Uses of Statistical information - Research Paper Example

Uses of Statistical information In the workplaces, statistical analysis of research surveys and questionnaires, presentations involving histograms, bar charts and the like are all too common and forecasting and projection of results is the core competence of the company thus making the statistics the life and blood of the company. According to the official definition as developed by (American Marketing Association (AMA), 2008) “Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information - information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.

Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the methods for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes, and communicates the findings and their implications." What is one example of descriptive statistics used in your workplace? Descriptive Statistics are used as a means to summarize the data set and are used to present the data set quantitatively. Examples include the use of histograms, box plots, cross tabulation techniques and measures of central tendency.

The characteristics of these statistics make them vital to any form of data set. In marketing research for example, a survey might require a certain ratio of respondents to be men and the other to be female. Thus, the proportion of males and females among the respondents becomes of utmost importance to the research project. Depending on the requirement of the research, the proportion of male and female gives a lot of information regarding the objectives of the survey. This information can also be used to establish correlations with other factors such as brand loyalty, factors influencing decision making and household size among others.

This information can also be used to differentiate between the responses of males and the females and aid in making inferences about the study in the latter stages of the research. What is one example of inferential statistics used in your workplace? Inferential statistics are used to draw a conclusion about a population from a sample. In the case of marketing research firms, the researchers have to analyze survey results and inferential statistics are vital in drawing important conclusions from the results of the research.

For example, while evaluating the threat of rival products for a certain product ‘X’ it was concluded through surveys that only 30% of the people will switch over to a rival product in the next 6 months. Another example of inferential statistics could relate to customer preferences in terms of quality where the results show that 65% of customers purchase a certain brand of cooking oil because they find it to be of the best quality which 30% do so because they find it to be the most affordable.

These examples clearly depict how inferential statistics help draw conclusions after the results of various studies have been accumulated and analyzed. How is data at each of the four levels of measurement used in your workplace? If your workplace does not use all four levels, describe how such data could be used. Marketing research makes use of data at each of t