Using Research To Inform Business and Strategic Decisions.

This paper examines and reviews research techniques used to support business and strategic planning at a large metropolitan technical and further education (TAFE) college. Section 1 is an outline of the structure of Chisholm Institute's planning and research processes. It discusses the management structure, strategic plan, and departments within the strategy. Section 2 describes these four areas of research undertaken by staff in the Quality and Planning Department: analysis of internal and external databases, evaluation of program and services, market research/investigative activities, and trend monitoring and environmental scanning. Section 3 addresses benefits and shortcomings of the research techniques. It finds the internal database analysis enables analysis of primary data, but it is static and can only provide an analysis of previously captured information; external databases provide a wider picture of the student population, but may be difficult to drill down to a local level; evaluations of programs and services provide a measure of success of targets, but are dependent on their focus and extent; market/investigative research can provide answers on an issue, but can be costly in time and resources; and trend/environmental scanning allows access to a range of information sources, but the information obtained may not be applicable to local conditions. (YLB)