Communicating Through Email

Although email is a tool for external communication, it is also regularly used within an
organization, in place of telephone and face-to-face contact. This is because email is
instantaneous and allows you to send messages that others can pick up at their convenience. Besides, email
also makes it possible to send messages to people anywhere in the world and to people who are
otherwise impossible to reach. While the other forms of written communication are highly formal in nature,
email is more informal and spontaneous. It is therefore easier to write an email message than it
is to write a business letter or a report, where greater attention has to be paid to the language,
style and tone. Since email is quick, easy to use and spontaneous, it can also help to improve personal
relationships in the workplace.

Advantages of Email
1. Relatively low cost of fulfillment. The physical costs of email are substantially less than direct mail.
2. Direct response medium encourages immediate action. Email marketing encourages click through to
a website where the offer can be redeemed immediately this increases the likelihood of an
immediate, impulsive response.
3. Faster campaign deployment. Lead times for producing creative and the whole campaign lifecycle tends to be
shorter than traditional media.
4. Ease of personalization. It is easier and cheaper to personalize email than for physical media
and also than for a website.
5. Options for testing. It is relatively easy and cost effective to test different email creative and messaging.
6. Integration. Through combining email marketing with other direct media which can be personalized such as
direct mail, mobile messaging or web personalization, campaign response can be increased as the message is
reinforced by different media.

Disadvantages of Email
1. Deliverability. Difficulty of getting messages delivered through different internet service
providers (ISPs), corporate firewalls and web mail systems.
2. Render ability. Difficulty of displaying the creative as intended within the in-box of different email
reading systems.
3. Email response decay. Email recipients are most responsive when they first subscribe to an email. It is difficult
to keep them engaged.
4. Communications preferences. Recipients will have different preferences for email offers, content
and frequency which affect engagement and response. These have to be managed through communications
preferences.
5. Resource intensive. Although email offers great opportunities for targeting, personalization and more frequent
communications, additional people and technology resources are required to deliver these.

Below are the five ways in which email message could be made more effective:- 
1. Avoid shouting: Shouting in an email message refers to use of all capital letters in the text.
All caps make it difficult to read a message and are therefore considered to be rude, like shouting.
2. Avoid symbols and acronyms : Symbolic messages using punctuation marks, known as emoticons (for
example, : ) for a smiley face!) should be avoided, especially in business related email messages.
Similarly, abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) should be avoided since they sound over casual and may
not be understood by everyone
.3.Use friendly salutations and signoffs: Although these are not strictly required in email
communication as in business letters, a salutation such as ³Dear John´ and a signoff such as
’Warm Regards’, helps to make the tone friendly and personal..
4. Respond promptly: In the case of business related emails, it is important to respond promptly, especially
when communicating with superiors. Even if you are hard pressed for time, are out of town or out of
the office, you can set an automatic email response to your received messages, which will mention that you will
be responding in detail on a specific date.
5. Avoid personal messages at work: Do not make use of the office facility to send personal email
messages. Since confidentiality of the message is not guaranteed, it may lead to
embarrassment later.

A Statistical Survey is a scientific process of collection and analysis of numerical data. A

statistical survey is divided into two broad categories.

1. Planning
2. Execution

Planning of a Statistical Survey

The relevance and accuracy of data obtained in a survey depends upon the care exercised in
planning. A properly planned investigation can lead to best results with least cost and time. The
planning stage consists of the following sequence of activities.

1. Nature of the problem to be investigated should be clearly defined in an un- ambiguous

manner.
2. Objectives of investigation should be stated at the outset. Objectives could be to obtain
certain estimates or to establish a theory or to verify a existing statement to find relationship
between characteristics etc.
3. The scope of investigation has to be made clear. It refers to area to be covered, identification
of units to be studied, nature of characteristics to be observed, accuracy of measurements,
analytical methods, time, cost and other resources required.
4. Whether to use data collected from primary or secondary source should be determined in
advance.
5. The organization of investigation is the final step in the process. It encompasses the
determination of number of investigators required, their training, supervision work needed, funds
required etc.
Execution of Statistical Survey Control methods should be adopted at every stage of carrying
out the investigation to check the accuracy, coverage, methods of measurements, analysis and
interpretation. The collected data should be edited, classified, tabulated, presented in diagrams
and graphs, analyzed and interpreted.

Differentiate between ‘Questionnaire’ and ‘Schedule’

1. Very often information is collected through Questionnaires. The questionnaires are filled
by of questions pertaining to the investigation. They are sent to the respondents with a
 covering letter soliciting cooperation by giving correct information and mailing it back.
The objectives of investigation are explained in the covering letter together with
assurance for keeping information provided by them as confidential. Information can be
collected through schedules filled by investigator through personal contact. In order to
get reliable information, the investigator should be well trained, tactful, unbiased and
hard working.

2. This method is generally adopted by research workers and other official and non-official
agencies. It covers large area of investigation. It is more economical and free from
investigator’s bias. However it results in many ³non-response´ situations. The
respondent may be illiterate. They can provide wrong information due to wrong
interpretation of questions. The information used for the investigation of the current
problem and obtained from the data collected and used by some other agency or person
before for his investigation is known secondary data.

3. Success of Questionnaire method of collection of data depends mainly on proper

drafting of the questionnaire. Following general principles are considered.

i. The number of questions should be less.

ii. Lengthy questions should be avoided.
iii. Answers to them should be short.

They are available in published or unpublished form. In published form they are available in
research papers, news papers, magazines, government publication, international publication,
websites etc. They are collected for a different purpose. Therefore care should be exercised
while making use of it. Their accuracy, reliability, objectives and scope should be examined
thoroughly before use.

3. Average weight of 100 screws in box “A‟ is 10.4 gms. It is mixed with 150 screws of
box “B”. Average weight of mixed screws is 10.9 gms. Find the average weight of screws
of box “B”.

Answer.
Given x¯1 = 10.4, n1 = 100, X¯ = 10.9, n2=150, x¯2=?

We know X1 = (n 1 X 1 + n 2 X 2) ⁄ ( n 1 + n 2)

100 x 10.4 + 150 x¯2 ⁄ (100 + 150) = 10.9

1040 + 150 x¯2= 10.9 x 250= 2725
150 x¯2= 2725 -1040= 1685
X¯2= 1685 / 150=11.23 gms.

4. (a) Discuss the rules of “Probability”.

(b) What is meant by “Conditional Probability”?

Answer.
 (a) Probability

Probability is a numerical measure which indicates the chance of occurrence of an event “A”. It
is denoted by P (A). It is the ratio between the favorable outcomes to an event “A” (m) to the
total outcomes of the experiment (n). In other words
P (A) = m / n
Where, ‘m’ is the number of favourable outcomes of an event ‘A’ and ‘n’ is the total number of
outcomes of the experiment.
Rules of Probability
a) Addition Rule
i) If A and B are any two events then the probability of the occurrence of either A or B is given by P (A U
B) = P (A) + P (B) – P (A  B)
ii) If A and B are two mutually exclusive events then the probability of occurrence of either A or B is
given by
P (A U B) = P (A) + P (B)
iii) If A, B and C are any three events then the probability of occurrence of either A or B or C is given by P
(A U B U C) = P (A) + P (B) + P(C) – P (A  B) – P (B  C) – P (A  C) + P (A  B  C)
iv) If A1, A2, A3………An are “n” mutually exclusive and exhaustive events then the probability of
occurrence of at least one of them is given by
P (A1 U A2 U……..U an) = P (A1) + P (A2) +……. + P (An). In terms of Venn diagram i), ii) and iii) can be
represented as follows.
___________________________________

Managers very often come across with situations where they have to take decision about implementing
either course of action A or course of action B or the course of action C. Sometimes they have to take
decisions regarding the implementation of both A and B.
For example a sales manager may like to know the probability that he will exceed the target for product
A or product B. Sometimes he would like to know the probability that sales of product A and B will
exceed the target. The first type of probability is answered by addition rule. The second type of
probability is answered by multiplication rule.

b) Multiplication Rule

i) If A and B are two independent events then the probability of occurrence of A and B is given by P (A u
B) = P (A) P (B)

(2) Conditional Probability

Sometimes we wish to know the probability that the price of a particular petroleum product will rise,
given that the finance minister has risen the petrol price. Such probabilities are known as conditional
probability.
Thus the conditional probability of occurrence of an event “A” given that the event “B” has already
occurred is denoted by P (A / B). Here A and B are dependent events. Therefore we have the following
rules.
If A and B are dependent events then the probability of occurrence of A and B is given by

P (A n B) = P (A) P (B/A)

= P (B) P (A/B)

It follows that)

P (A/B) = P (A n B) / P (B)

P (B/A) = P (A n B) / P (A)

5. (a) What is meant by “Hypothesis Testing”? Give Examples

(b) Differentiate between “Type-I” and “Type-II” Errors

Answer.

(A) Testing Hypothesis

Null and Alternate hypothesis In hypothesis testing, we must state the assumed or
hypothesized value of the population parameter before we begin sampling. The
assumption we wish to test is called the null hypothesis and is symbolized by Ho.
Suppose we want to test the hypothesis that the population mean is equal to 500. We
would symbolize it as follows and read it, “The null hypothesis is that the population
mean = 500 written as Ho: µ = 500. The term null hypothesis arises from earlier
agricultural and medical applications of statistics. In order to test the effectiveness of a
new fertilizer or drug, the tested hypothesis (the null hypothesis) was that it had no
effect, that is, there was no difference between treated and untreated samples.
If we use a hypothesized value of a population mean in a problem, we would represent
it symbolically as µ H0. this is read.

“The hypothesized value of the population mean.”

If our sample results fail to support the null hypothesis, we must conclude that
something else is true. Whenever we reject the hypothesis, the conclusion we do accept
is called the alternative hypothesis and is symbolized H1 (“H sub-one”). For the null
hypothesis H0: µ = 200

We will consider three alternative hypotheses as:

H1: µ ≠ 200 (population mean is not equal to 200)

H1: µ > 200 (population mean greater than 200)
H1: µ < 200 (population mean less than 200)

Example 1: Assume that a manufacturer of light bulbs wants to produce bulbs with a
mean life of = Ho = 1,000 hours. If the lifetime is shorter, he will lose customers to
his competitions; if the lifetime is longer, he will have a very high production cost
because the filaments will be excessively thick. In order to see whether his production
process is working properly, he takes a sample of the output to test the hypothesis Ho;
= 1,000. Because he does not want to deviate significantly from 1,000 hours in either
direction, the appropriate alternative hypothesis is H1: 1,000 and he uses a two-
tailed test. That is, he rejects the null hypothesis if the mean life of bulbs in the sample
is either too far above 1,000 hours or too far below 1,000 hours.

(B) Differentiate between “Type-I” and “Type-II” Errors

Type I error is preferred

Suppose that making a Type I error (rejecting a null hypothesis when it is true) involves
the time and trouble of reworking a batch of chemicals that should have been accepted.
At the same time, making a Type II error (accepting a null hypothesis when it is false)
means taking a chance that an entire group of users of this chemical compound will be
poisoned. Obviously, the management of this company will prefer a Type I error to a
Type II error and, as a result, will set very high levels of significance in its testing to get
low β s.

Type II error is preferred

Suppose, on the other hand, that making a Type I error involves disassembling an
entire engine at the factory, but making a Type II error involves relatively inexpensive
warranty repairs by the dealers. Then the manufacturer is more likely to prefer a Type II
error and will set lower significance levels in its testing.
6. From the following table, calculate Laspyres Index Number, Paasches Index Number,
Fisher‟s Price Index Number and Dorbish & Bowley‟s Index Number taking 2008 as the
base year.

6. From the following table, calculate Laspyres Index Number, Paasches Index Number,
Fisher‟s Price Index Number and Dorbish & Bowley‟s Index Number taking 2008 as the
base year.

Commodity 2008 2009

Price (Rs) per Quantity in Kg Price (Rs) per Quantity in Kg
Kg Kg
A 6 50 10 56
B 2 100 2 120
C 4 60 6 60
D 10 30 12 24
E 8 40 12 36

Name:
Roll No:
Learning Centre:
Subject: MB0041 Financial and Management Accounting
Assignment No: Set 1
Date of Submission at the Learning Centre: