I have been playing a small business game that allows me to control all aspects of a small business such as finance, marketing and sales.
During the first in game week of my business I decided to work on my marketing and stock. I also took out a my personal saving to help get the business running. In this week I decided to use the marketing technique of prompting and individual business.
I then came to the conclusion that this would be a good way of making a large amount of profit quickly.
I the second week I stocked heavily in training tracksuits (because it had the largest profit margin) and hired several members of staff to help sell the product.
I found this technique work extremely well and the fact that I had a suitable amount of staff working allowed me to delegate tasks and lower my hours to 28 hours a week.
In the third week I decide that it would be a good idea expand the range of products I was selling and to also individually promote two of my new products on top of training tracksuits to maximise profitability. In this week I also gave my staff some basic training to improve my customers service.
I found in the next week my profit was considerably larger than before and that I would now need to spend more of my cash flow on new stock to meet customer demand. I also decided to improve my stall moral by giving them a reward such as buying them pizza. I promoted my business and raised my social bar by sponsoring a local football team.
I felt the next step for my business was to expand the availability for consumers, so I decided to make a website for only shopping. This would improve my sales without having to spend money on wages for new members of staff. I also decided to supply my members of staff with an improved working environment by providing the with air con and a new refrigerator.
Types of Information used in my Business:
Whilst managing my business i found that i mainly used quantitative information, this is mainly due to that fact that in the very nature of a store you deal with a lot of numbers such as stock, prices and sales.
I found the quantitative data that i collected to be extremely beneficial to my business.
(Quantitative, Primary)
I found that the point of sale data was extremely useful for find out what customers had bought that week, this then allowed me to make an assessment on how successful any advertising campaigns i launched went. This data also allowed me to forecast the quantity of a product i would sell, and this data allowed me to increase or decrease the amount of stock i was buying each week in accordance to my forecasts. This means that the data that it was collecting was having the direct result of saving me money on stock and therefore made it cost effective.
(Qualitative, Secondary)
I used some a qualitative information through out the duration of the game, although it was mainly just the feedback bubble that appeared above the head of some of the customers each week. For the first few weeks i found that the feedback the customers gave me was negative, so i took the necessary actions to change this, such as giving my staff training and increasing the number of staff i had working, to improve the customers experience. A few weeks after making these improvements i noticed that the feedback i revived had improved and that the action i had taken had been successful.
Operational:
I had to deal with a range of operational issues during the course of the game, the most notable with the staffs motivation levels. I found that the lack of staff motivation was causing problems such as poor customer satisfaction, i felt that this issue gad to be resolved asap, so the action i decide to take was to improve the staff room to allow an improved working environment for the staff. This did help the situation, although i was not completely happy with the result, so i decide to start rewarding the staff members with meals, and various other social activity's. After this second action i was happy with the level of staff motivation i had achieved.
Tactical:
Although my business did not have any direct rivals to compete against i was able to make tactical decisions such as buying an increased amount of stock when a big league game was approaching, this decision in turn increased the profitability of my business.
If my business had a direct rival i could have made decisions such as the price of my products to increase the among of customers i revived, or even opening for longer hours.
Sources of my information
(Internal)
Throughout the duration of the game i revived information from many different areas and departments. One of the most important areas i revived information from was the sales department. the sales department provided me with vital information on how well products were selling. This information was crucial throughout the game and without it i fell i would have struggled to make a large profit
The marketing department also played a huge role in my businesses susses, and that is due to the large amount of important information they provided me with. The information they gave me helped me decide on what advertising campaigns i should run, this is because every time i would run a campaign they would provide me with a report on how successful that campaign was.
Another huge department in the game that provided me with a steady flow of information was the finance department. the information that this department provided me with was crucial to creating a profitable business. this department provided me with weekly reports with information such as cash in, cash out and the gross profit on a weekly basis.
(External)
Although i didn't find the need use of any external information within the my experience of the business game, i would of needed to use the government as a source if a something such as the minimum wage rate was to change. the government is usually a good external information source due to the fact the most of the information they provide is of great importance, but it is also an extremely reliable source.
I could have also used a data base as an external source of information but i felt that is was not necessary. If i had used a database to find data, i would have researched something such as the population of people that support my team within a 20 mile radius. i could the then use that data to make a decision to earthier relocate my business on the hand advertise more aggressively. Although i would have to ensure that the data i had revived was reliable, due to it being from an external source.
High Level Diagram: (PDF)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuZDRjaWFaaE9oTzg/edit?usp=sharing
Low Level: (PDF)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuQnIwSnJYVFlWT3M/edit?usp=sharing
How a Business
can improve the Quality of Information: (D1)
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuZUZwakE4bW5WZXM/edit?usp=sharing
Having information that is of a good quality is vital for any
business is that aiming to be successful in the long term. Due to this it is
vital for a business to actively improve the quality of the information they
collect.
Valid:
One way to improve the quality of information is to ensure
that the information is valid. A business could ensure that the validity of its
information, by simply passing that information through operational support. By
doing this the business is ensuring that flow of information is being monitored
and checked for validity. This will have a direct result of improving how valid
the information that has been collected is.
An example of this process happening with in my small
business game would be, every time I received my weekly profit report, I compared
it against my profit chart and my own calculations to what my profit should
have been for that week. By doing this I am ensuring that the information I am receiving
is correct. If one of the pieces of data I have compared to the other two piece
of is incorrect, it is as a result not valid and should not be used for any of
my business decisions.
Type of data:
Another aspect a business should look at before collecting
information is the type of data that they want to collect e.g. qualitative or quantitative.
Qualitative data is data such as text, a customer’s opinion
would be a qualitative data. This sort of data is great for analysing a problem
in depth, but its main disadvantage is that it can’t be easily grouped, or interpreted
in the form of an info-graphic or any sort of graph.
Quantitative data is data of a numeric value, a rating out of 10
would be an example of this data. This sort of data is fantastic when trying to
find information such as what % of customers like the new product, and the data
it collects can be displayed via an info-graphic which is a useful when trying
to view data in a readable form. The main disadvantage of this form of data is
that result are very linear and do not allow for personal opinion.
It is vital when collecting data that the right form of data
is picked, otherwise the data will not be very effective and could just end up
being a waste of time and resources. By choosing the correct data type it could
potentially drastically improve the effectiveness of the data that is collected
and therefore that is an improvement of the quality of the information.
An example of this with in my business game is the data that I
collected about my profits was quantitative, this allows me to give a precise
figure of my profits.
Purpose:
The purpose of the information is a vital aspect to being
able to improve the quality of the information. This is because if the
information collected has no purpose it will not be valid and will be more
than likely useless. This is way it is vitally important for any business to ensure
they have a clear purpose before collecting information. Not having a purpose
for the information before collecting will also produce problems such not knowing
what data type to choose or it the wrong data could be collected and that will
result in the data not being fit for purpose.
An example of this in relation to my small business game
would be if I wanted to order my next week of stock and I decide to gather
information on what how much I was paying my employees, the information I had collected wasn't for
the correct purpose and therefore it would result in a potentially bad business
decision. However if I was to think about the information I should collect, and
decided to look at the footfall count of last week and how much of what stock I
sold last week, then that information would be fit for purpose and I would be a
the correct decision.
Sources:
An important part of the reliability and the quality of the
information, is the source it comes from. If information comes from an external
source (secondary data) it must be verified, due to the fact it could be potentially
invalid. However a business could improve the source of its information by
using primary data, in other words data from internal department. Although data
from an external source can still be extremely useful but it is essential that
the data is verified as being valid.
An example in terms of my business game would be, when a reviewing
CV it is essential to confirm with the references given that the information
that has been stated is correct and valid. If I didn't do this I could potentially end up with an incompetent employee, which could become a drain on resources and potentially cause damage to my businesses reputation.
