. This is the age group who use the canteen the most, so will be able to fill in the questionnaire and provide the most information based on their experiences.
How the questionnaire is going to be carried out:
- Going to be carried out within the canteen, by customers already using the facilities at the time, to help obtain accurate and factual information. This will be done by asking random individuals, to fill in the questionnaire and leaving it at their table once completed so it can be collected. This will stop the researchers from putting their own opinions across if they asked the questions to the candidates, this can be done in a number of ways such as tone of voice, facial expressions etc, helps make the results fairer and not byest.
- The questionnaire will be carried out by 20 individuals, 50% male and 50% female, to help get enough information to use for marketing purposes. Also by asking an equal number of male and female candidates, will overall help make it a fairer research method.
- This will be done at peak hours to help get the information desired, when it is the busiest, the so the candidates will be able to used their experience at that time to help them fill out the questions.
- The selected number of 20 questions, is considered to be an even number that will take less than 10 minuets to fill in, so the candidates won’t get fed up and not complete the sheet, and also means if the individual is busy they will have time to do the questionnaire without causing too much inconvenience to their schedule.
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The use of Quantitative and Qualitative research will be used to help obtain information on how the users of the canteen feels about the services and products offered, by specifically asking questions that will get a specific answer e.g. closed questions such as do you like the food offered?. To get Quantitative data, and to find out further why they feel like this and what can be done to change that, this will help obtain Qualitative data
Fees
Internet research printing-£20
Questionnaire- £270
Other resources-£60
Total Budget=£350
Conclusion
Overall form the above information I conclude that the research methods are the best form of data collection to use in this situation and for the given business. Also the structured questioning and variation used will help obtain information that is accurate but at the same time faire taking measures to improve the quality of the data received.
Section 3:
Task 3. (P3)
Conduct primary and secondary research, making use of an identifiable sampling method
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: Carrying out primary and secondary research.
Introduction
Sampling:
Sampling is commonly used when issuing Questionnaires: primary research. If you use primary research to collect statistics, it is important that you sample if the targeted audience is of a large size or covers a wide area as it would not be practical to question everybody. However the questionnaire I am going to carry out is only going to ask 20 individuals, I am going to sample students that go to the Calderdale College in Halifax, as this would be the most appropriate audience who use the canteen. This will make the questionnaire more effective as the candidates will have experience the food it has to offer so can answer the questions with more confidence and with accurate feedback.
The statistics determined from this data collection method will help the canteen to review the food they offer and seek opportunities to improve by introducing new food or improving the quality of it so consumers will want to buy more and will overall help attract new consumers to use the facility within college.
Primary research uses sampling to make predictions about the whole market based on a sample. This type of research involves using a number of individuals to gather information, on what everybody thinks about something in the whole group. It is very effective and will help the canteen to find the relevant information they need and will be more accurate. There are a number of sampling methods available; this gives you a choice to see which ones are suitable for your research. This method will help the college canteen when spot opportunities to increase sales. There are certain types of sampling that are more appropriate for different types of research. These are stratified sampling, random, quota, cluster, judgment and systematic sampling. The most appropriate for Canteen is quota sampling as this helps them to understand their consumers better.
A quota is set for each target sub group in the consumer profile. The canteen should use this type of research because it will give them the specific information they want from the people who buy and use their products, instead of wasting money and time on asking consumers who have never heard of the company or its products because they will not be able to give them the information they are wanting.
All sampling methods have errors that might occur for instance respondents might give the answer they think the researcher would want them to say. Also the researcher might not full understand what they are trying to find out so inappropriate questions might be asked. The sampling might get a low response rate which means that information can not be balanced out to what people think the most, because it is uneven.
This section will describe how I carried out the secondary data collection method to help structure and design the questionnaire below. This will go through each stage of the process and what was the overall out come of this source.
The research method I used was the internet. My hypothesis is “healthy food for the canteen to sell” structure a questionnair sample for a college canteen. I started my research by looking at secondary research; the first being the internet. I used the search engine 'Google' which was useful in providing a range of sites focusing on my hypothesis. I started by typing in “health foods for canteens”. This search was too broad, and I realised that I needed to refine my search to get specific areas of interest regarding my hypothesis. The internet is a mass media platform that needs to be used correctly to search for the correct information needed, and the searches cannot be too broad. Therefore, I decided to search for types of questions and questionnairs. The and is very importaint in search engins and it searches for two specific topics at the same time. This time the search was very defined and brought up specific websites relating to the heading and provided me with information I wanted to find out. The following is a screen dump of the research I found out fro a specific link.
I am using secondary research because it saves time. I will not have to collect the
data first hand, which will allow me time to evaluate the information found and produce the questionnaire within the time limit set. After I found the correct links, I clicked on the websites and read through the information and made made notes were relivant and wrote down ideas from the research for my own questionnaire.
Conclusion
Overall the internet is a massive index of information that is already produced to give guiidance and information sources to help solve problems and pass information on, to further the knowledge of those who are interested. It is an excellend secondary research method for comprehensive research.
Section 4:
Task 4. (P4)
Interpret findings from the research and present them clearly in an appropriate forma.
Date: 20 February 2008
Analysing questionnaire survey results
Frequency distributions (Q1, Q2, Q5)
Figure 1: Showing frequency distribution of responses to survey question.
YES
18%
NO
10% 10%
2%
Should the, Do you think the
Careen introduce Quality of the food
New food? Is value for money?
Figure 2: Response shown in bar chart. (Q3, Q6)
Food eaten the most often in the canteen
Figure 3: Percentages presented in a pie chart (Q7)
Tall Chart for most preferred food type: Q4
Figure 4: findings shown in tally chart.
Section 5:
Task 1. (M1)
Explain the context in which different marketing research methods are appropriate.
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: Explanation in which different market research methods are most appropriate.
Introduction
There are many different methods of obtaining data; some are more expensive than other, as some provide more or less information. When selecting an appropriate method of data collection how accurate, valid, and how much it is going to cost to produce, all need to be taken in to consideration, along with the amount of time it is going to take to obtain the data and if it is going to have the response rate that is required to be able to make an marketing decision.
The business going to be used for this assignment is the Calder dale college canteen. For this task I will analyses the different methods of market research, to overall help decide which methods are the best to use for the canteen to help obtain the information required for the given situation. Below are a list and the specifics of the different range of marketing research methods that are available to the business.
All market research survey methods are either or market research. The below descriptions explains what they are most appropriate for and give some examples of the methods used.
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Quantitative research is used to measure how many people feel, think or act in a particular way. These surveys tend to include large samples - anything from 50 to any number of interviews. Structured questionnaires are usually used incorporating mainly closed questions - questions with set responses. There are various vehicles used for collecting quantitative information but the most common are on-street or telephone interviews.
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Qualitative research is used to help us understand how people feel and why they feel as they do. It is concerned with collecting in-depth information asking questions such as why do you say that? Samples tend to be smaller compared with quantitative projects that include much larger samples. Depth interviews or group discussions are two common methods used for collecting qualitative information.
Primary Research methods are:
One to one interviews, Questionnaires, focus groups, emails, surveys, sampling, telephone interviews, consumer panels, case studies, observations, experimentations, postal, piloting and field trails.
The above primary methods are most appropriate for larger company’s as the size of the business determines the size of the opportunity. Key methods are explained below.
Case studies
This is qualitative research and is most appropriate in helping Researcher gain understanding of a specific person's experience through an in-depth interview; it helps Provides good quotations and rich data.
Questionnairs
This is a research method that asks a series of questions to help gather information from respondents. This is most appropriate for analysis and obtaining specific information from an respodent, such as age, sex etc. It is a cheap source to use and may help obtain the desired information. This is quantitative marketing research
Interviews
This is the technique most associated with marketing research. Interviews can be telephone, face-to-face, or over the Internet.
Telephone Interviews
Telephone ownership is very common in developed countries. It is ideal for collecting data from a geographically dispersed sample. The interviews tend to be very structured and tend to lack depth. Telephone interviews are cheaper to conduct than face-to-face interviews (on a per person basis).
Advantages of telephone interviews
Can be geographically spread
Can be set up and conducted relatively cheaply
Random samples can be selected
Cheaper than face-to-face interviews
Disadvantages of telephone interviews
Respondents can simply hang up
Interviews tend to be a lot shorter
Visual aids cannot be used
Researchers cannot behaviour or body language
Face-to-face Interviews
Face-to face interviews are conducted between a market researcher and a respondent. Data is collected on a survey. Some surveys are very rigid or 'structured' and use closed questions. Data is easily compared. Other face-to-face interviews are more 'in depth,' and depend upon more open forms of questioning. The research will probe and develop points of interest.
Advantages of face-to-face interviews
They allow more 'depth'
Physical prompts such as products and pictures can be used
Body language can emphasize responses
Respondents can be 'observed' at the same time
Disadvantages of face-to-face interviews
Interviews can be expensive
It can take a long period of time to arrange and conduct.
Some respondents will give biased responses when face-to-face with a researcher.
The Internet
The Internet can be used in a number of ways to collect primary data. Visitors to sites can be asked to complete electronic questionnaires. However responses will increase if an incentive is offered such as a free newsletter, or free membership. Other important data is collected when visitors sign up for membership.
Advantages of the Internet
Relatively inexpensive
Uses graphics and visual aids
Random samples can be selected
Visitors tend to be loyal to particular sites and are willing to give up time to complete the forms
Disadvantages of the Internet
Only surveys current, not potential customers.
Needs knowledge of software to set up questionnaires and methods of processing data
May deter visitors from your website.
Mail Survey
In many countries, the mail survey is the most appropriate way to gather primary data. Lists are collated, or purchased, and a redesigned questionnaire is mailed to a sample of respondents. Mail surveys do not tend to generate more than a 5-10% response rate. However, a second mailing to prompt or remind respondents tends to improve response rates. Mail surveys are less popular. With the advent of technologies such as the Internet and telephones, especially call centres.
Mystery Shopping
Companies will set up mystery shopping campaigns on an organizations behalf. Often used in banking, retailing, travel, cafes and restaurants, and many other customers focused organisations, mystery shoppers will enter, posing as real customers. They collect data on customer service and the customer experience. Findings are reported back to the commissioning organisation. There are many issues surrounding the ethics of such an approach to research.
Focus Groups
Focus groups are made up from a number of selected respondents based together in the same room. Highly experienced researchers work with the focus group to gather in depth qualitative feedback. Groups tend to be made up from 10 to 18 participants. Discussion, opinion, and beliefs are encouraged, and the research will probe into specific areas that are of interest to the company commissioning the research.
Advantages of focus groups
Commissioning marketers often observe the group from behind a one-way screen
Visual aids and tangible products can be circulated and opinions taken
All participants and the research interact
Areas of specific interest can be covered in greater depth
Disadvantages of focus groups
Highly experienced researchers are needed. They are rare.
Complex to organize
Can be very expensive in comparison to other methods
Diaries
Diaries are used by a number of specially recruited consumers. They are asked to complete a diary that lists and records their purchasing behaviour of a period of time (weeks, months, or years). It demands a substantial commitment on the part of the respondent. However, by collecting a series of diaries with a number of entries, the researcher has a reasonable picture of purchasing behaviour.
Secondary Research methods are:
Books, internet, reports, refereed journals, trade newspapers, CD-ROM encyclopaedia or software packages, news, data records, loyalty schemes, EPOS, web monitoring, e-transactions, accounting records, production information, sales figures, libraries and agencies.
The above methods are available sources for any organisation, but would be most appropriate for small businesses as they have less profit to spend on marketing methods. However they are useful as the information is already there to use. There are both internal and external research methods. Below are key research methods of secondary research.
Reports
This type of secondary research is very useful in finding out the performance of an organisation previous annual year. It allows a researcher to obtain information about competitors etc and compare findings to another business and spot opportunities to develop. This would not be a useful source of data collection for the college canteen as the research purpose does not require any information about other businesses or competitors etc.
Books
Books in general are a good resource; however, due to the pace of change within the IT industry published books can become outdated very quickly. The researcher must ensure that the latest edition of a book is used and that it is up to date. Other wise the information collected will be inaccurate. This is unsuitable for the canteen and other research methods are more appropriate and relate specifically to what the canteen is looking for.
Trade newspapers
These provide a good resource for identifying current trends in the industry. However, unlike refereed journals, the content of such newspapers will be biased in that a particular company product may be advertised in an article and as such objective analysis may be difficult to find. These are irrelevant to the purpose of the canteens research and would not provide any information in what it is trying to find out.
Refereed journals
These are most appropriate in provide an excellent source of the latest views and developments in the particular area of study. The articles found within these journals will have been stringently reviewed for accuracy, reliability, novelty and relevance and as such are a good source of SR. However, most of these articles will be written by leading experts in a domain targeted at an audience with similar expertise.
Internet
This is an excellent source for finding information; it has a variety of search engines to help find what a person is looking for, for example . However these search engines will usually bring up irrelevant source, so will have to search a while for the best source. The internet has the advantage that it is easy to access, it has lots of information, and it is sometimes the most up-to-date source of information. However it also suffers from a lack of any overall quality control, information is often incomplete and may disappear, so need to be careful when using the information for research purposes as it may not be able to be referenced.
Table to show which research methods target which category the most.
Conclusion
Overall from the above information I conclude that any business will want to have a mixture of primary and secondary research. The most appropriate research for the college canteen is a questionnaire directed at students that attend the college. This is a cost effective method that will suit the canteens size and will help it to obtain the information needed in order to carry out marketing decisions, as it provides qualitative information to get in-depth information that can be easily interpreted in to statistical data. Also to keep marketing costs down the internet will be the secondary source I will use to research information that may be relevant to the purpose of the research.
Section 6:
Task 3. (M2)
Explain the reasons for selecting the particular method of data collection for a selected product/service.
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: Analyses on the reasons for selecting the particular methods of data collection.
Introduction
This section will provide justifications to why I chose the selected data collection methods in section 3. To overall help provide further understanding of my actions and why I considered them to be the most appropriate techniques to help obtain the data required.
The first type of research I carried out was on the internet. This was the secondary source; used to obtain information on healthy foods the canteen could consider introducing. This method was selected for the canteen as it is an huge information source that can be accessed for free in libraries and as well as the colleges internet learning zones. By using this method to gather information e.g. on the variety of fruit and veg and answers to which are the healthiest, I would be able to get a comprehensive insight on the best healthy foods for the specific target audience. So overall this means the canteen can keep costs low, by using the resources already available to them.
So in the short term it is an effective cheap source, that provides a mass of information, that has already being produced by experts with in-depth knowledge in this area help get an accurate understanding of what foods would be most suitable in attracting the target audience to help design questions needed to make an analyses, by asking an selected range of questions and prompts to get a better answer and more of it. In the longer term if this research method proves to be in accurate or unreliable in helping to achieve the research objectives, then the canteen would have wasted time on obtaining the data but would not lose out on a lot of money, where as if they had used another source with a high cost that may have given the same results. So on balance the extent of the impact the research will have, depends upon the accuracy and how furrier it has been carried out. Overall it is an easy to access with a cheap costs that provides a wide range of information in one place from all around the world, so is the most appropriate for the size of the canteen and the profit it makes to what it can afford to use.
The other method of data collection was a short questionnaire that asked a range of selected and moulded questions that were designed to ask specific questions related to the research purpose to obtain statistical answers regarding the quality of food and the product range it had to offer. Questionnaires was produced using a set of written questions that were given to the respondent in the same order, so that the same information was collected and collated. This particular method was selected as it can be used to evaluate people's opinions. Questionnaires can be very useful in carrying out research, because they use quantitative data. Quantitative data is mainly about numbers and statistics, this is why I chose to ask 20 individuals to complete the questionnair sheet so I can obtain a varied amount of data. The advantages of quantitative data are, with facts, figures and numbers, i can see trends and patterns by interpereting the findings in to a more suitable statistical format. This kind of data can be analysed using computers, so allows me the researcher to easily put the findings in to a spread sheet and change the information in to a variety of charts and grapths to see which ones are most appropriate. In addition Quantitative data is also useful in carrying out research, because it can be reanalysed, so the canteen can use it again or use it to compare findings to see if they have improved their performance, therefore it is also reliable.
Conclusion
Overall form the above informtion you can see that there are many benefits of the use of these two selected methods, which allows the canteen to use cost effective methods that are simple to produce, so can keep within a budget and time-scale and because the two methods are easy to access and create the canteen can use their research methods again to help them obtain different information regarding different issues. I conclude that I have selected the most useful and most appropriate data collection methods for the college, that will help to obtain information without to much hassle.
Section 7:
Task 4. (M3)
Analyse own research and findings and make recommendations on how marketing strategies could be adapted.
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: analyses of findings and making recommendations were required.
Introduction:
This section will analyse the findings from the research carried out, section 7 interprets the findings into different formats to help compare the date, this section will further this by making recommendations for the canteen, by analysing what the questionnaire has found out from asking 20 students that use the canteen regularly.
Findings
From this research I have found out that more people are satisfied with the canteen food it has on offer, than dissatisfied. However most of the applicants stated they thought the food was fair and that they were generally happy with the quality of the food and do visit the canteen on a regular basis, none of the candidates asked strongly disagreed with that statement. However there were a few individuals that did disagree and were not happy with the food served. Although 11 out of 20 individuals asked did rate the quality of the food good, when asked if the college canteen should introduce new food only 2 people said no and an astonishing 18 candidates ticked yes. This lead to the next question, of which food does the applicant eat the most? The highest was chips then sweet followed by hot sandwiches. This mean if the canteen wanted to improve its sales it should concentrate on the food the users eat the most, so consumers will be interested in buying food they want. However more people would like to have more variety of hot food served in the canteen than cold food or a salad bar. This could lead to other topics such as should the canteen do more to introduce new healthier options as most of the food eaten by 55% of the people asked is chips. This helps to identify what food should be introduced if the canteen did consider this option. This would be hot food preferable potato wedges and other snacks in this category.
On the one hand the questionnaire only asked a small number of users within the canteen, this may mean that the findings are not that reliable. However if a high percentage of this sample do think the canteen should introduce new food, then this can be used as a starting point to do further research to determine the accuracy of this information. On the other hand an equal amount did agree and disagree with the statement that they think the food is good value for money. So on balance form these finding the canteen do need to consider improving the overall quality of the food and introducing new hot snacks to the menu.
This leads me to believe that students who filled in the questionnaire prefer hot snacks as a high percentage mostly eat chips and would like to introduce more hot food. This could be because they visit the canteen within lessons for their break and lunch and do not have enough time to have a proper meals, so would like hot snacks to take away so they can fit other things into their schedule.
Recommendations
Overall form the above findings I recommend that the canteen takes action to improve the quality of the food they offer as nearly all of the candidates that were asked were not completely satisfied with the food, and half of them did not think it was good value for money. This could be a growing area for concern and the canteen needed to do further research such as focus groups to discuss the issues and identify new opportunities for improvement. Focus groups would be the best sources to use as interpersonal communication can also be taken into account to get a better more factual reaction to provide better results. This also could be the key thing they need to focus on as customers of the canteen may only buy certain foods as they may not like the quality of others choices on offer. By addressing this issue it will have a bigger impact on helping to overall increase the college canteens sales in other food categories. Also the use of the research obtained from the internet source could be used to help introduce new healthier food options, e.g. such as low fat chips, as this preference was ranked the most desirable option for the individuals asked, so a much healthier substituted of the same food would only help improve the customers diet. This would help tackle other aspects of the canteen, such as making the canteens a healthy place to eat. As the growth in obesity is becoming a major concern for the economy today. In addition the canteen could introduce new food to help increase its sales or could overall improve its existing product range to hopefully leader to an increase in profit.
Conclusion
In addition the trend in this case is the variety of food on offer and the quality of the existing ones. These are two key areas the canteen could focus on to spot opportunities for improvement to overall meet its aims of increasing sales. Overall I conclude that the findings did provide the canteen with an comprehensive insight in to the attitudes and opinions of the students regarding the food service and further research needs to be done to obtain more substantial evidence relating to these issues.
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Section 8:
Task 3. (D1)
Evaluate the application of a selected research method and plan, make and justify recommendations for improvement.
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: Evaluation on the findings produced, and the overall effectiveness of the data collection methods used.
Introduction
This section will evaluate the overall effectiveness of the data collection used to carry out and obtain information. This will consist of sub-headings related to the task and detailed in-depth information on what I have found out from carrying out the research in regards to the data collection methods. This will include recommendations for improvement and what I would do differently if I was to carry the research again e.g. would I use the same research methods etc.
The research was successfully carried out by a range of students within the canteen, this was done on a set time over a week’s period, so the results were findings from the food offered and served that week (21st -25th January 2008).
Were the two methods effective?
Internet
When I was carrying out the internet research, I found that the information was hard to find as there is a wide variety of links and websites within the same categories. The search engine www.google.co.uk was useful in helping me find websites relating to the topic but did not provide me with the information I desired, also I found most documents specifically relating to what I wanted to know was not broadcasted for free, the publishers asked for a fee in order to preview the information. Also in addition to this most of the sites I visited required login details to search the webpage and its contents, this was very time consuming and frustrating as I had to browse many different sites and type in a range of headings to help define the search further. This did bring up a lot of useful links but once clicked on the pages they were either not found or had expired. However after countless attempts at trying to find the most useful and accurate information I decided to use both headings of what I was trying to find out, instead of using one at a time I did this by using (and) to separate the two word, this then showed me more specific links that offered what I wanted to know. This site was extremely useful and even gave me examples to help further my understanding more. The internet became very useful once I learned how to search correctly e.g. by defining the search and using the correct words to lead me to the most related links. However it is a time consuming task that can take hours and hours and then you may still not find exactly what you was looking for. Overall the greatest effect this had on collecting data for the research was proving a range of information on healthy food options to help get an understanding of the advantages of each. It was useful when finally found the right sight, but can take a lot of time and is very discomforting when sat at a computer screen for hours and hours. Regular breaks are required so concentration stays focused on the task. Also advertisements pop up regularly appear when searching the internet and can distract a person from the objective of their work. So overall It is a good tool for a very low cost, but if I was to carry the research out again I would not use this as a stand alone research method, I would use focus groups to help discuss the topics in which the canteen want to find out, as this will help analyse and evaluate the objectives of the research to get more accurate information directly from the students that use the facilities.
Questionnaire survey
The questionnaire was very effective in obtaining the information desired, the questions related specifically to the purpose and helped obtained information on what the candidates felt and thought about the food provided by the canteen. Even thought questionnaire design is a complex and time consuming process, its necessary labour to ensure valid and reliable data is collected. However most of the questions asked already had specifically designed answers that the candidate had to pick from, although this made it easier the analyse statistically, other open question designs may have provided more accurate answers to what the user thoughts and opinions were. This method effectively obtained the information by asking a serious of questions that gave the applicants a chance to put their views forward, as question 9 asked for any suggestion on how to improve its services/food overall. Also the question sheet was given to the students to take away to their tables when being served food, this mean the user could comment on the food they received at that time. Also this meant the candidates were not put under pressure to fill in the sheet as they could do it in their own time while they were in the canteen. Instead of stopping and asking selected individuals the questions and rushing the answers.
So overall developing a focused and effective questionnaire helped to efficiently and accurately pinpoint the information that was needed to make more informed decisions about there products.
Conclusion
From the above information I conclude that the two research methods were effective but not as much as id would have liked, because the data obtained regarding the colleges purpose was entirely collected from a single questionnaire. As the internet research was used to obtain information on questioning techniques to help improve the quality of the research. The data was accurate and reliable as well as specific to its purpose. However there was not enough information gathered to make help make important marketing decision.
Recommendations for improvement
In addition to the above I recommend that the college canteen furthers its research by using another method such as focus groups to help obtain enough data from different sources. As this method allows the researcher to interact with the candidates and discuss further in-depth issues that require a more defined answer. To overall compare the finding so they get more qualitative data that can be relied upon. This can be achieved as visual aids can be used to put forward idea and debate about the different foods, to find out the thoughts from the people who use the canteen the most. This will help to get a better understanding of the customers who use the canteen and their opinions and attitudes towards the quality of the food and what could be improved or introduced to provide a better service, to help meet the aim of increasing its sales by attracting more customers and retaining existing ones. This will only have a better impact on the decisions made from these findings.
Section 9:
Task 4. (D2)
Evaluate the findings from research undertaken.
Date: 20 February 2008
Report on: Evaluation of the marketing research campaign for the college canteen
Introduction:
This section will evaluate the findings produced from the data collection methods in section 4. It will provide further in-depth information regarding the findings, by weighting out the good and the bad points to come to an overall conclusion whether the research was effective of ineffective. From this I will make reasonable recommendations were improvement could be made. I will also provide justifications for these recommendations to help further your understanding of these.
Findings:
The evidence suggests that the canteen needs to introduce different ranges of hot food to their menus as the existing ones may not offer what the customers want or would simply like to see something different. However more evidence needs to be obtained to support these findings as the questionnaire only surveyed 20 individuals who use the canteen and depending on the amount of customers the canteen has, these figures may only be views and opinions from a very small percentage. Overall the greatest effect these findings will have on the business is to help it spot new opportunities to improve and identify ways of doing this. Whether this happens depends upon the effect it is currently having on the canteens sales to determine if drastic action needs to be taken. However because the data collection carried out was a questionnaire survey, this method can be used again to enhance on the data collected by asking different questions to help support the accuracy and reliability of the information.
In the short term the information can be very useful in helping set objectives to meet new targets of strategies the canteen may have to help boost sales; however in the long term this information used as a stand alone will not be enough to increase the sales of the canteen. However the internet and questionnaires are two effective techniques, the canteen should use these again to obtain other relevant data to further their knowledge on people’s attitudes and opinions in regards to the topic. However do extensive research like ad-hoc which is continuous research to help compare figures and date at a later period on a much larger sample to obtain more accurate information, as well as focus groups to help identify and produce what its customers want.
Overall the most important issue is to use the data already obtained to make a starting point on the development of their product range, other wise it may lose customers because of the poor quality and range available. This could lead to even poorer sales. The research campaign wasn’t as successful as I had hoped as its findings were not as in-depth due to the questioning structure, however was very effective in providing statistical data for the canteen to work from, it has helped identify some of the weak areas and can build to improve from their. The canteen can now produce more specific questionnaires to meet there precise needs as this research has informed them of what they need to know.
The research used did meet its purpose as to why it was been carried out in section 6, however the results from the questionnaire was not as qualitative as I had hoped. This is due to the questioning used, which provided the answers I wanted, so they were easier to analyse in to a more suitable data, this meant less description and thought was put into the answers given, as it was a matter of ticking which was most suited to their preferences them. So overall the research methods meet there purpose but the results did not achieve the overall research objectives, as the findings weren’t as reliable as I had hoped.
Conclusion
In addition to the above this project has helped me get a better understanding of the methods available and the appropriateness of there use. The college canteen was a small enterprise that wanted to obtain basic information, however it is still important to select the most suitable one in order to obtain the information desired. I have analysed the different aspect of some of the key methods in section 3, that has gave me a better insight to why the are used and what the produce the most e.g. quantative or qualitative
Overall document Word count: 9,312
Section 10:
Bibliography
- Business Studies Book second edition (Dave Hall, Rob Jones, Carol Raffo)
- BTEC National Business Book ()Rob Dransfield, Catherine Richards, Philip Guy, David Dooley)
Produced for: Calderdale College Canteen
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Completed 20 Questionnaires
Done on the
21st – 25th January
Researcher:
Michaela L Burnett
By Michaela Louise Burnett Tutor Barry Forrester
