Identify data requirements and the appropriate data collection instruments required for effective business decision making

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:

  1. Compare the London region with the West Midlands region.
    1. Analyse the data provided in order to gain an understanding of the pattern of barriers to take up and use of business support.
    2. Highlight interesting findings.
    3. Make recommendations about areas which require further support.
  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.

Suggested steps:

  • Extract the required data and place it a new Excel file.
  • Familiarise yourself with the data by using Excel’s facilities like sorting, filtering, pivot table, etc.
  • Pick particular aspects that you want to conduct further, more detailed analysis on.
  • Conduct a visual examination of the data by plotting appropriate charts.
  • Calculate some standard statistics (e.g., mean, mode, range, standard deviation, etc.).
  • Conduct additional analysis that you feel is appropriate to address the tasks above.

Notes:

  • THIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU WORK INDEPENDENTLY AND THE WORK YOU SUBMIT (EXCEL FILE AND REPORT IN WORD) IS YOUR OWN.
  • You will probably need to analyse more questions than you can include in your report. You should analyse a number of questions and then select the ones that you find most interesting to include in your report.

Having selected the questions you want to include in your report, you should tidy up your Excel file by deleting work that you don’t include/discuss in your report.