Applied managerial decision making

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

One of WidgeCorp’s regional sales managers contacts you with a request. In preparation for rolling out a new type of snack food, she’s been trying to make sense of some demographic data available through a marketing organization and is overwhelmed. She explains to you that there are two files that contain reports generated from the organization’s Web site. The Web site provides free demographical services where one can choose from a variety of criteria and generate reports based on the U.S. Census decennial data obtained at the beginning of each decade. These files contain 4 reports: General Summary, Census Trend 1980 to 2000 Summary, Occupation and Employment Summary, and Income Summary. In these demographics reports, the data for many of the variables are distributed into many different categories. For example, there are 7 different categories for Educational Attainment in the General Summary Report and 20 categories for Employment by Industry in the Occupation and Employment Summary Report. Help this regional sales manager see a smaller number of comprehensible categories.

1. Click here to download the reports for zip code 60614.
2. Using all four demographic reports (Overview, Trend, Employment, and Population Detail) for zip code 60614, choose four variables (including at least one from each report), and explain how you would collapse the categories and why.