netrashetty
Netra Shetty
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (reporting mark AMTK), is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track".[1] It is headquartered at Union Station in Washington, D.C.[2]
All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the United States and are subject to confirmation by the United States Senate. Common stock was issued in 1971 to railroads that contributed capital and equipment; these shares convey almost no benefits[3] but their current holders[4] declined a 2002 buy-out offer by Amtrak.[5]
Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on 21,000 miles (34,000 km) of track primarily owned by freight railroads connecting 500 destinations in 46 states[6] and three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers, representing six straight years of record ridership.[6][7] Despite this recent growth, the United States still has one of the lowest inter-city rail usages in the developed world.
Whether your goal is to expand into new markets, introduce a new product or service, or gauge customer reactions, even the smallest businesses can benefit from a simple but well-planned market-research study.
Market research helps you understand your market, your customers, your competitors, and larger industry trends. High-quality research will reveal details about your current customers and will help you target new customers. For example, before you open an organic produce market, it is important to find out if there's a demand for food grown without pesticides and whether customers will pay more for it.
In addition to the insight that you’ll gain into customer needs, market-research studies can help you avoid costly mistakes, such as introducing an unpopular line of goods or developing a service that no one really wants. Coca-Cola's introduction of New Coke in the 1980s demonstrates what happens when decisions aren't supported by solid research. Coke revised the formula of its traditional brand of soft drink and lost millions in sales. By performing a study and determining what people thought of the new formula, the company could have avoided public-relations headaches.
When you establish a market-research study for your business, follow these basic guidelines:
Use the right sample. The research sample — your study’s group of participants — has to be just the right size. Too large a sample is not cost effective, and too small a sample offers inaccurate results. You also need to have the right samples from your overall population. Even a sample as small as one percent of a market or group will work, as long as the sample truly reflects the overall geographic area or population that you want to query.
Mirror the market. Your surveys must reflect all characteristics of the market from which it is drawn, such as geographical area or population segment. Nielsen TV ratings are based on very small samplings of the overall audience, but they're accurate to a few percentage points. For example, if half of your target market is aged 65 and older and half is 30 and younger, make sure that the sample size accurately reflects this demographic. If one-third of your market lives in one town and two-thirds lives in another, your survey must reflect the geographic split in order to give you accurate and useful information.
Get quantifiable results. Successful studies follow proven approaches based on statistics and sampling. But don’t worry — you don't need a PhD in mathematics. Most results can be tabulated with simple arithmetic and broken down into percentages that anyone can understand.
For this study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Primary research will be conducted using questionnaire surveys that will be sent to the employees of the Marketing Division, Customer Relationship Department, and Quality Management Department, if one exists. If there is no department that specifically handles TQM, questionnaires will be sent instead to the Human Relations Management (HRM). Furthermore, the top-management will also be surveyed as well as the several employees in the accounting division. Through this questionnaire survey, the researcher will hopefully get to know the performance level of all the departments mentioned. The researcher will also be conducting interview with certain respondents, particularly in the top-management and the management teams in the three departments, as well as in the HRM.
The questionnaires will be used to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide qualitative insights into the data collected. A questionnaire would be emailed to the concerned employees of IPCL
in order to gather information to achieve the objectives of the project.
Managers in the marketing division, quality management division and CRM
department would be advised to complete the questionnaire and
interview for more detailed information. The projects handled earlier, if any,
would be researched and analyzed in order to understand the intricacies
of the success and failure of the company. The questionnaires will be designed with a view to get answers that would determine the main objective of the study. All the questionnaires will be structured in a set and will be close-ended with multiple-choice questions. Some questionnaires will be descriptive.
This research will partially base its findings through quantitative research methods because it allows the research problem to be conducted in a very specific and set terms (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1992). Besides, quantitative research plainly and distinctively specifies both the independent and the dependent variables under investigation (Matveev, 2002). It also follows resolutely the original set of research goals, arriving at more objective conclusions, testing hypothesis, determining the issues of causality and eliminates or minimises subjectivity of judgment (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996).
All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the United States and are subject to confirmation by the United States Senate. Common stock was issued in 1971 to railroads that contributed capital and equipment; these shares convey almost no benefits[3] but their current holders[4] declined a 2002 buy-out offer by Amtrak.[5]
Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on 21,000 miles (34,000 km) of track primarily owned by freight railroads connecting 500 destinations in 46 states[6] and three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers, representing six straight years of record ridership.[6][7] Despite this recent growth, the United States still has one of the lowest inter-city rail usages in the developed world.
Whether your goal is to expand into new markets, introduce a new product or service, or gauge customer reactions, even the smallest businesses can benefit from a simple but well-planned market-research study.
Market research helps you understand your market, your customers, your competitors, and larger industry trends. High-quality research will reveal details about your current customers and will help you target new customers. For example, before you open an organic produce market, it is important to find out if there's a demand for food grown without pesticides and whether customers will pay more for it.
In addition to the insight that you’ll gain into customer needs, market-research studies can help you avoid costly mistakes, such as introducing an unpopular line of goods or developing a service that no one really wants. Coca-Cola's introduction of New Coke in the 1980s demonstrates what happens when decisions aren't supported by solid research. Coke revised the formula of its traditional brand of soft drink and lost millions in sales. By performing a study and determining what people thought of the new formula, the company could have avoided public-relations headaches.
When you establish a market-research study for your business, follow these basic guidelines:
Use the right sample. The research sample — your study’s group of participants — has to be just the right size. Too large a sample is not cost effective, and too small a sample offers inaccurate results. You also need to have the right samples from your overall population. Even a sample as small as one percent of a market or group will work, as long as the sample truly reflects the overall geographic area or population that you want to query.
Mirror the market. Your surveys must reflect all characteristics of the market from which it is drawn, such as geographical area or population segment. Nielsen TV ratings are based on very small samplings of the overall audience, but they're accurate to a few percentage points. For example, if half of your target market is aged 65 and older and half is 30 and younger, make sure that the sample size accurately reflects this demographic. If one-third of your market lives in one town and two-thirds lives in another, your survey must reflect the geographic split in order to give you accurate and useful information.
Get quantifiable results. Successful studies follow proven approaches based on statistics and sampling. But don’t worry — you don't need a PhD in mathematics. Most results can be tabulated with simple arithmetic and broken down into percentages that anyone can understand.
For this study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Primary research will be conducted using questionnaire surveys that will be sent to the employees of the Marketing Division, Customer Relationship Department, and Quality Management Department, if one exists. If there is no department that specifically handles TQM, questionnaires will be sent instead to the Human Relations Management (HRM). Furthermore, the top-management will also be surveyed as well as the several employees in the accounting division. Through this questionnaire survey, the researcher will hopefully get to know the performance level of all the departments mentioned. The researcher will also be conducting interview with certain respondents, particularly in the top-management and the management teams in the three departments, as well as in the HRM.
The questionnaires will be used to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide qualitative insights into the data collected. A questionnaire would be emailed to the concerned employees of IPCL
in order to gather information to achieve the objectives of the project.
Managers in the marketing division, quality management division and CRM
department would be advised to complete the questionnaire and
interview for more detailed information. The projects handled earlier, if any,
would be researched and analyzed in order to understand the intricacies
of the success and failure of the company. The questionnaires will be designed with a view to get answers that would determine the main objective of the study. All the questionnaires will be structured in a set and will be close-ended with multiple-choice questions. Some questionnaires will be descriptive.
This research will partially base its findings through quantitative research methods because it allows the research problem to be conducted in a very specific and set terms (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1992). Besides, quantitative research plainly and distinctively specifies both the independent and the dependent variables under investigation (Matveev, 2002). It also follows resolutely the original set of research goals, arriving at more objective conclusions, testing hypothesis, determining the issues of causality and eliminates or minimises subjectivity of judgment (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996).
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