Using Data to Build Business Practice

This report explores the concept of data analysis for effective business decision making. It analyzes the data of BIS to identify patterns of barriers that restrict the use of business support. The report highlights interesting findings and provides recommendations for areas that require further support.

Using data to build business
practice

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Analysing the data of BIS to identify the pattern of barriers which restrict use of business
support.........................................................................................................................................1
Highlighting interesting findings...............................................................................................10
Recommendations about areas which require further support..................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Data analysis is a science of analysing numerical information by applying tools and
techniques of business intelligence so that meaningful insights can be gained from the data. This
concept is highly used by contemporary organisation to understand market and their customers.
The main aim of this present report is to develop understanding regarding data collection
instruments for effective business decision making. For this aim, a data set of BIS is given; BIS
is a Department for Business Innovation and Skills. Using this dataset, a comparison analysis has
been made between South East regions with the North West region in order to identify the
pattern of barrier which limits businesses to take up and use business support. This report will
include interesting findings about the data along with few recommendations that require further
support.
MAIN BODY
Analysing the data of BIS to identify the pattern of barriers which restrict use of business support
Data analysis is a wide concept which includes various processes of data collection, data
mining, data analysis and data visualisation. The data set of BIS is a large data set which is in the
form of a questionnaire. BIS has distributed this questionnaire to 1203 small businesses in order
to gain responses of business owners on why they do not acquire business support from external
parties. The aim of this report is to compare responses of business owners of only two regions
which are South East and North West. The Excel sheet which is provided is filtered first to
reduce the data to only two regions. This reduced data is then copied into a new Excel sheet.
The reduced data is first reviewed to gain familiarity with the data. All the variables and
their values are observed effectively; by critically observing these variables, it has been
concluded that only few of these variables are required to be used for the analysis of identifying
barrier patterns. This analysis is divided in to two sections, the first section will identify that at
what percentage business owners of both the regions has used external business support and
why. In the second section, the reasons will be determined that why business owners do not use
business support to attain business success and growth.
For first section, the variables which are used are Q3_1 and Q3_2A to Q3_2CS. Before
this analysis, it is important to ascertain that which region has more number of urban and rural
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businesses as it can be an interesting point of distinction in both the regions. This analysis has
made by developing a PIVOT table and then selecting “Region” as volume label and
“URBANRURAL_1” as row label and values. The PIVOT table data and support bar chart is
attached below:
Row Labels South East North West Grand Total
Urban 166 121 287
Rural 56 28 84
Grand Total 222 149 371
The above analysis has used Excel functions of PIVOT table and bar chart from which it
has been observed that South East region has high number of businesses that 222 than North
West region which has 149 as its total number of busineses. Considering this disntinction,
number of Urban and rural businesses are also higher in South East region. But, this also imply a
point of difference that South East region has more percent of Rural businesses than North West
region and North West has high percent of urban business than South East region. This analysis
interprets that the practice of traditional business methods is higher in South East.
Returning to the Q3_1 variable, this question has asked from its respondents that whether
they have ever used external professional business support for smooth conduction of their
business or not. The below analysis is supported by Excel functions of PIVOT table and bar
chart.
Row Labels South East North West Grand Total
Urban 293 211 504
Yes 39 31 70
No 254 180 434
Rural 94 50 144
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Yes 18 6 24
No 76 44 120
Grand Total 387 261 648
The above analysis provides various points of differeneces between both the regions.
Above chart presents that only few of the lot has ever used external professional and innovation
services. The number of busineses which have used the external services is higher in South East
region. But the percent of not using external professional services is also much higher in this
region and the reason behind it is seemed to be the high rural businesses in this area.
Once it has been analysed that only few busineses has used external professional business
support, the type of business service is essential to be analysed now. For this, Excel functions of
Pivot table, bar graphs, MIN() and MAX() are used. The results of such analysis are attached
below:
Row Labels South East North West Grand
Total
Urban
Accountant 18 17 35
Bank 5 7 12
Solicitor 8 7 15
Sectorial trade bodies/trade associations 4 4 8
Business membership organizations 7 4 11
Enterprise Agencies 1 1
Private sector Training Provider 7 4 11
Formal business networking group 4 1 5
Buyer or Supplier of products and services 3 1 4
3

Management / Business Consultants 15 7 22
SMMT
Voluntary organizations 1 1
Other private sector sources of advice or
support 2 2
Don't know 1 1
Blank
Rural
Accountant 12 6 18
Bank 4 3 7
Solicitor 5 2 7
Sectorial trade bodies/trade associations 3 3
Business membership organizations 1 1 2
Enterprise Agencies 1 1
Private sector Training Provider 2 1 3
Formal business networking group 1 1
Buyer or Supplier of products and services 2 1 3
Management / Business Consultants 9 3 12
SMMT
Voluntary organizations
Other private sector sources of advice or
support 3 3
Don't know
Blank
4

South East
Urban
North West
Urban
Minimum 1 1
Maximum 18 17
South East
Rural
North West
Rural
Minimum 1 1
Maximum 12 6
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The above analysis reflects that there are various types of external services which are
used by business owners such as Accounting, Bank, Solicitor and many others. Among these
services, the service which is most used in South East region is Accountant by both urban
businesses and rural business. On the other hand, in North West region as well Accountant is the
most used business support used by both Urban and Rural business. But this does not mean that
this analysis does not provide any point of difference. By critically evaluating the graph
developed, a point of difference has been identified that businesses of South East region is more
engaged in using management and business consultant support from external professional when
compared to North West region’s businesses. The reason behind this difference is seemed to be
the high population of rural businesses in South East region due to which may be they are unable
to manage their operations in this contemporary world by their traditional practices.
At this instant, it has been effectively analysed that only few of a lot businesses ever used
external professional business support services and if they do, they mostly use accountant or
management services as it helps them for their profitability which is a great concern for every
business. But now, it is important to identify pattern of the barrier that why these businesses limit
themselves from using external business support. For this purpose, two variables of the BIS data
set are used; these variables are Q4_4 and Q4_7.
The Variable Q4_4 is focused on asking the respondents that do they think that their
business could have significantly benefitted from external information or advice. The analysis of
this variable has been conducted by using Excel functions of Pivot table, MIN (), MAX () and
bar graph. The result of this variable analysis is attached below:
Row Labels South East North West Grand Total
Urban 106 71 177
Yes 22 12 34
No 75 54 129
Don't know 7 5 12
N/A 2 2
Rural 25 18 43
Yes 7 3 10
No 17 14 31
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Don't know 1 1 2
N/A
Grand Total 131 89 220
South East
Urban
North West
Urban
Minimum 2 5
Maximum 75 54
South East
Rural
North West
Rural
Minimum 1 1
Maximum 17 14
The above analysis has successfully helped in identifying one barrier which limits
businesses from using external professional business support. The above analysis reflects that out
of 106 South East Urban businesses only 22 think that external business support can help them;
this percentage slightly increases in rural areas as out of total 25 South East rural businesses, 7
think that external businesses can help them. This situation is even worst in North West region as
in this area; maximum businesses which think that they can get benefitted from using external
business support are 12 in urban region and 3 in rural region. The maximum is a descriptive
statistics which reflects that maximum businesses do not think that they can gain any advantage
from gaining external professional help. This analysis implies that the most influential barrier
which is present between businesses and professional help is though process and mind set of
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business owners. This analysis has also provided a point of difference that North West region has
more population of business which think they will not get any benefit from acquiring external
business support; they reason behind this situation can be the high percentage of urban
businesses in this region which thinks that they have enough resources and skills to run a
business and any external help will be a waste of time and money.
Identifying one barrier which restricts business owners from using external business
support is not enough due to which another variable that has been assessed is Q4_7. This
variable is a question which asks from its respondents that if they require business support
service will they be willing to pay for it. This analysis is supported by Pivot table, graph and
summary statistics.
Row Labels South East North West Grand Total
Urban 106 71 177
Yes 55 34 89
No 41 32 73
Don't know 8 5 13
N/A 2 2
Rural 25 18 43
Yes 16 12 28
No 7 6 13
Don't know 2 2
N/A
Grand Total 131 89 220
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Column1
Mean 1.554545
Standard Error 0.044718
Median 1
Mode 1
Standard Deviation 0.663275
Sample Variance 0.439934
Kurtosis 0.631042
Skewness 0.982251
Range 3
Minimum 1
Maximum 4
Sum 342
Count 220
The above analysis includes a table of summary statistics which is developed by using the
Excel function of data analysis, using this function all descriptive statistics were identified all at
once. The above analysis has also successfully identified one more barrier due to which business
owners do not prefer to use external business support and this barrier is lack of monetary
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resources. Every private business support professional individual or organisation charge a lot for
their services, this becomes a barrier for small businesses to utilise these services. From the
above graph and tables, it can be seen that most business owners of both the regions are not
willing to pay amount for external professional services. The mean of his variable dataset is 1.55
which indicates that most people has chosen the option no which reflects people do not will not
pay money for such services. The reason behind this situation can be the lack of monetary
resources. The businesses which are the respondents to this research are small and
entrepreneurial businesses which do not have enough money to pay for external assistance.
The above analysis has two sections; the first section identified point of differences
between South East and North West region along with the evidence that businesses to do not
prefer to acquire external professional business support. The second section identified the barrier
patterns which restricts business owners from using professional services.
Highlighting interesting findings
BIS is a Department for Business Innovation and Skills which guide start ups and
entrepreneurial ventures regarding how to effective operate in competitive market and how to be
innovative while competing. There are various interesting findings which are gathered from BIS
data set which can be useful for BIS and their operations. These findings are:
 South East region has more number of businesses than North West region; but, the ratio
of urban businesses is higher in North West and ratio of rural businesses is higher in
South East. The region with high rural businesses tends to use traditional business
practices.
 The Urban businesses of North West region has higher ratio of using external
professional business support but rural businesses of South East has even higher ratio of
using business support. This assisted in gaining an interesting fact that rural businesses of
South East are more focused than the other region and urban businesses of are more
focused than the other region.
 Accountant is the most used professional service in both the regions followed by business
consultancy. Despite of different ratios of businesses in both the regions, these services
remain to be most used services.
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 Business owners of both the regions have a mind set and though process that even if they
use professional business support from private organisations, then also they will not be
benefitted in any sense. The ratio of this through process is concluded to be higher in
North West region and this is because of the high urban business population of this
region which think that they have all the skills which are required to effective execute a
business.
 Lack of Monetary resources is the most influential barrier after mind set of business
owners which restricts themselves from using external business support services from
professional organisations.
Recommendations about areas which require further support
The above report has assisted in identifying various areas which require further support. Few
of such areas are recommended below:
 The South East region has high ratio of rural businesses which are based on traditional
business practices. BIS must support these businesses and spread awareness regarding
external support by making them belief that gaining external assistance does not breach
any traditional model or pattern of their business.
 Businesses who have do not used professional service from outside source ever, they
must be given demo services for exchange of no monetary resource so that they can
understand that external business support services are value for money and investing in
such service will result in gain to the business.
 North West region has higher number of urban business which practice modern business
models but are over confident in regard to use any business support. These businesses
require further support so that they can understand that while having skilful employees,
it is important in some situations to gain external assistance.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that business analysis is also a service along
with a concept which can be given to organisations so that they can get benefit from business
intelligence. The above report also concludes that BIS must spread awareness regarding their
services so that small and entrepreneurial businesses can gain benefit from the professional
services.
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