14th Newsletter: The atypical year 2020 for Target, between resistance and adaptability
The Projects Department has faced several restrictions (face-to-face interviews, focus groups) and cancellations. It has been revitalized and has been able to respond to the demands of clients in times of crisis. The activities of the Department have essentially revolved around the year's objectives. The Department has seen innovations, and the agents have continued their specialization training and have continued to seek new clients. A new Field Assistant position was added to relieve the heavy workload of the project managers.
The new Field Assistant is in charge of the general preparations before the project's launch (Documents, Briefings, Quotes) and of the follow-up of the daily evolution of the field activities. The team of the Projects Department has been expanded with new collaborators who have completed their internships. Target has had new partners to work with.
For greater efficiency and performance, the IT Department introduced new working tools. These include:
- The automatic processing file: although it is being developed for the significance test part, it is developed on Excel, a software classified as a spreadsheet found in the Microsoft Office suite. It includes numerical calculation, data analysis, graphical presentation, and programming facilities. The film makes a complete treatment of the data using some Excel functions: NB, AVERAGE, MAX, and MIN, and these treatments are made in one or several separate sheets; these last ones are named according to the results to be produced. This tool allowed Target to mobilize less important human, material, and financial resources for the treatment of the media audience study, one of the barometer studies of Target, and also to gain time in the production of the results.
- The simple chronological curve: it has been integrated with the last publication of the media audience study in DRC. It shows the evolution of the top media results over the last four years. It is an analysis tool that allows us to read the periods where evolution has been significant.
- The application of management of materials: this is an internal design that manages the movements of all the materials in stock and has many functionalities to optimize the management of Target. Its functionalities are :
- Agents: to identify in advance the agents who come to take material
- Materials: codify the materials to allow a good follow-up
- Exit: identify the state of the materials which leave
- Return: identify the state of the materials which enter
- Logbook: lists of incoming and outgoing materials
- Statistics: list people who have taken materials with the quantity mentioned.
In the last quarter of 2020, Target published some studies. The Congolese people recently voted on the public institutions of the DRC. From this study, only the institution's President of the Republic and the Armed Forces of the Republic received above-average favorable opinions from the Congolese.
Since April 2020, Target follows closely the evolution of the coronavirus pandemic in DRC. Each time, different themes are addressed, and the reports are made public. For this sixth wave of publication, Target has focused on the situation of Congolese SMEs during the health crisis. 8 out of 10 formal and informal SMEs suffered from the economic crisis during the pandemic. 40% of them declared to have recorded a fall in the turnover, 37% said to have known the slowing down of their activities, and 21%, especially the informal SMEs, deplored a weak monetary mass in circulation.