Exam (elaborations)
Unit 26
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
Fully written A+/D* version of Unit 26
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Unit 26 managing business information.P1 Describe the characteristics of information needed in a selected
organization.
British Airways
Introduction
British Airways is a full service global airline, offering year round low fares and flag carrier
airline of the United Kingdom Founded in 1924 as previously known as Imperial Airways,
and operated under that name until 1935. In 1939, the airline was nationalized to form the
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) following on in 1972, BOAC and BEA (Bureau
of Economic Analysis) were combined under the British Airways Board. The mission of BA
was to be the world's favourite airline provider, giving the full service experience and
achieving the target on both, in-flight and on the ground. Some basic information about BA is
that they currently have 40,000 employees and a turnover of 11.719 billion, housing over
280 aircrafts and 40 million customers a year.
BA puts the needs and requirements of the customers at the heart of their business, without
the continued loyalty customers give BA would not be in the position it is in today, but most
importantly by focusing on the customers it has granted British airways many opportunities.
The main and most vital opportunity this has granted BA is to collate information about the
market more effectively, efficiently and successfully. They do this by gathering feedback on
what the customers opinion was about the service they received. Moreover, this is known as
primary or original research, where the organization has conducted the research themselves
and so it has come from their own sources. Primary research is very crucial for a business
like an airline as they live off the success of their customers, at all times the brand's
reputation must be very respected and appreciated in the industry, like many other airlines
they are fighting for the customers. Furthermore, they live off the customer’s success and
what their opinions are, at all times customers should remain the concentration, this is so the
customer feels they have an impact/they matter and that they will return again or even share
with others about their personal experience. Primary research is important to BA because it
is important to have unused and fresh data to determine what or how they should make their
product/services more enhanced.
Adding to this secondary research is another important factor for British Airways, they must
be able to backup evidence from their findings in their primary research. This is used as a
proving methodology, organizations like BA utilize secondary research to show their findings
are the same or similar to other individuals research. For example, if BA are trying to find the
best snacks for customers whilst on flight and they conduct a focus group and gather
findings they will additionally use the internet as a tool to find websites carrying the same or
similar data as evidence highlighting and justifying the findings from the original research. If
British Airways wanted to understand what their customers thought or what competitors were
doing, they could choose from two different forms of research. Data that comes from the
organization itself which is known as internal secondary data, or data that has been
published by another organization, which is also known as external secondary data. The
easiest way that BA can understand what their competitors are doing is by searching
through data on the internet, information from agencies such as government agencies,
, libraries and local councils. One advantage that secondary research poses is that it does not
require British Airways to spend any money on receiving the data and information, as the
details are already taken they do not have to fund for surveys to be created. However, there
are drawbacks with this type of information, it is very accessible meaning all other
businesses have the same opportunity to find secondary resources, any data BA may find
could have been used already and still will be used in the future. Adding to this the data BA
may find whilst searching for secondary resources is not always reliable and the facts may
be out of date, the market is constantly changing and is rarely the same for very long.
Finally, the opinions coming from the website or source may be biased, the creator of the
source could be misleading due to individual favouritism.
Lastly British Airways are also eligible to use qualitative data sampling methods in order to
come to conclusions, figures and numbers are good ways at looking at the statistical side of
matters for BA but if they wish to find information on the interests and opinions of the
consumers then a qualitative method is more suitable. Qualitative research seeks to
understand a given research topic or problem from the perspectives of the local population
that it involves in its sample. Qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining culturally
specific information about the values, behaviours, opinions and social contexts of particular
groups of people. An example of how they could use it is, if customers experienced stress or
anxiousness during a flight they would use qualitative research to find the cause of stress
and at what point during the flight spiked the stress levels the highest. This is easily
conducted via monitoring the heart rates of all passengers on board, (children under the age
of 5 would be excluded from the experiment as the heart rate would be too diverse and
would interfere with the findings). Adding to this experiment a mobile app or survey of some
form should also be created to check in during the journey and report where they are feeling
stress and the reason, but with this they also should mention at which stages they felt at
ease so comparisons can be drafted, and reflections can be made. These results should
remain anonymous to therefore influence people to say truly how they feel.
Conclusion
It is critical that large FTSE 350 organizations like British Airways conduct regular timely
research on their customers to keep information updated. There are many easy to conduct
forms of research and BA uses different methods in order to collect this data, some ways are
more effective and responsive at receding the feedback. Primary research could be
considered more reliable and successful than using a secondary source, however it is
important to use both methods as a means to provide enhanced evidence that backs up
data collected in original findings. The purpose and need for these diverse ways of gathering
information is to supply the corporation with ways they can excel further than competition,
answer questions they may have that will ultimately improve the service that they provide or
to develop a stronger connection and relationship to the consumers which will build on trust
and loyalties to the business.
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