Arjan de Bont - Doing in-company research projects

Define the problem

Here are some helpful hints for defining the problem, the causes and the symptoms: • In the context of an in-company research project, a problem is something your advice can help to solve – for instance, a company’s inefficient alloca tion of time spent on managing its key accounts. • To recognize the cause of a problem, you consider which factors have led to the undesirable situation the company is in. Sometimes causes are outside the company’s sphere of control. An example of this would be inflationary customer expectations putting pressure on sales. Other times causes are within the company’s sphere of control. An example of this would be a lack of key performance indicators causing inefficient business operations. • Recognize symptoms as follows. Ask yourself whether a given signal may reveal a deeper, underlying problem that your advice can reduce or pre vent. If it does, it is likely to be a symptom rather than the problem. For ex ample, a company’s declining market share may be a symptom of reduced competitiveness (which is the actual problem). Note that we assume you are a business student. In contrast, a marketing stu dent might define the lack of timely promotional efforts as being the core problem. At the same time, a catering and events student might define the lack of guests in the restaurant as the core problem. So the definition of the problem depends on your angle. What is a cause in one context may be the problem in another.

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The business problem

As a general rule, business problems always affect profit. Profit is a measure of the health of the commercial organization. More specifically, profit can be

seen as a measure of value created by the company’s undertakings. This creation of value is needed to ensure the company’s survival and growth. One tactic to define the business prob lem is to look at it through the eyes of a shareholder. This perspective will help you define the true business problem at hand. If you were an owner of the company, you would expect the money you invested to be used wisely. You would expect a fair re turn on your investment. If the return falls short, you will become dissatisfied as a

Time well-spent Defining the problem triggering your re search project takes time. In a four-month project, the process of defining the prob lem could easily take up to two or three weeks. Keep in mind that the problem is the start ing point for your entire research project. If you define the problem wrongly, all fur ther steps in the project will be off course. Consequently, time invested in this project activity has a high return on investment.

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