Business Research Methods Case Study

Case Title:

City Couriers: Dilemma in Design Experiment

Abstract:
John Britto (Britto) is an operations manager at City Couriers in Hyderabad. The company carries out its delivery operations through its own vans in the four south Indian states. It operates on a ‘hub and spoke’ delivery system. However, sensing the business potential of other regions, the company wanted to expand its presence across the globe. For this, Britto decides to increase the company’s fleet of vans but has to decide amongst five various brands with respect to their operating costs. To finalise the best brand for his company, he experiments on the five brands with 5 drivers over a five week period and collects the data (average cost per mile). He uses the Latin Square Design method to analyse the collected data and decide about the purchase to be made.

Pedagogical Objectives:

• To understand the concept of Latin Square Design
• To understand when to use the design.

Keywords : Marketing Research, Latin Sqaure Design, Delivery System, Hub and Spoke Delivery System, Factors, Rows, Columns, Treatments, Degrees of Freedom

Contents:

• Introduction
• Suggested Questions for Discussion