Reference no: EM131357884 , Length: word count:2000

Introduction

The Kingston Department Store (KDS) is engaged in an 18-month business strategy review project.

KDS is a well-established department store that has recently been extensively refurbished at a cost of £5.3 million - a considerable investment for the owners. While this had been undertaken as part of a plan to maintain and develop a customer base, initial results are disappointing in terms of company turnover and numbers of customers: turnover has not risen more than might be expected in terms of market averages and customer numbers are also not dissimilar from last year's. This suggests something more needs to be done to increase use of the store, customer numbers and so on.

A decision has already been made to introduce store account facilities, on the assumption that this will enhance customer loyalty. However, it is believed that further information about customer motivations is needed if KDS is to meet its strategic objectives.

The qualitative research set out to understand how existing customers can be encouraged to use the store more often and to spend more money at the store. This assignment focuses exclusively on customers aged 45-60.

Research Aim

To establish motivations of this group of customers for using Kingston Department stores (KDS) and explore how they can be encouraged to spend more in the store.

Research Questions

1) What aspects of the store encourage/discourage use of the store and spending amongst this customer segment?

2) What changes/new developments might encourage greater use of the store and an increase in spend with the store?

3) What kinds of competition is KDS facing?

Research design

For this assignment, you are asked to analyse the data in nine interviews conducted with 45-60 year-old female customers of KDS. These participants were recruited in-store on three consecutive week-day mornings in early December last year and were each taken through a structured interview in a small staff room. Some follow-up prompts were used to add depth to the interviews. Convenience sampling was used: the interviewer approached women who appeared to be aged 45-60 and interviewed the first nine that fell into the age-bracket and agreed to participate. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

The assignment

In the assignment you should demonstrate your ability to:
- develop and apply a coding frame to interview transcripts
- conduct a data-reduction exercise using the Framework approach
- produce a short report of your findings and provide supporting evidence for all of your findings.

You should:

1) create a coding frame

2) annotate the interview transcripts with the codes

3) create charts for the transcripts

4) use the charts to analyse the data

Your assignment should consist of:

1. a report of around 2,000 words in length that:
· states the research aims
· gives a short, critical description of the data collection and analysis methodology
· presents your findings and uses data from the interviews to support them
· presents conclusions and appropriately tentative recommendations that are suitable for the management of KDS

2. an appendix that includes:
· your coding frame
· the interview scripts and your coding of them
· your completed framework charts.Survey 1: (Quantitative Data Analysis Assignment)

In order to investigate the wealth of KDS customers and whether or not they have applied for and were granted credit with KDS, a survey using a self-completion questionnaire was employed. The questionnaire contained questions on age, years in work, type of occupation and level of education amongst other things.

The relevant data are contained in the Credit.sav file; the specification of the variables is presented at the end of this document. The assignment comprises the following two parts.

Part 1
You are required to:

a. provide a graph representing JOBINC and interpret the information the graph conveys,

b. comment on the summary statistics describing the main features and distribution characteristics of JOBINC, and

c. using JOBINC or any other ratio variable, carry out significance tests on two and more than two population means.

Part 2
Develop the "best" model to explain/predict JOBINC. State fully the assumptions underlying the estimation procedures used and identify any estimation problems that arise when these assumptions break down.

The focus must be on interpretation of results and clearly stating and explaining any underlying assumptions. Formulae are not required! Avoid including irrelevant and unnecessary information in your assignment; supporting information may be placed in appendices.

Assignment File:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dqseul7217z6vr/Assignment%20Quantitative.zip?dl=0