EBUS3030 Business Intelligence - Assignment: Best Salesperson
This assignment is not just about the data – it is HOW the data resulting from your analytics will support the business, i.e., provide intelligence to the business to help management (your client) make strategic and operational decisions.
While you are to use the data provided to answer the client’s questions, you should also ‘think outside the square’ to
look for ways to provide suggestions and opportunities to your client based on that data and the analytics you perform.
Key outcomes to be delivered are:
• Data Modelling of the provided dataset (as a Datamart Star Network design),
• Extract Transform Load (ETL) processing undertaken to make the data usable.
• Output of your analysis: a Report summarising your findings and recommendations.
• A presentation to the class of your results and recommendations.
o The presentation is expected to concentrate more on your findings/recommendations as if it were a situation where you arepresenting the response to Jenny Landers and her senior management team
Question
Jenny Landers is the head manager of a local hardware store in Newcastle called ‘Bits&Bobs’. You are a business analyst with IT expertise and have started a consultancy company called ‘BI Solver’. Jenny has heard of your
company’s IT expertise in helping businesses and asks you to help with a problem she has at her Newcastle store.
“I’ve heard that my salespeople aren’t motivated at the moment and that sales aren’t as good as we had hoped. Iam under pressure to improve our trading. I had a scathingly brilliant idea to try and provide incentives for my staff, I
want to initiate an award incentive (and probably an associated cash prize) to my best performer for sales in my store, I need you to tell me who that is and how best to provide the award. As part of your response, I want you to provide
the justification as to why you chose the particular sales officer for the award, because we need governance over
things like this... By the way, we don’t currently have any of this information stored centrally in a database thingy, but I have requested the Office Business Manager, Bill Nile, to start collating a summary of the recent sales and put it into a rough excel file that can be used as a starting basis for you. As part of the processes of getting me an answer on my best salesperson, can you also create a database as part of the preparation of the answer. We can then use it as the
basis for further reporting in the future. We haven’t ever had people with your skills working with us before, so I
expect there will be lots of questions that will come up as we utilise your expertise. I welcome any suggestions you
have for saving money or increasing revenue. We do value our customers. We even have a loyalty program that they can sign up for free, which provides them with a discount if they buy more than 5 different types of items in a single sale transaction. ”
Deliverables
Using the data file provided in Excel and associated notes about the data, (AssignOneRealData.xlsx and Datamart
Business Notes) you are required to complete the following elements as part of the assignment. You will need to prepare the following deliverables:
• Data Model
o Using the information made available to you and your understanding of concepts around data mart design in the lectures, readings, and labs, design a “Sales” Star DataMart to store the information in a format that will allow the information to be expanded and one that would enable analysis to occur.
• Data Load Process undertaken
o Provide an overview of the ETL/ELT process completed and what (if any) Quality Assurance processes
you undertook as part of this, e.g., cleaning data and what inconsistencies in the data were found. The QA would be in the form of the QA applied with a SQL script that supports each QA step applied (e.g.,
checking for missing data).
o Ensure you record any assumptions you have made as part of this component, as well as your team’s reasoning behind the assumption.
• Output of Analysis (including the SQL scripts/queries used)
o Once the data has loaded and is available and ready for use, you need to create a set of SQL scripts to be used to generate the results for Jenny.
o Provide a snapshot of the raw results of your analysis that provides the basis/reasons for your recommendations.
o Ensure you record any assumptions you have made as part of this analysis component and your reasoning behind the assumption.
• Executive Summary in response to business question.
o Provide a short Executive brief/summary that presents a clear concise response back to Jenny’s question about possible incentives to the ‘best’ salesperson. This should clearly detail the recommendation and any key assumptions/restrictions the executive need to be aware of. It should be no more than 1 page in
length.
• Business Recommendations
o A 2-3 page (maximum) report on suggestions/recommendations for the business that are supported by, or that stem from, your analysis, with supporting evidence found in your analysis.
• Team Presentation
o All members of the team need to participate in a presentation to be delivered as part of the lab in Week 7. This needs to be presented in a format as if you in the boardroom with Jenny and her executive
management team.
o Note: timing of the presentation and presentation style to management will be assessed. A specific
marking sheet for the presentation will be posted in the assignment folder. The presentation should be based on the content of your analysis (process) and resulting evidence that would be similar to your
report’s executive summary and business suggestions.
o Please be aware that Jenny and one of her executives may ask any of the team members questions after you present your analysis.
NB: As part of your responses, you should also specifically include any assumptions you have made throughout the process, with justifications for your analysis and assumptions.
Breakup of assignment Marks
Assignment component | Percentage allocation |
Data model | 10% |
ETL | 20% |
Base analysis | 35% |
Executive summary | 5% |
Team presentation (style) | 10% |
Business recommendations | 20% |
Total | 100% |
