Market Research into the London Zoo

The London zoo

Introduction

The London zoo was very good before but now it is facing problems because visitor number is reducing very much. The government planned to deal with this situation either by closing the zoo or supporting it more with money and other things so that it can continue. Recently, they held a meeting and decided that it is good to do a research so that the zoo can be made to be more profitable in the future.

The manager of the zoo decided to tell a college student to do a market research so that they can know what the visitors are thinking about the zoo and what the visitors want. Now, there are many awareness issues about zoo and about animals and some people are asking why they are keeping animals in zoo and not in the wildlife. This is a difficult question for the managers of zoo to keep. But the zoo still is attracting many visitors from other country and from local.

So we want to talk about the questionnaire which they used for the zoo research.

The questionnaire is very important document if doing research and this can be done by anybody, but those who are doing questionnaire should follow the right process in making it so that the reason for the questionnaire can be known carefully. IT is a primary method of getting data from the source. Primary methods are good as you get first experience. There are other methods called secondary method where information is taken from what had already been made (Creswell, J. 2003: 219).

Some things which they must consider when making a questionnaire is that (Struwig F., 2001: 89-90)

1. The questions should be simple and easy to understand so that those who answer cannot find a problem with this.
2. The questionnaire must be having just enough questions, not too much because, if too much, it is not good. The respondents of questionnaire are not having all time to answer.
3. The one making questionnaire should say why he is making it, what is purpose and who need to use it. This gives assurance to those who answer so that they know what is to be done.
4. The questionnaire also, must have closed questions which make the one who answer not struggle to think about answer, if it does not have close questions, then it is difficult sometime to think about the answer.
5. The question to be given must be very appropriate for the topic, for example in case of London zoo; they have to ask not about politics but about the zoo. This is very important to have relevant information.
6. It is also good to use simple language which everyone can understand and to create common understanding so that people not struggle to answer it.

Compare

This questionnaire of London zoo was made to help find problems facing the London zoo and to use it for making future plans that can solve the problems.

But if we look at the progress, it is seen that this questionnaire has some difference with what is best method. Like

1. This questionnaire does not tell the respondents about their confidential needs. It should say that all information given will be used carefully for the benefit of London zoo.
2. It is very long. The problem is that it is very long and so it is not good. Most respondents will be visitors who want to see animals and when they sit down, they want to relax not to fill questionnaire, he should. For all these questions the visitors will just rush and rush and not do anything good.
3. The questionnaire also is using rating method. This is not as per best practice because it needs that question to be different that so that the respondents are able to know how to do the rating.
4. In some areas of this questionnaire, the language used was not average and may make people to struggle to answer.

Strengths and the weaknesses of the London zoo questionnaire

This questionnaire it has some areas which are good and some which are not good. The strengths and weaknesses are in this table.

Strengths

• It got many questions and likely to answer many answers that is wanted by the manager.
• It has rating method so at analysis stage, this can be done quickly.
• It asks many relevant questions about the zoo and about animals.

Weaknesses

• It is very long, with more than 30 questions which make it very time consuming.
• No objectives are given in the questionnaire.
• Some questions are not clear, like questions 19a, b, and c about commitment. This is not clear.
• This questionnaire is of bad layout and the way question is arranged it will not be very effective.

How Else to gather data

Instead of using this questionnaire, the company could use the face to face interview method in this case the one who is looking for answers could go and ask people at the zoo to say what they thing about the situation at the zoo and what can be done to solve the situation.

The interview method of data collection has following strengths and weaknesses

Strengths of interview

a. At interview, the people can be more willing to take part because they are just answering what they think b. The person asking question only need one paper for questions instead of maybe 1000 and this can be cheap for the process c. At interview, people can be told to explain more about what they think is the situation of the zoo and so more information is taken from them.

Weaknesses of interview

• Interview may not give anyone chance to think about the situation so they can just answer anything they want which is no good.
• Interviews also, time consuming because it does need to stand and wait for all answers before going to the next person.
• It may need many people and can be expensive if all them must be paid salary.

The best

For dealing with the London zoo situation, the best type of method is to use the Interview, this will require a few volunteer to be trained and told to go to field and ask questions. It will not only meet those at the restaurant or those relaxing, but anyone can answer.

For this method to be successful, some questions to be moved and also when asking questions, the interviewers can clarify to the respondent so that they get it clearly.

2. IP matrix: its work and what changes be made to 9×9 matrix (Slack N., 2007: pg 76-78)

IP matrix is to help in making good importance performance decision, about managing the company or organisations. It show a grid of 9×9 where we see importance and performance on one side and the other.

The importance area is the area where there is need an action is taken. It this areas that we have to act. Performance also, is important. In different zones of IP matrix, there is different urgency for performance.

Some action is immediately to taken and others are not.

The IP matrix also, makes company or organisations know what it needs to remove from the list. Like anything excess is not want now and should removed complete.

Changes to IP matrix

The 9×9 matrix is not to be used all situations. It can not give all the good answers need in all situation. It needs changes.

The 9×9 matrix show different points in the graph. Some point is of need urgent action. There is need to be done fast. But others not so much do need action urgently.

The IP matrix for putting London zoo is to be very big. The 9z9 cannot used to put all the information. IN this London zoo, is there many overall figures and all is used so we have to be very careful.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Find out more about our Essay Writing Service

The other change is about this grid. We just need to use line to draw and say all factors in one region is ok the other factor in another region is need changes. This is shown in region A and region B.

Items of Region A they need urgent action priority and those of B are moderate.

Use IP matrix

IP matrix is a tool for managers to make decisions about running the company. They see on the matrix that there are some things that need urgent action and some things which do not.

The managers use the matrix to decide how to approach the future so that they are in a good position to develop the organisations.

IP matrix can also be used as a first stage to doing a statistical evaluation like in using a method like Correlation and Hypothesis testing which are other methods which can be used.

Action graph (appendix area)

Other methods which can be used apart from the IP matrix are;

According to (Freeman D., 2007), there are other methods which may be used to develop and solve this problem apart from IP matrix.

Correlation: it is about testing if there is a relationship between to things for example in the case of London zoo, they may want to test if the facilities at the zoo, discourage the number of visitors. It is important to know what one or two factors affect the others.

Hypothesis testing: In this method the work is to make a conclusion that is not confirmed then to try and confirm the conclusion which has been made. Hypothesis can be Null or alternates.

These could be used instead of IP matrix

Advantages of Correlation

It is a method that can be use to explain the relationship between two variables, like A and B.

It helps to know exactly which thing to deal with so that resources are not wasted like if variable A is the cause of B’s problem, the there is no need to deal with B, ,we just deal with A and save resources.

Disadvantages

• It requires many calculations with a difficult formulae and this may be tiring the researcher.
• This method may not tell us what to do, it is just indicative and cannot be taken as it is.

Hypothesis testing

Advantages

-It gives the researcher the ‘fake’ destination or objective so the researcher is having a guide on where to go.

-It usually good for difficult situations like it can check the expected results versus the observed using what are called Chi square analysis.

Disadvantages;

-This method is difficult to use became it has many stages of using.

-This method does not specify what answer is or the problem. This method depends on the unconfirmed conclusion to be made and this can be a problem if there is no hypothesis.

My improvement to this matrix

If I make a matrix, I could suggest that the IP matrix be changed in some ways.

My improvement to this matrix is from some number of things like

1. Use a design of only four boxes like a table. Not nine sections but only 4. This is easy to use and also the things can be put easily in 4 sections than in 9 sections.

2. Picking only few items which are very important from the ratings so that the iP is made with a few information than too many information which can be confusion.

3. The questionnaire below is given as the alternative to the one which was made by MBA student for London zoo.

There are some best practices points which have been giving in this questionnaire, these are;

a. They questionnaire is not long. It is just a enough number of questions

b. The writer tries to use simple language so that those who are going to answer the questionnaire will find it simple to answer.

c. We try to put in the open ended questions so that it can be easy for the people to just tick the right answers.

d. This also assure of confidentiality of the respondents who will answer.

Conclusion

London zoo should try and find the real reason for all the problems it is facing. There are other external reasons for which nothing is can be done. But in the internal place, they should see that processes and cleanliness is maintained.

They can also use TV advertisement during when time of festival is about to come then to bring more people to the zoo.

This will bring more customers and bring money and will make the zoo to improve very much.

This questionnaire made, can be used to find the main reasons why there is problem at the zoo. They can use the information to improvement by the management.

References

Creswell., J. (2003) Resaerch desing: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach. SAGE. 2nd Edn.

Freeman D., (2007) Statistical models. Theory. Cambridge. Pg,.6

Slack N., (2007) Operations management. Pearson. 5th Edition.

Struwig F., (2001) Planning, designing and reporting research. Pearson South Africa. Pg 89-90