Problem Solution: Usa World Bank

Running head: PROBLEM SOLUTION: USA WORLD BANK

Problem Solution: USA World Bank

John Lenard

University of Phoenix

Problem Solution: USA World Bank

USA World Bank has been successful in past years on the development of products and services to customers that have allowed them to have an international and domestic presence. In recent years UWB has struggled to maintain its development of new, innovated, products in the international market. One of the goals for UWB is to continue to develop profitable new products that will continue to expand its market share. Currently, the company is working on the development of a credit card product that will fulfill the needs of small business costumers. However, a new board member has brought a questioning attitude about the sampling method and determination used by the executives of UWB. This has brought concerns that the new product might fail and the company will loose a portion of its customers.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimal solution to satisfy all end-state goals of USA World Bank to eliminate the sampling problems and promote a successful, innovated, credit card. A 9-step problem-solving model will be used to develop the solution, from a set of alternatives. The module that will be discussed throughout this paper consists of; Step (1) Situation Background, Step (2) Problem Definition, Step (3) End-State Goals, Step (4) Alternative Solutions and Benchmarking Validation, Step (5) Analysis of Alternative Solutions, Step (6) Risk Assessment and Mitigation, Step (7) Make the Decision, Step (8) Implementation Plan, and Step (9) Evaluation of Results. The situation background of the scenario will be discussed first to familiarize the reader with scenario.

Situation Analysis

Currently UWB is in a holding pattern until the sample can be validated. The president of the company, Brian Allen, is concerned with the issues that the new finance board member has brought to the table about the sampling methods. This has brought the release of the new product to a halt, which could increase the potential of not making the deadline of the release and would cause customers to leave the company. The following are concepts that UWB will need to concentrate on to overcome the current issues and realize the opportunities: (1) validity and reliability of data, (2) descriptive statistics, (3) basic probability concepts, (4) normal distribution, (5) confidence intervals and (6) inferential statistics.

Issue and Opportunity Identification

USA World Bank contracted out the research for the new credit card product to a company called Best Market Research. The firm was to perform the necessary research to determine if the credit card product would be a success with small businesses by providing valid and reliable data. The company formed focus groups and developed a survey for customers to fill out to determine if the credit card product would satisfy the needs of it customers and promote some customers to switch banks. A review of the research performed by the new statistic analyst on the Board has brought issues associated with the research. One issue is that the research does not have an accurate sample and the research is flawed based on the R-square concept. Therefore, there is an issue on if the research is good research or bad research. The problem with the research is based on the design of the research. The issues have caused unknowns with the research and if the research will accurately reflect the outcome of the credit card release. Good research generates dependable data, being derived by practices that are conducted professionally and that can be used reliably for managerial decision-making, (Cooper & Schindler, 2003). By assuring the validity and reliability of the data that has been performed by Best Market Research UWB can reduce the risk of not having dependable data that will be used to make reliable managerial decisions.

UWB statistics contain both measure of location and measure of dispersion. Meaning that the data that the organization has collected contains the center of a set of values (averages) and the spread of the data collected, (Lind, Marchal & Wathen, 2004). The data collected is in question because the sample has not been selected properly and the results are not reliable. World Bank has the opportunity to re-sample the population and obtain descriptive data that will be reliable and usable to make a managerial decision.

Based upon the limited knowledge of the UWB on the new credit card product and the fact that this seems to be a first time evolution, UWB should use subjective probability on if the product will be a success based on its desired intentions. The data that has been collected is not reliable; therefore, to use the data to make a managerial decision would not be the optimal choice. Subjective probability is estimating the likelihood of a particular event, in this case the success of the product to its intended audience, based on the gathering of available information, (Lind & et. al, 2004). UWB can turn this issue into an opportunity to make a reliable educated estimate by re-sampling and gathering data that is reliable.

Currently, the dispersion of data for UWB is associated with gender, age, and income. The numbers are skewed based on the finding of the financial advisor and the sample was not random and should be. These errors will cause the normal distribution of a given sample to be unreliable. Normal distribution is setup based upon random variables that are uncontrolled. The purpose of the normal distribution is to determine the probability of a particular event given an upper and lower limit of a given sample. By not having a continuous random variable the test will be skewed, just like the data that UWB currently possesses. UWB can overcome this problem by having a reliable random sample that is not biased and then be able to make a reliable decision based on the data. Furthermore, this would also increase the chances of UWB setting up the correct confidence interval. The confidence level would be the range of values (age, income, gender, etc.) that UWB could expect the population parameter to occur, (Lind, Marchal & Wathen, 2004).

The statistical research provided to the executives of World Bank was inferential based on the statistics that were analyzed to determine the outcome of the credit card product based on the organization's clients and small business-owners. The main concern regarding inferential statistics is finding