Business Confidence and Expectation Analysis for Ballarat City Council

This report analyzes business confidence and expectations within the Ballarat City Council region, addressing key questions regarding employee numbers, growth strategies, and future business prospects. The analysis, based on collected data from local businesses, reveals an average of 30 employees per business unit, with minor fluctuations in employment over the past year. The report assesses the prevalence of business growth strategies, finding that 71.33% of local businesses employ such strategies, and discusses the impact of these strategies on revenue and employee numbers. It also compares the findings with other reports, discusses the average age of business managers, and projects the number of new businesses expected to open in the coming year. Finally, the report determines the appropriate sample size for future data collection to ensure reliable results, recommending a large sample size to enhance data accuracy and provide a comprehensive overview of the local business environment.

Cover sheet

To: Ballarat City Council
From: Nick Black
Subject: Results from further analysis of Business confidence and expectation
Dear Ballarat City Council,
With reference to the addressed issues in the questions you outlined in your request regarding the
analysis of collected data, the results were as outlined and discussed on this memorandum. It is
to my best interest to provide the insights concerning the business confidence and expectations of
the city council from its registered business units. I expect results from the analysis of data as
from the business units in the city council to benefit the businesses within the region and the city
council in making their decisions. The aims of businesses have been to maximize profits and any
opportunity that would result to profit maximization should not be taken to chance but adopted
for betterment of their performances. This memorandum therefore outlines the effects of
developing and adopting growth strategies in business units in Ballarat City Council region as in
the discussions below;
Question 1
In regards to the number of employees local businesses employ in Ballarat region, the question
was answered by looking at it in three different aspects. The first aspect was in regards to the
actual number of employees that were employed by local businesses in the region. In response to
that, the results showed that there was an average of thirty (30) employees in each business unit
in Ballarat City Council. The second aspect was addressing change in the number of employees
the local business units had faced in the last 12 months. This was investigating the business units
in the region about any change in the number of their employees i.e. whether the number of their
employees was increasing or decreasing. The findings from my analysis revealed that each
business unit had an approximate change i.e. (either increase or decrease) in the number of
employees in the business units to be averagely two (2) employees in the last one year which was
a relatively low number when considered that the employees were only increasing. Increase in
the number of employees in a business unit symbolizes the positive performance of the
businesses thus their growth and development while on the other hand, if the number represented
the average number of employees who were leaving the business units, the number could be of
great negative effect to the businesses and it could show that the businesses were performing
poorly in the city. Finally, the last aspect regarded the number of employees as business units’
expectation on the number of employees in the next 12 months out of which the average number
of employees who were expected to either join or leave the their jobs in the businesses stood at
two (2) people. As explained earlier, the number was relatively small if the number estimated the
employees who would be joining the businesses in the next twelve months but big when they
would be expected to leave.
The average number of employees being 30 per business unit in the city council, they cannot be
classified as small businesses. Though there have been reigning arguments over the correct
definition of either small or big businesses that still remains unsettled. In the reigning definition,
small business is a business with the number of employees not more than 100 (Goss, 2015). This
definition have not been perceived well by the business operators due to different nature of
businesses. Businesses could only be classified as small or big depending on the industry the

business operates and the revenue returns of the business (Vernon, 2017). Businesses in Ballarat
city council could then be categorized as being relatively big in size due to the capacity of
employees they accommodate in average. The expected increase in the number of employees in
the businesses was a positive show and optimism by the business operators that their business
were thriving in the city and there would be positive change in the next 12 months.
Question 2
According to researchers, business strategies are very important in venturing to new
opportunities, sales increase and addition of more staffs as well as attraction of more customers.
Growth strategies are some of the fundamental aspects in business as they contribute positively
to the growth and development of business units. In that regards therefore, businesses straggle to
ensure that they have strategies that conform to their objectives to enhance their achievements.
From the analysis I conducted, the number of local businesses within Ballarat City Council was
found to be standing at seventy one point three percent (71.33%). This showed that the majority
of the businesses within the region had business growth strategies that could help them enjoy the
benefits accompanied by practicing the culture in their businesses. For uniform growth across all
business industries present within Ballarat City Council, all businesses should be encouraged to
develop the growth strategies. This is only true if the aforementioned benefits were true that they
come with developing growth strategies in a business.
Additionally, business growth strategy when acquired and properly developed leads to market
penetration (Blackburn et al, 2013). Existing products of the local businesses in Bllarat City
Council need to formulate business strategies aligned to cause market penetration for wider
coverage in terms of customers and to boost sales. When the strategy is successfully applied by
the businesses, they may get the opportunity of expanding their products by adding new features
on the products to improve the product quality. Product development will help in attracting more
customers as the customers would like to acquire products of high quality that help in matching
the value of money of the customers thus leading to their satisfaction. When planning the
strategies, they should be aligned with the business objectives n concerned about growth and
development of the local businesses.
Question 3
With reference to the report produced recently by Creswick that proportion of businesses with
growth strategy was 76%, this value was not true according my analysis results which I found
that proportion of local businesses with growth strategy was 71.33%. Concerning the effects and
benefits accompanied by putting business growth strategies in place and from the confirmation
of hypothesis tested in my analysis, failure to put growth strategies by local businesses would
have an effect on revenue since the hypothesis result confirmed that local businesses with growth
strategies had higher mean of gross revenue than those that did not have growth strategies.
The estimated average number of employees for local businesses with growth strategies was
found to lie between 25 and 44 employees while those without growth strategies was found to
lie between 8 and 29 employees. From these results, it was evident that local businesses with
growth strategies had higher average number of employees than those which did not have growth

strategies. In that regard, due to the fact that the number of employees corresponds to the size of
the business, local businesses with growth strategies were more likely to be more successful than
their counterparts that never had growth strategies. Better performance of those particular local
businesses would be as a result of the effects of growth strategies they laid down and employed
in their daily operations.
Question 4
Age is always considered a factor in terms of performance and has contributed to selflessness in
business. From the report that the Australian business managers’ average age was 50 years was
within the range of the business managers’ age in Australia as from my results the average age of
local business managers was in the range of 46.1 to 50.5 years. This disputes the myth and notion
that the local business managers were rather young and conquers with the report that they were
old. This showed that most of the businesses preferred old age in the managerial positions than
the young age as it was evident by the range of average age of those in the managerial positions
in Ballarat City.
Young age due to the energy in their possession, they are capable of bringing change and
transforming the business industry. Young age is associated with technology advancement as
growth in technology has taken pace in their era. Their skills in technology when employed in
the structuring of business development strategies would help in steering the business forward.
Old age on the other hand would tend to apply their long time experience in their fields of
business profession but would still require the young and energetic age to implement their
proposals. Moreover, changes in the world to dependent in technology would make the
businesses employ other youthful people who understand the technological tricks in the world
today and apply the tricks and skills to solve the emerging business problems. In that regards
therefore, local businesses in Ballarat City Council need to reconsider employing young age in
their managerial positions.
Question 5
More businesses joining the business industries add onto the growth and development of the
business industries. Considering the observation that 10 businesses were opened every year is a
plus to the development of the Ballarat City economy. The results from the analysis stated that
considering the aforementioned trend, there were 0.083458 chances that more than 15 businesses
will open by next year. This chance was low and it showed that chances were high that by next
year, the city would record new number of businesses less than the expected value i.e. (15). On
that same note, the results confirmed that there were low chances standing at 0.067086 of
recording new number of businesses that were five or less by next year. This showed that
chances were high that the number of new businesses that would open next year would be more
than five businesses but less than 15 businesses.
Emergence of more new businesses in a state adds positively to the growth of the countries’
economy. When more businesses open in the city or any given place, the rate of unemployment
would be expected to reduce by a certain percentage. From the results, though there were low
chances that more than 15 businesses would open by next year there were also lower chances
that less than 5 or five businesses would open by next year. From these findings, the city council
can be able to remain optimistic of additional revenues that would come from new businesses.
This can be important when considering budgeting and development agendas of the council.

Question 6
In regards to the number of participants that were supposed to be engaged in future with a
deviation of 4 employees from mean and an error of 2%, taking the factors into consideration i.e.
(standard deviation and error), we would be 95% confident that a sample that will yield the
results that will be dependable and portrays the true picture on the ground, would be 153,659
individuals.
The suggested number is a very large sample size which comes with benefits and demerits too.
Some of the benefits that would be enjoyed from this size of a sample would be the data
accuracy in terms of approximating the true picture of the local businesses in the city. The more
number of people reached out in the process of data collection, the more the accuracy of the
collected information increases (Faber and Fonseca, 2014). Targeting that number (153,659) in
the future would be accompanied with use of more resources since the geographical location
would also increase. The process would require Ballarat city council to engage so many
personnel to help in reaching out to different geographical areas. Being that local businesses
were run in different geographical location in the city, different businesses reached out would
have different experience which would help in moderating the results in the future. Also,
increasing the size of sample to that very much large sample size would require a lot of time in
the data collection process. Therefore, I advise Ballarat City council to allocate more resources
than they used in the past in order to be able to increase their data coverage and improved results.

References
Blackburn, R.A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business,
strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise
development, 20(1), pp.8-27.
Faber, J. and Fonseca, L.M., 2014. How sample size influences research outcomes. Dental press
journal of orthodontics, 19(4), pp.27-29.
Goss, D., 2015. Small Business and Society (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Vernon, R., 2017. International investment and international trade in the product cycle.
In International Business (pp. 99-116). Routledge.