A PROSPER BUSINESS (Part 1)

To survive and prosper, businesses need to be able to change and adapt to internal and
external environmental pressures, but there are issues around managing the process of
change.

A change for the better?

In the world of business, change is inevitable. Nobody would seriously argue with that,
especially at a time when IT developments are sweeping through all areas of work and
changing how things are done and who does them. But when change does come, not
everybody agrees on what it means. How you view change depends on [1] ____ in the
organisation, and managers and employees usually have very different perspectives.

If you’re [2] ____, your focus is on results, and you’ll see the change as the best way to
realise them. They are more aware of the business’ overall goals, the financial state of the
company and its position with regard to competitors and market share.

When [3] ____ consider introducing change, they ask questions such as, ‘How quickly can
it be implemented?’, ‘How will it benefit the company?’, ‘What investment is required?’, ‘How
cost effective is the change?’ and ‘How will it affect our customers?’ Since they are usually
the advocates of change, managers tend to be more enthusiastic about it.

If you’re [4] ____, however, your focus is more on the immediate task of getting the job
done. They seldom have time to consider how their work fits into the overall scheme of
things; they don’t share the broader perspective of the company directors. Because they
are often skilled and experienced in their work, or because they are placed on the frontline
dealing with customers on a daily basis, they look at change from a personal perspective.

The questions [5] ____ ask are, ‘How will this effect the quality of my work?’, ‘How much
time will it take for me to adapt?’, ‘What’s wrong with the way we’ve always done things?’
and, ultimately, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Since employees are the ones who have to put the
change into action, they are usually less enthusiastic about it.

With such different [6] ____ about change within the organisation, it’s not surprising that
innovation often fails. Planned changes need to be carefully thought out and managed. If
not, morale will suffer as people feel that they are being forced to change against their
will. There will surely be resistance, and some highly valued members of staff may even
decide it’s time to leave.

All of this can eventually have a negative effect on productivity and efficiency. Management
will have to admit defeat and drop the change, or risk losing [7] ____ to the competition…and
then another great idea bites the dust.
 A PROSPER BUSINESS (Part 2)

To make sure your business will survive, marketing is truly important. Do you know the
techniques you can use for doing market research? What differences are involved in doing
qualitative research as opposed to collecting quantitative data?

Here are some market research techniques you might want to use to make your business
prosper:

1 _______________________

Companies carry out Market Research to gather and analyse data to understand and explain
what people think about products or adverts, to find out about customer satisfaction and to
predict how customers might respond to a new product on the market.

2 _______________________

Market Research can be categorised under two subheadings – Quantitative Research and
Qualitative Research. The questions asked with Quantitative Research are structured
whereas Qualitative Research questions are much more open and can often reveal
consumption habits which the researchers hadn’t previously considered. You carry out
Quantitative Research when you need to know how many people have certain habits and
the Qualitative Research when you need to know why and how people do what they do.

3 _______________________

Companies involved in Market Research include the Research Buyer and the Research
Agency. The research agency carries out the market research in ways previously discussed
with their clients – the research buyer. Sometimes companies only need their own data
analysed, or are simply looking for advice on how to carry out their own research. Points
that are discussed between the two parties can include:

 The time duration of the research

 The budget available
 Who the target groups are
 Predictions of results
 How the results will be helpful

4 _____________________

 Street Surveys - stopping people in the street

 Phone or postal - people fill in questionnaires and send them back
 Internet surveys - a relatively new technique which functions in a similar way to other surveys
except that a large number of people are interviewed at the same time

5 ______________________

 Am I asking the right groups of people?

 How many people should I speak to in order to get representative answers to my questions?
 Are my questions easy to understand?
 How am I going to analyse the data?

6 ______________________

 Focus groups - discussion between a small number of people about a product, or advert etc.
to find out their views or habits
 Personal interviews - in-depth discussions on a one-to-one basis
 CAPI - computer assisted personal interviewing where questions are ‘asked’ by the
computer and the answers are typed by the interviewee directly into the database for
analysis
 Observation - this can be used as a complement to asking questions to see how people do
what they do

7 _________________________

 Are my questions open enough to get personalised answers?

 Have I restricted my target group?
 Do I only need to find out ‘why’ people do what they do or should I also do some quantitative
research?