BedOAK Research leverages its expertise to help organizations create or revise a high-quality baseline and tracking program needed for performance improvement. We fully understand the nuance of each and can help you develop a program that will change the way you do business.

This type of research is conducted to determine the impact of advertisement on customer preference and buying behavior. Companies or firms who want to know the impact of the adverts can rely on information obtained from this type of research. BedOAK Research has the required expertise to conduct advertising research tailored to meet your specific needs.

Customer satisfaction studies are used to gauge the extent to which consumers of their products or services are satisfied, not only in general terms but also with the ways in which products or services are designed, marketed, packaged, delivered, and priced.

Furthermore, accurate information about the size of your loyal customers and the limit of their loyalty will help in making a lot of marketing decisions.

BedOAK is experienced in carrying out transaction-based customer service research which can help you in developing an efficient customer service programmes. We are dedicated to improving customer service within your company and can help you develop an appropriate measurement system.

Key measures of customer satisfaction are the customers’ willingness to continue their current business relationships and recommend the service to others. In customer studies, we strive to measure ways to improve the customer experience. At every point of customer contact we have attributes of satisfaction to measure and compare, including knowledge of the staff, service reliability, quality and empathy of support staff, accommodating special requests, and perceived value.

Businesses and organizations in all industries also use satisfaction and loyalty studies as a critical strategy for reducing costs -- it takes many fewer resources to retain a good keep a satisfied customer coming back than it does to recruit new ones. Some estimates:

It can take four to six weeks' wages, or 20 to 35 hours per hire, to recruit new non-managerial employees and this does not include the additional costs of retraining as well as costs associated with losing experienced workers (such as downtime and burnout on the part of other staff) or managing workers who are unhappy or demoralized

The ratio of resources spent on retaining existing customers to resources spent on attracting new ones can range from 1 to 2 to as much as 1 to 5, depending on the industry and local market characteristics.

In other words, it is worth investing in systems for tracking customer satisfaction, since knowing when people are dissatisfied-and why-can help you change, and possibly prevent these losses (and costs) in the future

Benchmarking is following up an image, awareness and preference study with an identical or similar research effort after some predetermined interval to measure any changes in awareness and image that have occurred since the last study was performed.

Typically, organizations conduct benchmarking studies at intervals of between 18 and 24 months, depending on the nature of the business, the rapidity of changes in the operational environment, competitive forces, or any crisis or other issue that the organization has experienced that may have affected perception of the organization in the minds of its constituents, customers, prospects or internal staff.

The benefits of benchmarking are many. Primarily, benchmarking is a tool that is used to measure the efficacy of an organization's marketing, communications and advertising efforts and, as is the rationale for most image and awareness studies, to identify areas of opportunity and inform the development of ongoing strategic, operational or marketing-oriented initiatives geared towards taking advantage of the highlighted opportunities.

Purchase decision dynamics are ways in which consumers make decisions about buying or using products or services. Consumer buying behavior varies among people with different backgrounds, and in most markets it is possible to identify market segments that are most and least likely to use or buy a particular product or service.

Men, for example, choose products in very different ways than do women, and people from different parts of the country or with different ethnic or cultural backgrounds may react in different ways to a new idea. Businesses are most likely to market their products or services effectively if they take into account these differences among consumers in the design, pricing, packaging, and delivery of those products or services.

Purchase decision dynamics research is most commonly conducted within the retail sector, although the techniques are applicable across a broad spectrum of industries (both commercial and non-profit) and can include, among other marketing research methods:

• Market segmentation analyses using survey or other quantitative data
• Branding studies
• Conjoint analyses and other multiple regression statistical techniques
• Demographic and ethnographic segmentation
• Focus groups, including "taste tests"
• In-depth interviews and other qualitative research
• Awareness and attitude studies
• Observation of shopping behavior and preferences
• Mystery shopping
• Pre- and post-advertising awareness surveys

Our approach is thorough, vigorous, and oriented toward effective decision-making-we use statistics to find results rather than "interesting findings" that may or may not reflect your business or organizational reality.

At BedOAK Research we believe that your employees are as important as your customers. As much as you want to know the satisfaction of your customers you must also endeavor to know the satisfaction of your employees whose strength whether mental or physical turns the levers of production. Be informed that the satisfaction of your employees affects their attitude towards your cherished customers.  Moreover, it takes many fewer resources to retain a good employee or keep a satisfied customer coming back than it does to recruit new ones.

Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals. BedOAK Research has the know-how required for conducting any kind of opinion polls such as political polls, polls on public perception about a company etc. Political polls are conducted before or during political campaigns as a means of identifying issues of importance to voters, gauging their opinions on those issues, and predicting factors such as likely voter turnout and voter preferences.

We conduct comprehensive surveys designed to identify candidates' perceived strengths and weaknesses as well as brief, "horse race" polls used to track candidates' comparative likelihood of winning an election. Polls can be conducted on both voters and legislators on their attitudes toward, among other issues:

• Gambling and casinos
• Taxes on property owned by religious organizations
• Child abuse and neglect
• Development of historic buildings
• Civil registration for same-sex couples
• Land use and agriculture
• Public education
• Municipal services

We also do feasibility studies for different firms and organizations in different industries. Basically, a feasibility study is a preliminary study undertaken to determine and document a project's viability. The results of this study are used to make a decision whether or not to proceed with the project.

Feasibility studies are very essential in the light of the estimate that only one in fifty business ideas are actually commercially viable. Therefore a Business Feasibility Study is an effective way to safeguard against wastage of further investment or resources. Feasibility should precede the development of a full business plan and it provides information which will support the business planning stage and reduce the research time.

Feasibility studies can be conducted for NGOs, Government agencies before the start of any project or programme.
Businesses that want to enter a market or introduce a new product or services can carry out market feasibility studies. Conducting market feasibility early in the development cycle can provide a "reality check" on your idea as well as help define product development to ensure its appeal for your customers. This type of market research is used to determine:

• How much of a demand is there for the product or service you are considering?
• What are your potential customers' needs and price expectations?
• Who are your competitors?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors from your potential customers' perspective?
• How can you design your product or service most effectively, given the needs of your target market and the competitive environment

Needs assessments are market feasibility studies, which involve studying a geographic region or client population to see if there are unmet needs or barriers to access that could be addressed by changing or expanding existing services or by developing new services?

Environmental scans are expanded needs assessments that include a broad survey of community characteristics and needs.

Market feasibility studies can provide invaluable information about the likely success of new product or service ideas. Any time you are considering changing your products or services, developing new ideas, moving into new geographic markets, or expanding your business or service offering, BedOAK Research can provide accurate, timely, in-depth information that will help you make the best possible decisions, given the characteristics of your likely customer base and competitors

Marketing research techniques can be used to test product concepts and assess pricing strategies for new or existing products and services. Much of our product testing and pricing research is conducted within the context of overall market feasibility studies that examine both the marketability of new ideas and how best to meet likely customers' needs in order to promote the product or idea most effectively.

Broadly, impact assessment is the process of identifying the anticipated or actual impacts of a development intervention, on those social, economic and environmental factors which the intervention is designed to affect or may inadvertently affect.

It may take place before approval of an intervention (ex ante), after completion (ex post), or at any stage in between.  Ex ante assessment forecasts potential impacts as part of the planning, design and approval of an intervention. Ex post assessment identifies actual impacts during and after implementation, to enable corrective action to be taken if necessary, and to provide information for improving the design of future interventions.

BedOAK Research has experienced professionals in the area of impact assessment. We have professionals with rich and varied background and are well equipped in determining impact of a company’s operations, government policies and programs and those of non governmental organizations.

We do both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The aim of qualitative analysis is a complete, detailed description. No attempt is made to assign frequencies to the linguistic features which are identified in the data, and rare phenomena receive the same amount of attention as more frequent phenomena. Qualitative analysis allows for fine distinctions to be drawn because it is not necessary to group the data into a finite number of classifications.

In quantitative research we classify features, count them, and even construct more complex statistical/econometric models and tools in an attempt to explain what is observed. Findings can be generalized to a larger population, and direct comparisons can be made between two corporations, so long as valid sampling and significance techniques have been used.

Forms of Data analysis

Based on the type of data, we use the quantitative and/or qualitative approaches in various forms of analysis such as:

  Situational Analysis

It looks at the current state of an organization or a business, the marketing environment, customer needs and wants, and the competition. Usually, SWOT analysis is an important element of situational analysis. Either for purposes of planning or strategic management, an organization needs to perform situational analysis from time to time. BedOAK Research is well equipped to help any organization in situational analysis.

Financial analysis

We have the experts with specialized knowledge in financial analysis, which is done to determine the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project. Our professionals prepare reports using ratios that make use of information taken from financial statements and other reports. Based on these reports, management may:

• Continue or discontinue its main operation or part of its business;
• Make or purchase certain materials in the manufacture of its product;
• Acquire or rent/lease certain machineries and equipments in the production of its goods;
• Issue stocks or negotiate for a bank loan to increase its working capital.

Other decisions that allow management to make an informed selection on various alternatives in the conduct of its business.

 

Value Chain Analysis

At BedOAK, we have professionals who are equipped to perform value chain analysis. A value chain is a chain of activities. Products pass through all activities of the chain in order and at each activity the product gains some value. Its ultimate goal is to maximize value creation while minimizing costs.

The concept has been extended beyond individual organizations. It can apply to whole supply chains and distribution networks. The delivery of a mix of products and services to the end customer will mobilize different economic factors, each managing its own value chain. The industry wide synchronized interactions of those local value chains create an extended value

 

Conjoint Analysis

The objective of conjoint analysis is to determine what combination of a limited number of attributes of a product or services is most influential on respondent choice or decision making. A controlled set of potential products or services is shown to respondents and by analyzing how they make preferences between these products, the implicit valuation of the individual elements making up the product or service can be determined.

These implicit valuations can be used to create market models that estimate market share, revenue and even profitability of new designs.

Conjoint analysis is also used to identify market segments based on people's demographic or decision-making characteristics. We analyze these results to identify market segments that make practical sense, given what you know about your industry, your competitors, and your strengths and weaknesses.

At BedOAK, research professionals are very knowledgeable in conjoint analysis and offer specialized analysis to meet your specific need.

 

Scenario analysis

Scenario analysis is a process of analyzing possible future events by considering alternative possible outcomes. The analysis is designed to allow improved decision-making by allowing more complete consideration of outcomes and their implications. For example, a financial institution might attempt to forecast several possible scenarios for the economy (e.g. rapid growth, moderate growth, slow growth) and it might also attempt to forecast financial market returns (for bonds, stocks and cash) in each of those scenarios. It might consider sub-sets of each of the possibilities.

It might further seek to determine correlations and assign probabilities to the scenarios (and sub-sets if any). Then it will be in a position to consider how to distribute assets between asset types (i.e. asset allocation); the institution can also calculate the scenario-weighted expected return (which figure will indicate the overall attractiveness of the financial environment).

Econometric analysis

In econometric analysis, we develop and apply quantitative or statistical methods to analyzing data for the purpose of explaining economic principles and phenomena.

BedOAK Research goes beyond the obvious findings that are often evident in the data to uncover elusive information that can only be discovered through extensive knowledge of the industry and the conscientious application of advanced statistical methods.  Our researchers are experienced in many statistical and econometric procedures. Simple ANOVA models, and more complex discriminate analysis, logit regression, probit regression, OLS regression, perceptual mapping, and proprietary analysis tools etc are used to help you understand exactly what the data are telling you.

The following statistical techniques are employed in our data analysis:

Descriptive statistics techniques

Descriptive statistics are used throughout data analysis in a number of different ways. Simply stated, they refer to means, variance, ranges, frequencies, percentages, cross tabulation, correlation etc. The classical tests of hypotheses and the nonparametric tests of hypotheses are also employed in studies using descriptive techniques.

Descriptive techniques are important in data cleaning. Moreover, a typical use of  descriptive analysis is to produce a situation analysis which usually consists of national or sub-national level information such as land size, population, income, health expenditure, illness, malnutrition, mortality, access to safe water, sanitation, and agricultural production levels, to name a few.

Regression Techniques

We employ all kinds of regression techniques – from one-variable OLS regression to complex multivariate nonlinear regression techniques. The choice of a particular technique depends on the nature of the data and clients’ preferences. Notable among all the various techniques are:

Panel data techniques endow regression analysis with both a spatial and temporal dimension. The spatial dimension pertains to a set of cross-sectional units of observation. These could be countries, states, counties, firms, commodities, groups of people, or even individuals.

The temporal dimension pertains to periodic observations of a set of variables characterizing these cross-sectional units over a particular time span. We have the expertise to analyze such data using statistical and econometric methods and software, and generating outputs and interpretations necessary for both short term and long term business or corporate strategy.
Time series techniques comprises methods that attempt to understand time series, often either to understand the underlying context of the data points (where did they come from? what generated them?), or to make forecasts (predictions). A time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times, spaced at (often uniform) time intervals

There are two main goals of time series analysis: (a) identifying the nature of the phenomenon represented by the sequence of observations, and (b) forecasting (predicting future values of the time series variable).

Cross-sectional survey techniques are employed in regression analysis of cross-sectional data collected through surveys. The specific technique used in any such regression can be very simple or very complex depending the features exhibited by the data.

Nonparametric technique is a form of regression analysis in which the predictor does not take a predetermined form but is constructed according to information derived from the data. Nonparametric regression requires larger sample sizes than regression based on parametric models because the data must supply the model structure as well as the model estimates.

 

Reporting

BedOAK Research uses a variety of software packages to generate summary reports, including Excel, SPSS, STATA, PCGive, EPINFO and Eviews.  Access is used for database reporting.
Regardless of the methods used and techniques employed in analysis, the findings are displayed in a way to make them easy for management to understand and use.
In addition to comprehensive explanations of the findings, we support our statistical review with actual verbatim comments from survey respondents. We also offer conclusions and recommendations based on the findings of the study.

BedOAK Research can also help you get any kind of data both qualitative and quantitative whether primary or secondary. We have the expertise for designing various research instruments that meet your specific research objectives and methodology. We can collect different types of data such as:

• Survey: cross sectional data and longitudinal data
• Time series data
• All forms of qualitative data etc.

BedOAK has a vibrant data-entry unit. We receive a lot of paper questionnaires from survey projects.  We know how to successfully set up your projects that require data entry and can ensure that they are handled properly. We take coding very seriously at BedOAK.  It is a crucial element to the overall success of any project.

It is not viewed as a clerical task, but a formal, sophisticated process that usually requires a college-level education.

Our clients are therefore assured that the quantifiable results of a survey will have been formulated from respondents' comments in such a way that is easily understood and utilized.