RESEARCH

Research



Formal Research vs. Business Proposal

Business Proposal is the planned and systematic gathering and collation of data and the analysis of information relating to all aspects of business and the final consumption of goods or services. Sometimes a company may want information about its customers, and so will carry out research to propose future business prospects. On the other hand formal research is the study of fundamental principles and processes; the defining characteristic of formal research is that its research findings have immediate application to the general topic under consideration.

The Business environment is constantly changing and business personnel always need to monitor these changes through research. The research is not used to make decisions but to reduce the risk of making a wrong decision. The objectives of business research are exploratory, descriptive and casual. Exploratory research starts by collecting information that may assist in helping to define a problem and suggest a theory for it. Descriptive research is used to "...describe business problems, situations or markets such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers" - Armstrong. On the other hand, the objective of the formal research is to identify the theory of cause and effect relationship.

The types of business research carried out are customer research, promotion, product, distribution, sales and business environment research.

Customer research provides information about where customers live, their hobbies, what they like to spend money on and their spending power. They provide information about the trends in the market.

Promotion research is aimed at how great an effect may promotion have on sales and which types of media should be used in promotion depending on the demographic of the customer.

Product research is used to identify new uses for existing products (for example, some years ago Johnson's realized they were selling much ...