Question

Desceiptive Statistics

1. Please discuss (50 words) two distinct application where descriptive statistics can be used.

2. please discuss two distincts strong points (60 words) and two distincts weak points (50 words) of descriptive statistics as an analysis tool to supporg managerial decision making?

Answer 1

(1)

1. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a study.They provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures.Together with simple graphics analysis,they form the basic of virtually every quantitative analysis of data.
2. Descriptive statistics are used to present quantitive descriptions in a manageable form.

(2)

(i)Two distincts strong points:

1. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize and describe total numbers. Looking at statistical numbers such as mean, or the average number, mode, or the most frequent number, or median, or the middle number, helps managers monitor business activities and make decisions. Often numbers themselves do not show the big picture, so ratios, or numbers representing relationships are used.
2. Perhaps you're a regional manager who oversees 15 different car dealerships. You will keep track of sales per month, number of vehicles sold, number of salesmen, sales per person, operational costs, delivery times, and other information. You use this statistical information to look at trends, understand relationships between numbers, and make sound business decisions. Perhaps you need to shift a sales member to a different store, or realize that you need more available stock during certain months, all of which helps maximize the company's resources and profit.

(ii)Two weak points:

1. Descriptive statistics are limited in so much that they only allow you to make summations about the people or objects that you have actually measured. You cannot use the data you have collected to generalize to other people or objects (i.e., using data from a sample to infer the properties/parameters of a population). For example, if you tested a drug to beat cancer and it worked in your patients, you cannot claim that it would work in other cancer patients only relying on descriptive statistics (but inferential statistics would give you this opportunity).

2. It cannot be used with nominal data,can be unrepresentative of the numbers if there are extreme values.