Preparing to Conduct Business Research

Preparing to Conduct Research: Part 3

Preparing to Conduct Research: Part 3

Puzzle’s is a small bar on Mesa Street at El Paso, Texas. The bar has been open for about a year and has been gaining clientele and has a bright future ahead. Although Puzzle’s seems to have enough customer’s to record good sales, it has been losing liquor since two new bartenders came on board.

According to accounting records of Puzzle’s, a small bar, there is a loss in inventory of liquor although the sales have actually been increasing. For the last three months the owner of Puzzle’s has noticed that there is a larger than usual loss in the liquor sold every week, and although there seems to be more customers coming into the bar, and the sales are actually increasing, but the profit is not.

The owner went into the bar to find out what the solution to the problem could be and he taught about how the bartenders were serving the drinks. The owner had the idea that the liquor was being wasted at serving time.  First, the calculation of how much does a bottle generate in sales and the result was about $165. If there were 20 bottles used per night the sales should be at $3300.00. In the income sheet the bar was reporting $2300.00 in sales which is $1000.00 less than what it should be. Since this issue started when the new bartenders came on board and they are the ones serving the drinks there is a relationship between the new bartenders and the loss of liquor. In a bar drinks are served with 1oz of alcohol, one bottle has 33oz to 34oz, which means that each bottle should serve 33 to 34 drinks. With these calculations the result indicates that Puzzles is losing about 6 bottles per night. When the question of why is thrown into the air two answers come in faster than the rest, either the new bartenders are over-serving alcohol in the drinks, or they are spilling too much alcohol when making the drinks. The new bartenders could not be properly trained and therefore they may not be using the correct measurement utensil, or they just don’t have the necessary skill to be a bartender. Also, the bartenders could not be putting enough attention to making the drinks because they are too busy and cannot handle the rush. Therefore they become stressed and sloppy. When dealing with an issue involving people even mood swings can be a problem, instead keeping it simple becomes the best solution. If the two existing bartenders are retrained and motivated, and there is an extra properly trained bartender added to busy times, the bar can be running smoother, and the bartenders can become more conscious about the amount of alcohol they are serving and wasting.

In the process of business research and building a possible solution to the problem, there are some variable that should be taken into consideration. It is important to identify and explain these variables in order to have a better understanding of the issue. The bar puzzles in this case scenario, has a very clear dependent variable, which is the loss in inventory of liquor (DV). This dependent variable determines the main issue that needs resolving and it is what the independent variables will be either directly or indirectly affecting. In other word the dependent variable “depends” on the independent variable.

The loss in inventory of liquor is being affected by other issues, independent variables, which could be more than one, even many. The loss in inventory of liquor at Puzzles is being affected primarily by the addition of a new crew (IV), this is the independent variable. Since the addition of a new crew does not alone affect the loss of liquor, then there has to be an intervening variable that sits in between the independent and dependent variables. There are two most identifiable intervening variables; over-serving (IVV) alcohol and spilling it (IVV). These are considered intervening variables because it takes rookies to either over-serve or spill alcohol when serving drinks, which in consequence causes puzzles to be sort on alcohol inventory according. The intervening variables lay between the independent and dependent variable making it a chain of effects.

There are also some moderating variables to be considered in the conduction of the business research. The moderating variables are those variables that set the environment but do not affect the dependent variable directly. Puzzles has been increasing the amount of clients the bar receives each night, therefore the business (MV) of Puzzle’s is considered a moderating variable because it is something that could or could not affect the loss of liquor.

During the process of business research there are an infinite number of variables that could be taken into consideration but that sometimes become less relevant and it is better to keep things simple. In this research an investigation and analysis has taken a shape to address and explain the dependent variable and is independent variables.