Statistics and Business Research Methods Major Retail Company

Question: Discuss about the Statistics and Business Research Methods for Major Retail Company. Answer: Introduction Woolworths limited is a major retail company, which operates in Australia and New Zealand area. Its headquarter lies on Bella Vista, New South Wales in Australia (Arli et al. 2013). Founded in September 22 in the year 1924, the company had been functioning over 91 years in Australia (Bailey 2016). They provide various facilities and opportunities to their customers. However, Woolworths limited had announced a huge loss to this financial year until august 2016. In this assignment, the impact of the business of Woolworths limited on the customers satisfaction will be explored. This will give an idea whether the customers satisfaction level had resulted in the loss of the company in the recent past. The idea about the collection of data in this context and the methods of analysis required to analyse the data would be mentioned in this assignment. Interpretation of the analysis would provide the idea about the reason behind this financial loss of the company. Problem statement The problem statement of this assignment is to understand the customers satisfaction of the buyers of products from Woolworths Limited in Australia and the impact of customers satisfaction on the business of the company. Research aim The aim of the research is to understand the customers satisfaction of Woolworths Limited and its impact on the business of the company. Research objective The objective of the research is as follows: To understand the satisfaction level of the customers of Woolworths Limited To understand the financial condition of Woolworths Limited in the recent past To find the impact of the satisfaction level of the customers of Woolworths Limited on the business and financial condition of the company Research questions The research questions are as follows: What is the satisfaction level of the customers of Woolworths Limited? What is the financial condition of Woolworths Limited in the recent past? What is the impact of the satisfaction level of the customers of Woolworths Limited on the business and financial condition of the company? Literature review According to the viewpoint of Devin and Richards (2016), it was seen that satisfaction level of the customers is an important part of the business of any company. The higher the satisfaction level of the customers, the more is the profit in the business of any company. The business of Woolworths Limited also depends on their customers satisfaction level. It was seen that Woolworths Limited had framed various policies to increase the satisfaction level of the customers. As per the viewpoint of Hill and Day (2015), it was seen that Woolworths had introduced new products with time and had increased the varieties of products for their customers. This gave the customers ample of choices while purchasing the products. Woolworths also provides their customers with various offers occasionally. It is seen that Woolworths Limited provide various offers during Christmas, Easter and other special offers. They also provide special offers and hampers on the birthdays and anniversaries of the customers. This attracts more customers to their stores and increases the satisfaction level of the customers. It was also seen that the stores provide discounts to their customers on various occasions. They also provide to the customers during weekends. This also increases the satisfaction level of the customers. However, sometimes the customers find that the price of the products found in Woolworths Limited is slightly higher than the products found outside the retail stores. This had created a negative impact of the satisfaction level of the customers as they find the price of the products higher than that found outside the stores. As per the viewpoint of Parsons and Wilkinson (2015), it was seen that the in the year 1996, Woolworths Limited had also started their business in petrol market. In the year 2004, Woolworths Limited had introduces a discount of four cent per litre in order to attract customers to their newly formed business. in the year 2008, Woolworths limited had allowed their customers to earn shopping cards redeemable at their group retailers. This had also increased the satisfaction level of the customers over the recent past. However, it was seen that the company had faced losses in the present financial year. They had announced a loss of $1.235 billionfor the financial year on 25th August 2016 (Kang and Gray 2013). This had been seen as the biggest lost since the last twenty years. The relationship between the customers satisfaction and the financial condition of the company would be explored in this assignment. Methodology Data collection Both primary and secondary data would be collected for this research. Primary data would be collected by surveying thirty randomly chosen customers of Woolworths. Questionnaire methods would be used to collect the primary data from the customers. Data about the financial condition would be collected from the records of Woolworths limited. Quantitative data would be collected for the survey. Data analysis The collected data would undergo methods of descriptive statistics and methods of central tendency. These statistical methods would give an idea about the customers satisfaction of Woolworths Limited and the financial condition in the recent years. Correlation and regression would also be done in order to test the dependency of customers satisfaction on the financial condition of the company. Ethical considerations Various ethical issues must be considered during the survey. The respondents should not be forced to answer the questions and they should be provided with the purpose of the survey prior to asking them questions. The researcher must take permission from the respondent prior to using the data in the research. The collected data should not be alerted during its use and the identity of the respondents must not be revealed. Conclusion It is expected that the customers satisfaction will be influencing the financial condition of the company. It is expected that there had been various other retail stores whose policies and products are better than Woolworths Limited. There had been decline in the customers loyality, which had resulted in such a huge loss by the company. It is also expected that the product varieties and the qualities in Woolworths Limited had fallen below the expectation of the customers. Recommendation It is recommended that the company survey their customer and focus on customers feedbacks to have a gain in the business. It is also recommended that the company must change their policies and rebuild their strategies, which would draw more customers and would increase their sales. The company should improve their services and provide better products to their customers. References Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. Woolworths Australia and Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration.Journal of Economics, Business, and Accountancy| Ventura,16(1), pp.27-46. Bailey, M., 2016. Absorptive Capacity, International Business Knowledge Transfer, and Local Adaptation: Establishing Discount Department Stores in Australia.Australian Economic History Review. Devin, B. and Richards, C., 2016. Food Waste, Power, and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Australian Food Supply Chain.Journal of Business Ethics, pp.1-12. Hill, A. and Day, P., 2015. National food incident response.Food Australia,67(1), p.28. Kang, H. and Gray, S.J., 2013. Segment reporting practices in Australia: Has IFRS 8 made a difference?.Australian Accounting Review,23(3), pp.232-243. Parsons, A. and Wilkinson, M.H., 2015. Retailing in New Zealand: Where Are We and Where To Next?. InEuropean Retail Research(pp. 141-160). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.