Subject: Business Research & Report Writing

Assignment On:

1. find and article illustrating an example of applied research study on Pakistan based business.

2.  visit Gallup website and write detailed note on its procedure of poll conduct. www.gallup.com/pk

3.  Visit website for “international Communications Research” and write note on its services on problem definition process.   ssrs.com

4. Develop six stages of problem definition process of your idea.

Submitted To: Ma’am Hummaira

Group Members:

o Varda Shaikh___1310-bba027

o Hiba Shaikh____1310-bba009

o Maryam Qazi___1310-bba015

o Mahgul Khan___1310-bba012

o Misbah Anwar__1404-bba018

1. Applied research study on Pakistan based business.

WHY BUSINESSES SUCCEED OR FAIL: A STUDY ON SMALL BUSINESSESIN PAKISTAN

SHABIR HYDERDEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES,

COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, ATTOCK, PAKISTAN, ANDROBERT N. LUSSIER

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT, SPRINGFIELD COLLEGE, SPRINGFIELD,MASSACHUSETTS, USA

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the factors that lead to either success or failure of small firms in Pakistan.

Methodology: This study methodology is a applied research applying the Lussier Model of business success and failure with a sample of 143 small businesses to better understand the reasons of their success or failure using logistic regression statistical analysis.

Practical implications: Results provide further support for the validity of the Lussier Model in Pakistan and globally. Thus, small business owner/managers can use the model to help improve their chances of success and to avoid failure.

Findings: Results indicate that:

Business planning Proper employee staffing Adequate capital inflows and Partnerships

The above bullet points are important for the viability and success of small businesses in Pakistan.

Introduction: Small businesses are known by governments worldwide for their contribution to the economic stability and growth, employment and new job creation and social cohesion and development and a small

business is especially important in developing countries. Unfortunately, the failure rate of small businesses is high globally because entrepreneurship leads to economic growth.

Current available data: Although, latest SME data is not on hand in Pakistan, but according to the government of Pakistan (2013), the gross domestic product (GDP) share of retail and wholesale businesses is 18.2 per cent, with an annual growth rate of 2.5 per cent. Pakistan, like other developing countries, is an agriculture-based economy. Trade is the second largest sector in terms of labor force employment, employing about 15 per cent of labor force.

These figures suggest the crucial importance of trade for economic development in Pakistan. Thus, creation and existence of SMEs is crucial for the stability of the economy, size and quality of employment and socio-political structure of a nation.

Barriers to conducting business in Pakistan: According to the enterprise survey conducted by the World Bank (2007; Yang, 2011), the top barriers that business firms consider as obstacles to business performance are the lack of consistent electricity and political instability. The percentage of firms considering electricity shortage as the largest obstacle increased from 44 per cent of the firms in 2007 to 66 per cent in 2010.

Implications and recommendations:

The need for capital. The need for business plans. The need for proper staffing. The need for partners.

Conclusions: Early recognition and understanding of risks of business failure are important for establishing, sustaining and growing a business. The S/F prediction model developed for and tested in Pakistan is supported by statistical testing. Entrepreneurs need to understand the

risks of failure and acquire the variable resources identified in this study to improve their probability of success.

2. Write a detailed note on Gallup’s procedure of poll conduct.

THE SAMPLING ISSUE:

Probability sampling is the fundamental basis for all survey research, if selected correctly because they are the ones who represent the projected behavior of all the people.

For Gallup polls, the objective is to represent the opinions of a sample of people who hold the same opinions. There are difficulties involved at every step of the process of attempting to reach this goal, but this overall objective stands as the central organizing principle for Gallup’s methodological procedures. And the key to reaching this objective is a fundamental principle called equal probability of selection , which states that every member of a population has an equal or in some instances a known probability of being selected in a sample.

EQUAL PROBABILITY OF SELECTION:

To conduct a poll, Gallup chooses this method by which all or most citizens got the equal or known likely chance to be selected.

This survey – the National Public Opinion Poll on 'Panama Leaks Issue' conducted by Gallup Pakistan was carried out according to the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) Code of Ethics and internationally recognized principles of scientific polling. All opinion surveys follow a set sample profile, which may vary from poll to poll.

SEGMENTATION- the required sample size of population:

This survey was carried out among a sample of 1,707 men and women statistically selected and comprising of a cross section of age, and socio-economic classes from the rural and urban areas of all the four provinces of the country, during May 30 and June 6, 2016.

According to detailed methodology provided by Gallup Pakistan, 39 percent of the respondents were under 30 years of age, 54 percent between 30 and 50 years, and eight percent above 51 years of age. 29 percent of households surveyed were from low-income groups, which are categorized as households with up to Rs 7000 monthly incomes. 47 percent of households surveyed were middle-income, i.e. they earn monthly incomes of between Rs7000 and Rs 20,000, while 16 percent were high income families earning over Rs20,000 in a month.

67 percent of the respondents belonged to rural areas while 33 percent were from urban area, with the majority from Pakistan’s most populous province Punjab (58pc), 24pc from Sindh, 14pc from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the remaining 5 percent from Baluchistan.

A key term used in opinion polls is margin of error, a probability number that expresses the amount of possible error in a survey's result that may arise from random sampling. The less the margin of error, the more confidence one can have that the poll's reported results are close to the true figures if the entire population was questioned. The error margin in this particular poll was estimated to be approximately 2 to 3 percent at 95 percent level of confidence.

ENSURE TO FOLLOW ETHICS WHILE CONDUCTING POLL:

According to Gallup Pakistan, while samples are carefully selected from the population, interviewers are briefed to conduct the surveys following an ethical code of conduct and maintaining neutrality in asking questions from the respondents.

PROCEDURE TO CONDUCT THE POLL:

After the briefing is completed, all field workers conduct mock calls under the direct supervision of an executive or a fieldwork supervisor to

ensure that the field workers properly understand the instructions and they can handle various interviewing problems during interviews in the field.

After completion of training, interviewers go into the field for actual interviewing. After the surveys are completed, they are rechecked, verified, and coded to be entered into computers.

Gallup Pakistan says it uses the statistical computer program SPSS to enter data and analyze it to arrive on the survey results, which are presented in a final report format.

3. International Communications Research-write a note on its services on problem definition process?

International Communications Research’s services:

Now known as SSRS, it is a full service market and research firm, provides innovative methodology, optimized sample designs, questionnaire refinement in its services. Following are the services that SSRS provides to its clients based on the problem definition process, these are:

1) Omnibus Surveys. 2) Online Solutions. 3) Public Opinion Research. 4) Probability Panel. 5) International Research. 6) Health Policy Research. 7) Multinational Research. 8) Religious Research. 9) Sports & Leisure Research.

SSRS manages data from various modeling techniques. It leverage multiple panel to ensure balancing on challenging meterics. As far as sampling is concerned, it can weight data by the standard demographics and can include unique metrics most relevent to data. It provides adjustment models for specific panel provider.It utilizes an extensive global partner network. All clients of SSRS receive full demographic information for all completed interview including:

By Audience: ☆ Consumer, B2B, Healthcare, Professionals, Patient.

By Geography:☆The America, Europe, Asia plus extensive coverage of emerging market.

By Methodology:☆ Online Surveys, focus groups, communities.

4. Develop six stages of problem definition process of your idea.Our Idea is: Just Fitness Things

i. Understand the situation-identify the key symptoms: as the people overly dependent on technology which reduces human physical activities which caused them diseases like obesity, anxiety, depression etc so, to overcome these issues we proposed a fitness club.

ii. Identify the problem from the symptoms: mostly, people reluctant to join any fitness club due to the following reasons: Lack of time. Lack of awareness. Accessibility.

iii. Managerial decision statement & research objectives: decision statement-how can we convince/motivate them to join our

club? How can we spread awareness among them? How can we make our club more accessible to the people? Research objectives-which factors encourage people to join any fitness club? List down all the factors that will improve attitude towards it?

iv. Determine the unit of analysis: as it is targeting large group of people like from teenage to onwards so our unit of analysis would be school/college students, personnel and housewives.

v. Determine relevant variables: the key variables that have found are: fitness (independent variable) & health (dependent variable).

vi. Write research hypothesis: people who enjoy regular physical activity have lower death rates than the people who don’t involve in such kind of activities, so as long as the people keep focus on their fitness, as long as they will be healthy.

THE END