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I have decided to use all three methods for investigating the business activity at Book Talk. First of all I
will plan an interview with Mr. Rana Sultan Mehmood .Interviewing the CEO would help me to find the
exact possible problems faced by Book Talk as he is the one who has direct contact with the problems
and can provide me with the most accurate and unbiased details.

I cannot cover all the details of the problems faced, in just one interview. If I interview the staff members
they may provide biased information as they may only be concerned about their own advantage. In order
to overcome this problem I have decided to observe the work directly as it would help me to verify data
collected through interview and also allow me to discuss real, indisputable actions as they occur.

I will also analyze various documents such as invoices and the database of books as I need to find out the
exact data and the manner in which it is stored, sorted and retrieved.


 




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I am the CEO of this company. I own this company and everything remains in my control. I am an
autocratic type of leader and like to keep the control of the business in my hand.


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As the data base is controlled manually managing stocks is a very difficult task for us. We have no
specific and automatic method of doing that due to which we are losing on potential customers as we
are mostly out of stock. What we usually do is that at the end of each month staff members go through
the store room (where books are kept) and check for books which need to be reordered.



 

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It depends whether the book is local or it had been imported. Books published in Pakistan are usually
inexpensive and are sold in a larger quantity up to 600 books. On the other hand books which had been
imported are very expensive and the maximum number of an imported book that I have sold is not more
than 75.

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Yes, to all of themi

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All our clients are permanent and have been our potential customers since I don͛t know how many years.
All of them are offered the same amount of discount i.e., 3% on each book.



 

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There is not a single problem which is causing a hurdle in Book Talk͛s growth. There are so many of them.
I find stock control as one of the major problems faced by the business.


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On August, 19, 2010 I spent six hours at Book Talk observing how each and everything was carried out.

I was able to gather a reasonable amount of information regarding how an order was placed. The client
placed the order via telephone. I could easily see how difficult was I for the staff members to write the
names of 27 books along with the names of their authors and edition. After all the details were written
down two of the staff members went through dozens of registers to see whether the books were in the
stock or not. This process took more than an hour. After checking for the books, a call was made to the
client to inform them whether all the books were available and the prices of each book. After this the
client then confirmed the order.

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They contain the entire database of books and the clients. I was able to find out what details regarding
books and clients would need to be stored in a computerized database.

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I studies thoroughly the invoice generated to the clients. One of the most important outcomes was that
then clients demanded all the details of the books to be showed on the receipts. It had the book name, its
author, publisher, edition, book year, language and its price.