You should select a topic relevant to their professional / business interests and conduct a pilot study or a small scale exploratory research into this topic. Specifically, you will be expected to formulate a relevant specific research question into the topic chosen. Then you will need to identify, clearly describe and justify the methods you will use to answer the research question and then conduct a small scale research investigation where collected data is analysed using appropriate analytic techniques. You may use software tools to help with the analysis, for example quantitatively using analytics software such as Minitab, SPSS, STATA etc., or qualitatively using QDAS such as Nvivo or ATLAS.ti. MS Excel is also a popular spread sheet tool for basic data analysis. Note that the emphasis should be on the understanding of the data analytic process irrespective of what tools are actually used. The project output should incorporate elements of (i) an introduction, (ii) a relevant literature review, (iii) details on the study design, (iv) explanation of the analysis performed and discussion of the results; It should be presented in the form of a portfolio of not more than 4800 words, using appropriate reporting conventions and ensuring all sources are cited and referenced using the Harvard style (you need to consider what to include in the body of your Essay and what to include in the appendices and be as creative as possible. Essential information must be included in the body of the Essay and will be counted in the word count. Extra illustrative information may be included in the appendices).