Case Study For In Class Groupwork
Case Study
A small business located in the Greater East Tamaki Business District has just had a new a Director appointed to the Board, Joanna Papuni. She is keen to see the business develop and has therefore added $100 000 capital to the business. The company sells plastic containers largely to the New Zealand market and has 30 employees.
The company has always operated as a small family business and Joanna is not a family member. She would like to conduct research projects with the following objectives in mind:
1. She is very keen to improve the current paper-based Accounting practices and change to a fully computerised system for managing accounts, inventory control and client and customer management.
2. She wants to conduct some market research to firstly establish whether there will be an advantage in increasing their product range and secondly to establish what their competitors are selling and plan to do I the short to medium term.
3. She is aware that there have some human resource issues and family members who have been in the business a long time are resistant to change. She feels that she needs to bring in new creative people to advance the company. She needs to prepare a document to justify this to the other Directors.
4. The management of the business operations is also outdated and she wants some research done to see how the operations practices currently in place can improve.
5. She wants to improve internal and external communication since the staff and management appear to be operating as two separate units.
Answer the following questions in your groups. Prepare your answers in any electronic format to present to the class.
1. Outline the key research problem or problems that are facing Joanna
2. Identify what research data she needs to gather and what methods she can use to gather this data.
3. What can she read to improve her understanding of the issues.
4. Outline the stages in the research process for the research project.
A small business located in the Greater East Tamaki Business District has just had a new a Director appointed to the Board, Joanna Papuni. She is keen to see the business develop and has therefore added $100 000 capital to the business. The company sells plastic containers largely to the New Zealand market and has 30 employees.
The company has always operated as a small family business and Joanna is not a family member. She would like to conduct research projects with the following objectives in mind:
1. She is very keen to improve the current paper-based Accounting practices and change to a fully computerised system for managing accounts, inventory control and client and customer management.
2. She wants to conduct some market research to firstly establish whether there will be an advantage in increasing their product range and secondly to establish what their competitors are selling and plan to do I the short to medium term.
3. She is aware that there have some human resource issues and family members who have been in the business a long time are resistant to change. She feels that she needs to bring in new creative people to advance the company. She needs to prepare a document to justify this to the other Directors.
4. The management of the business operations is also outdated and she wants some research done to see how the operations practices currently in place can improve.
5. She wants to improve internal and external communication since the staff and management appear to be operating as two separate units.
Answer the following questions in your groups. Prepare your answers in any electronic format to present to the class.
1. Outline the key research problem or problems that are facing Joanna
2. Identify what research data she needs to gather and what methods she can use to gather this data.
3. What can she read to improve her understanding of the issues.
4. Outline the stages in the research process for the research project.