BSS004-1 Identify data requirements and the appropriate data collection instruments required for effective business decision making.

Learning outcome 1. Identify data requirements and the appropriate data collection instruments required for effective business decision making

Learning outcome 2. Conduct appropriate analysis and clearly communicate findings to a stated audience

You have been provided with data from the research project for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to understand the barriers to take up and use of business support. As the data set is large, it is saved in different tabs. The tab labelled Variables contains the questions. The tab labelled Values contains the possible options for each question. The remaining tabs contain the data itself.

You have just started employment in the Research department of a University Business School.

Your tasks:

Part 1. Compare the South East region with the North West region.
a. Analyse the data provided in order to gain an understanding of the pattern of barriers to take up and use of business support.

b. Highlight interesting findings.

c. Make recommendations about areas which require further support.

Part 2. Present your work to the Chief Research Analyst in the form of a report in Word. Submit your analysis in an Excel file which the Chief Research Analyst can use for further investigation.

Assignment

1. You need to spend quite a lot of time familiarising yourself with the data you have been given.

2. For background information, have you looked up the "Department for Business Innovation and Skills" on the internet?

3. The dataset seems to be organised a little like the VRC data we used in class. There is of course far more data in this set compared to the VRC data.

4. For the exercise in Week 6, you were given the questionnaire in pdf form. For the assignment, we are not given the questionnaire as such, but the questions are listed in one of the tabs (Variables). You were expected to discover this for yourself!

5. Have you looked at the Values tab? Can you see how this is linked to the Variables tab? Have you tried to investigate how these tabs are linked to the other tabs? As an example, the first variable in the Variables tab is SIC_CODE. This is also the first thing in the Values tab. Have you realised that the Values tab gives the possible answers for the Standard Industrial Classification? Have you found the possible responses on SIC_CODE in the Data tab? Do these match the possible values listed in the Values tab?