P6 bisness game-

first attempt
7/5/14- The first time I played the business game I tried to improve my customer service by spending most of my money on staff, as I got primary qualitative information from the costumers that people in the Shop were waiting for assistance, so I hired 2 new staff members and spent a lot of money upgrading the staff room and getting training after this the customer's service started to improve  but after I tried to give training to one of my employees.
 the game started to glitch and I could only fix this by going to the next week. I had to do this two times but after the game began to run again as a notification came up saying that my health was very low, as I had skipped two weeks of game time due to this glitch I had lost all my stock and the costumer service was very poor. I tried to by more stock and take out a loan but when I went to the next week the game ended.

 second attempt

Week 1

I lowered the prices of all my stock to try and bring people in. I did this to gain a competitive advantage over other businesses and this gave me confidence that I would make a profit.  I then got new stock from the loading van, 10 of each. Using this marketing information  I was confident that with the lower prices that the stock would go down quickly. After this I advertised my shop online, in the local newspaper and in the shop window.

Week 2

This week I improved my Human Resources department as I hired a new member of staff, a woman named Rachel, who would work for a salary of £19000. Using marketing information  I then went and made my new stock cheaper to try and encourage more customers.

 

Week 3

This week I refilled all the stock in the stock room as I had timely information that mentioned that it needed refilling  , I then took 2 online training classes in the office, one in customer service and one in advertising to improve my marketing skills, I then used human recourses to  get more staff training from the front desk as customers were complaining about service.

 

 

Week 4

When I started this week I got a weekly report allowing me to receive primary, quantitative information informing of my current cash flow. A woman from the bank told me that I was running low on cash and that my business could be closed down. Using this secondary information  I took a lone from my family and used some of my money to keep the business going. I then got more customer service training from the front desk and volunteered a bit to try and improve service. After this I went to the football game to try and improve my social. I then took some more customer service training.

Marketing

Within my small business I was given reports at the end of each week.  This information showed me all my progress during the week such as the profits/losses I had made/ lost. I can then use this information to see what I need to spend the profits on next week such a staff training or more stock to replace what was lost. 

 

Sales performance

 It showed me what stock was selling the best and what stuff was not from this I then made the stock that wasn’t selling a lot cheaper. I could also use this information to buy more stock of the inventory that was selling well to maximise profits.

 

Competitors

Within the small business I can use the information system to find out what other companies were selling and how much they were charging for them I could then use this information to gain an advantage by lowering my prices to beat them and take their customers.

 

Financial

Using the weekly report from my small business I can see charts which show me how I should be doing for the next week. I can use this information to buy more stock or get a loan or invest in advertising or totally new stock.

 

Human resources

Using the information system with in my small business I can see how my employees are doing and how motivated they are to work. After reading this I can then give them training to
 improve their skills such as customer service. Also if they are badly underperforming I can fire them.

P1 Using information.

company use information in a verity of  way to find out what people want or what not to sell

Types of data

1-primary data
primary data is a date that you have gathered yourself, this date is manly found by using surveys, for primary date you can not use any published information as that is secondary.
2-Secondary data
secondary data is a type of data that come from outside yourself or your company, its is mostly pre-published work such as reviews, large surveys, organisational records. secondary data is much quicker then primary data as you don't have to spend time looking for the information but there is a chance that you can not trust the information.
3-Qualitative Data
Qualitative data is a type of data that dose not use number, raver it is presented using a conversational or narrative form. it is used for data that can only be observed not measured. e.g. costumer satisfaction ask you can not measure how a costumer feels about your shop you have to ask them and then record there response.
4-Quantitative data
Quantitative data is a type of data that can be measured using numbers it is mostly used with distance, volume and time. A way that a small company would use this kind of data is in stock reports eg there are 25 blue shirts in stock and the price is £20 for one.

Purpose

1-Operational Support

OS make quick use of information in day to day work.
monitoring activity
company use information to monitor where the stock is going, Tesco and asdas scan all food coming and going in and out of there different building such as where the food is made where it was transported to, where it was stored, where it will go in the shop and if it has been sold or not.  
controlling activity
using the information gathered they can respond to what is selling, what is not, and where the stock was least is a shipment is late as all the food scanned is sent to a server what it can be assessed when needed 

2-DATA Analysis

when they find out what is selling and what is not they can use that information  to  identify patterns or trends with the costumers they can then have a larger stock in of the food most people buy so they can sell more, likewise is something is not selling they may move it somewhere else in the shop so more people see it. if that dose not work they may stop selling it.  

3- decision making

one of the purpose of information is called decision making, most company will do this. if a shop finds that it is not getting a lot of costumers they may use date they have collected such as there opening times or when most people get off from work, after reading this they make stay open latter so more people can come in after work. a second example of this is special events such as a local football team moving up a league this may result in more fans wanting to bye shirts or memorabilia and the shop knowing this may stock more of those things.

4-Gaining advantage

one of the main uses of information for a company is to gain a advantage over there rivals they use data about the other company such as opening hours, prices, variation of stock and costumer reviews to take the lead. is a rival company has a small stock of high quality but expansive stock the other company may use that and start to sell cheaper stock with a larger quantity. if costumers are not happy with the service from a company other company's may invest in better training so more people are happy coming into there shop    

sources of data

1-internal
internal data is data that has come from inside your company, it is manly used for information that the company has direct control over such as stock lists, population of staff and pay. internal data may take time to find as you have to spend the time of your workers to collect it all unlike external

2-external
external data is a type of data that comes from out side the company such as government research or other companies it is quicker too use external information as you do not have to spend the man hours finding it but it may not be as trust worthy if it came from out side your company