Qualitative Vs. Quantitative Research Methods

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research Methods

Quantitive Business Analysis

January 17, 2016

Abstract

The challenging obstacles presented in business seem to boil down to one area - tough decision making.  As leaders and managers, it is necessary for one to first be able to identify the problems at hand and then to be able to accurately determine which methods to use in order to seek appropriate solutions. Sometimes there are many alternative solutions to choose from and the manager must be able to analyze the best alternative and pick the best one - this is done in order to guide the direction of the organization in the best course based on the chosen solution.  We will discuss some different methods and two categories of different data researching and use it to determine how businesses are able to fine tune the efficiency of its teams and increase revenue as a direct result of analyzing this data.

Introduction

What are some of the best ways to reach out to our consumers and sell in today’s competitive environment?  Word of mouth approach or direct to the consumer? Radio, TV or newspaper exposure?  To answer these questions, business research is needed.

Business research methods are often used when one is posed with these types of challenging questions – these are questions that all business marketers are confronted with when putting together an effective strategy to reach its target markets. What is the best answer?  The best answer is only realized after the research has gathered all of the data, and the data is narrowed down, and then analyzed to determine the possible alternatives based on the data. This research can help determine which strategy is the best approach and which method to use (by means of quantitative data or qualitative data). The reason this question is so important to businesses is because, “ultimately the success of the companies relies on their human resources and business and marketing strategies “(Akbar, 2015). An organization must be able to conduct research and have a good analytical approach on what its consumers want if it wishes to have longevity in this ever changing business environment.

Next this report will explore the two different kinds of data research – quantitative and qualitative. They both have its advantages and disadvantages and both offer very good information to use when making tough decisions.

Research

When analyzing research data there are three areas of analytics a manager must use: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics is studying what happened, predictive analytics is using past data to predict future behaviors, and prescriptive analytics is deciding what the best course of action based on input data (Camm et al., 2015). There are a couple different ways that data is gathered when conducting research, and are either categorized as quantitative or quantitative research. The difference between the two are that quantitative research is, “data where numerical values are used to indicate magnitude, such as how many or how much. Arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication can be performed on quantitative data” (Camm et al., 2015). Quantitative data includes lot of the actual statistics, tables, graphs, or charts based on the research. This type of research tends to be the most difficult and time consuming.

The other category of research contains the Qualitative data. Qualitative data is any research that is compiled that is not able to be applied to mathematics – usually is in the form of surveys, opinions, notions, ideas, or any other subjective data which is gathered from groups or individuals which may be skewed or influenced by emotions and personal beliefs.

After this data is gathered in small or large amounts, one is to attempt to determine patterns or repeating cycles, in order to try and forecast future behaviors or outcomes.

Comparison

In the case called, A CASE STUDY: THE SIGNIFICANT OF WORD-OF-MOUTH AND INTERNET, it explains the various methods used when determining the effectiveness of word of mouth selling, versus direct to the consumer internet strategies. The author was able to integrate both quantitative and qualitative research strategies into the case study; although, the bulk of this research was in the form of gathered data which was put into charts, where the author was able to scientifically explain the areas that can be improved upon. These conclusions were based on nine areas of the research: security issues, online reviews, trust, credibility, search engine, brand, personal relevancy, price, and refund policy (Akbar, 2015). The beneficial results of this research allowed the company to choose the three most important elements of its direct selling model and improve its customer base by catering to the needs of its consumer, based on the research study. This is an example of how one can use this research gathered and plug it into an analytic model and determine what is important to the consumer based on solid facts, versus subjective opinion.