In every organisation, decision makers needs information to operate effectively. The more accurate and timely the information is, the better the quality of decision that could be made. Decisions are made at every level of an organisation; operational, tactical and strategic managers all need to be informed to make a sound decision. The gathering of such information can only be done through a research process. According to
Organisations, of which my employer is no exception spend a lot of money every year to gather valuable information that could be processed for decision making purposes. They do this not only to be informed, but in order to maintain their competitive advantage. Despite the aforementioned, organisations uses research to fundamentally solve problems. Trying to find out the solutions to a problem, needs delving into that great sea of the unknown, which is via the research process. As the basis of any research project is problem solving, it is important to know how organisation execute such a process.
Most organisations conduct this crucial process by either using the applied or pure research techniques. Depending on the nature of the problem or dilemma that the organisation is facing will determine what research technique could be used. Organisations that know exactly what their problem is usually employs the applied research technique to obtain the necessary information needed to solve the identifiable problem. The organisation I work for is a healthcare concern, we mostly use applied research to find out the following; the competitors in the market we operate, what products to offer in the market, how many employees to employ, at what price should we sell to be competitive and most importantly profitable. When we use applied research techniques to answer the above questions, we are able to come out with valuable information, that will help answers these problems. We have been able to use this technique in our organisation to introduce new products to our consumers. Our dementia unit was born out of a research findings. We were able to find out that their were more people in our community that are suffering from the disease, and our research showed that these prospective customers were referred to providers outside our community.
Our organisation was able to be successful in introducing a new product through the problem of empty beds our facility was experiencing. This was a problem that brought the question why are we having so many empty beds when we next to the county hospital?This problem was what management used as the defining problem for a research proposal. They were able to see that it was more valuable to pursue the research as it was more costly to maintain a facility with declining admission than to undertake a research project to help solve the problem. The opportunity cost was weighed and the research proposal was accepted.