Business Studies Coursework

1
Business Studies Coursework

• GCSE Examinations 2005
• Research Brief and Task List

2
Research Brief (1)

• Chesham County Council has 5 leisure centres,
  built in the 1960s.
• These centres have not been improved as the
  council has insufficient funding.
• One development has been a public / private
  partnership with a local sportswear manufacturer,
  Huntley plc. They run a shop selling their
  sportswear in each of the leisure centres.

3
Research Brief (2)

• In 2001, private sector companies opened two new
  health and fitness clubs in Chesham and these are
  very popular. One of these is operated by
  TwoMikes Ltd.
• TwoMikes Ltd is a family owned business. The two
  main shareholders are brothers-in-law, Mike
  Arnfield and Mike Devitt.
• TwoMikes Ltd is a UK-wide health and fitness club
  operator, with 33 clubs and over 125,000 members.
  The club offers a wide range of health and
  fitness facilities from gym equipment,
  racquets, swimming and health and beauty.
• TwoMikes Ltd offers a tailor-made fitness options
  to suit all customers needs.
• They are situated all over the UK offering a
  wealth of expertise.

4
Research Brief (3)

• TwoMikes Ltd have been operating successful clubs
  within the UK for nearly 20 years.
• It has recently begun a new Tots Gym at one of
  its clubs. This provides structured fitness
  classes for pre-school children in 3 age groups
• Babies from 6 to 15 months (accompanied by an
  adult)
• Toddlers from 15 months to 3 years (accompanied
  by an adult)
• Youngsters from 3 to 5 years.
• TwoMikes Ltd is considering offering this as a
  franchise throughout the UK if the Tots Gym is
  successful.

5
Background Information
To find out information about the UK Health and
Fitness Industry (including economics, historical
development, PPPs, PFIs, Customer Profiles and
the Main Private Sector Providers) click here
To see the weblinks to leisure centre websites,
click here
Your Task
6
Your task

• Your task is to conduct market research for
  TwoMikes Ltd to clarify if there is a genuine
  demand for the Tots Gym product. You will
  research, collect, analyse and report on this
  data to the TwoMikes Plc board.

Task Schedule
7
Task Schedule (1)

• Read Research Brief and all Background
  Information.
• Be clear what TwoMikes Ltd goal is i.e. what is
  a franchise?
• Write a detailed introduction (in your own words)
  stating what the issue is for TwoMikes. Why are
  they doing this? What market segments are
  targeting? How does this relate to the Product
  Life Cycle of gyms?
• Conduct internet research (screen printing each
  website you use) on what Gyms offer Tots Gym
  type facilities now. How do they sell it? How
  much does it cost? What restrictions apply (if
  any)? How do they market it? Collect as much
  information as you can.
• Write a letter that you can send to gyms in
  around the country. In the letter, explain what
  the project is about, ask specific questions
  about Junior Membership / Clubs, request
  brochures etc. Make sure the letter is polite
  and sufficiently grovelly otherwise they will not
  respond. Use a formal business letter layout.
• Design a questionnaire investigating the demand
  for Tots Gym in this area. You need to target
  certain market segment (income, age, gender so
  that you have a good spread). Your questions
  should look at things like need for product,
  facilities needed, price, location, etc. Think
  about good questionnaire design closed, polite,
  personal, etc.

8
Task Schedule (2)

• Collate questionnaire to produce a class
  questionnaire so that we can collate results.
• Take questionnaire into local community and
  collect results.
• Collate class results.
• Draw various relevant graphs of results and
  describe results. Higher level marks will be
  given for answers that describe and explain
  results and apply it to TwoMikes Ltd.
• Start writing your business report see next
  slide.

Report Layout
9
Report Layout

• Introduction to project what is your brief?
• Market Research Describe the UK Health and
  Fitness Industry using all of your gathered
  sources. Mention Tots Gym, franchising, market
  segments, product life cycle. Include all your
  screen prints of websites, letters and responses
  in this section to prove that you have completed
  individual research from various sources.
• Questionnaire design include your questionnaire
  analysing why you asked the questions you did.
  If there was no point to asking a question, why
  did you include it.
• Questionnaire results Use Excel and Word to
  produce quality graphs for your questions. For
  each graph, write a paragraph describing the
  results (what do the results say). For each
  graph, write a paragraph explaining your results
  (why are the results like this). For each graph,
  write a paragraph making recommendations (what do
  the results mean for TwoMikes Ltd).
• Conclusions in a business style write-up (1.1,
  1.2, 1.3 etc for each paragraph with Chapter 1).
  What conclusions / evaluations can you make about
  the Tots Gym idea. Go into a lot of detail
  here!

Assessment Criteria
10
Assessment Criteria

• Click on the image to the
• right to link to the Word
• document with the
• Assessment Criteria.
• Please note, the majority
• of marks for this section
• are linked to A03 and A04.
• Mrs. Dixon will develop
• A01 and A02 later in the
• term