Impact of Technology on Argos: A Business Decision Making Report

This report examines Argos's business decision-making, focusing on the impact of innovative technology. The report begins with an introduction to Argos and the importance of effective business decisions. Task 1 outlines the research plan, including primary and secondary data collection methods, research methodologies, and questionnaire design. Task 2 summarizes and evaluates the survey data collected from 30 respondents, drawing conclusions using measures of dispersion, quartiles, percentiles, and correlation coefficients. Task 3 presents the data visually through graphs and formulates a trend line to show the impact of technology over a three-year period. Task 4 discusses the contribution of information processing systems, critical path formulation, and the application of financial tools to enhance decision-making. The report concludes with a summary of findings and references.

Business Decision
Making

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Designing of plan in collection of data ................................................................................1
1.2 Presentation of research methodologies and sample framing used.......................................2
1.3 Designing of questionnaire...................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Summarisation of data collected from survey.......................................................................6
2.2 Evaluation of the results of survey to draw important conclusions......................................8
2.3 Evaluation of the data through application of the method of measures of dispersion........10
2.4 Application of quartiles, percentiles and correlation coefficient to draw results................11
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................12
3.1 Presentation of graphs to draw valid conclusions...............................................................12
3.2 Formulation of trend line to show impact over 3 year period.............................................18
3.3 Poster presentation..............................................................................................................18
3.4 Presentation of formal report for publication in Retail Times magazine............................18
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................19
4.1 Contribution of information processing system to serve various levels of management. . .19
4.2 Formulation of Critical Path................................................................................................20
4.3 Application of financial tools to enhance decision-making................................................22
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23

INTRODUCTION
Business decision making consists procedure of choosing best option which will be
effective for business firm. Effective decisions are helpful in managing business firm in order to
accomplish predetermined targets. Many advantages are derived through a company like for an
instance improving quality of services, better management of staff members, enhance
profitability, effective consumer satisfaction etc. In order to this, secondary as well as primary
research plays a necessary role on gathering relevant information as well as feedbacks from
respondents related to the present services (Bayne and Woolcock, 2011). It gives an effective
opportunity to business firm to make necessary modifications in its process in context to
satisfying demands of consumers in a proper manner. This report is based on the Argos
organisation. Argos is catalogue retailer in United Kingdom and also subsidiary of Sainsbury
firm. It trades by online as well as physical stores with more than 845 retailers. Under this
mention report discuss about the formulation of the effective plan for gathering relevant data.
After that there will be evaluation of information and data which is gathered by research.
TASK 1
1.1 Designing of plan in collection of data
Argos is British retailer operates their business functions in UK and Ireland. It is one of
the subsidiary of Sainsbury. This organisation operates their functions through both modes
online and offline. It is observed that it has over 845 retail shops and successfully attracts more
than 29 million customers. One of the main aim of organisation is to ascertain the importance of
innovative technology upon different aspects. In this regard, research is conduct which helps to
gather the information about impact of innovative technology for influencing the behaviour of
customers, contribution in improvement of quality of product, helps in attraction of higher
number of customers and its impact upon businesses of high street shops and malls.

The two important methods which contributes in collection of important information
includes primary and secondary method. Both the methods contains different tools. All these
tools have their different roles and functions. These methods are used by the researcher for
collection of information from respondents and market to draw important conclusions.
Primary method: It is best method which helps in collection of true and reliable
information. Such type of information is called first-hand which is directly gathered from
respondents. This method provides the opportunity to Argos to ascertain the views of
respondents about quality of their actual products and methods which are used to conduct
business activities. The different techniques which are covered under primary sources is defined
below:
 Survey: This method includes face to face interaction with respondents for collection of
their viewpoints. It helps to assess the information from their behaviours, attitudes,
gestures etc.
 Questionnaire: This method helps to gather the information from the respondents in less
time in comparison to other primary methods. This includes the preparation of different
research questions which asked to respondents (Ferrell and Fraedrich, 2015).
 Online: One of the fastest method to collect information. This method includes
ascertaining the views through online voting.
Secondary method: This method includes collection of information from such sources
which are already published like magazines, books, articles etc. The main advantage of using this
method is that it is time saving and cost efficient. But it doesn't provide more accurate
information in comparison to primary method.
1.2 Presentation of research methodologies and sample framing used
The main motive of Argos firm is to collect relevant data as well as data through
conducting an effective research and survey from those respondents which chosen from total
population. Its main aim is to gather data related to assess of innovate or advanced technology
and determine affect on customer behaviour. Information or data which is collected through an
investigator to understand necessary conclusion as well as outcomes to make the important
modifications. It will be result in make improvement in the management power of decision
making.

Survey methodologies- It consists procedure of market survey in order to accomplish
information as well as data related to current position of firm at market place. For this, it is a
duty of an investigator to determine affect of all innovative tools in the large malls and also
multichannel shopping evolution. There are several tools used through an investigator in order to
interpret outcomes and develop business report in a formal manner. This method is helpful in
conducting survey through questionnaire which consist many questions of research. This is
primary data collection method on which 10 various questions are mentioned.
Sample frame- It is a procedure of preparing sample frame. There are several methods
which available to chose the respondents from selected population. Under this various types of
methods are stratified, random, cluster and many others which come in these two different
categories and these are probability and also non- probability sampling. For the purpose of
selecting respondents from total population, Random sampling method is used. With the helps of
this method 30 respondents are selected to attain their view points regarding impact of innovative
technology upon the business of high street shops and malls. All the information which is
gathered from respondents is analysed with the help of different methods to interpret important
conclusions. The methods which are used in this regard includes mean, median, mode, quartiles,
percentiles, correlation coefficient, standard deviation etc.
In the present report, Researcher made close-ended questionnaire which contains 10
different questions which covers different questions based upon impact of innovative
technology. These questions are asked to 30 respondents to gather first-hand and reliable
information. The different topics which are covered under research includes:
 Impact technology upon business of high street shops
 Importance of online shopping
 Impact upon the buying behaviour of customer
 Existing performance of Argos
 Importance of technological innovation
1.3 Designing of questionnaire
Questionnaire: It is one of the method which is covered under primary source of data
collection. This method helps in collection of views of respondents through framing different
research questions. This method is important because it provides unbiased information which is

more reliable to draw important conclusions. Further, it can be segmented on two types which
are knows as open-ended and close ended (Ford and Richardson, 2013).
Open-ended questionnaire: This main important feature of this questionnaire is that it
provides freedom to the respondents that provide their own views and suggestions regarding
research questions. It helps to attain deep information which improves overall understanding of
management.
Close-ended questionnaire: One of the kind of questionnaire which provides different
options with research question to select appropriate answer as per their choice. In the present
report, this method is used to collect information because it saves time and cost ( García-Peñalvo
and Conde, 2014).
Importance of close-ended questionnaire
There are many importance are associated with the method of questionnaire which are
attained by organisation and researcher are defined below:
 Helps to attain the real views of respondents
 Saves the time and cost ion comparison to other primary methods
 Ascertain the information regarding current position in market
 Helps to ascertain the information regarding quality of their products and services
 Provides opportunity to bring innovation in their existing working techniques for
satisfaction of the different needs of customers
Questionnaire
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Q1. Do you think innovative technology impacts the profitability of high street shops?
 Yes
 No
Q2. Does online platform has large number of importance in current market scenario?
 Highly important
 Average importance
 Less important
Q3. Which mode you select for shopping of their products?

 Online
 Offline
Q4. How much impact of online technology you noticed upon the buying behaviour of
customers?
 High impact
 Moderate
 No impact
Q5. Do you believe online mode makes shopping easy and time saving?
 Yes
 No
Q6. What kind of products you prefer to buy through online mode?
 Electronic
 Home accessories
 clothes
Q7. Did you believe that innovative technology diminished the business opportunities of local
shops?
 Agree
 Disagree
 Cant say
Q8. Does such online mode of shopping is more popular in future period of time?
 More popular
 Moderate
 Less popular
Q9. Does application of innovative technology helps Argos to attract more customers?
 Agree
 Disagree
 Cant say
Q10. What you want to recommend about the use of innovative technologies in business
operations?

TASK 2
2.1 Summarisation of data collected from survey
Q1. Do you think innovative technology impacts the profitability of high street shops?
Particulars No. of respondents
Yes 17
No 13
Total 30
Mean 15
Median 15
Mode 4
Q2. Does online platform has large number of importance in current market scenario?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
Highly
important 15
Average
importance 10
Less
important 5
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 10
Mode 0
Q3. Which mode you select for shopping of their products?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
Online 16

Offline 14
Total 30
Mean 15
Median 15
Mode 2
Q4. How much impact of online technology you noticed upon the buying behaviour of
customers?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
High impact 13
Moderate 9
No impact 8
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 9
Mode 5
Q5. Do you believe online mode makes shopping easy and time saving?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
Yes 20
No 10
Total 30
Mean 15
Median 15
Mode 0
Q6. What kind of products you prefer to buy through online mode?
Particulars
No. of
respondents

Electronic 5
Home
accessories 9
clothes 16
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 9
Mode 5
Q7. Did you believe that innovative technology diminished the business opportunities of local
shops?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
Agree 14
Disagree 10
Cant say 6
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 10
Mode 2
Q8. Does such online mode of shopping is more popular in future period of time?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
More
popular 17
Moderate 10
Less popular 3
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 10
Mode 2

Q9. Does application of innovative technology helps Argos to attract more customers?
Particulars
No. of
respondents
Agree 14
Disagree 9
Cant say 7
Total 30
Mean 10
Median 9
Mode 0
2.2 Evaluation of the results of survey to draw important conclusions
The research is conduct to know the impact of innovative technology upon the business
of high street shops and its importance of organisation. In this regard, 30 respondents provide
their rankings on this research topic. Here, for analysis of the results from such rankings
provided by respondents statistical methods are used such as mean, median and mode.
Application of this method helps in evaluation of the important results which enhance their
decision making and contributes in ascertainment of the importance of use of innovative
technologies and online platform for conducting their business activities (Groebner and et. al.,
2011).
Number of
respondents
Rank given by Respondents (out of
5)
1 1
2 3
3 3
4 2
5 1
6 4
7 2
8 2
9 3
10 1
11 4
12 4
13 2