BUS5PB Principles of Business Analytics Semester 2 – 2022
Assignment 1: Self-Service Analytics Solution Due: 4th September 2022 Sunday @ 11:59pm
Due Date: 4th September 2022(Sunday) @ 11:59pm Assignment Type: Individual
Weight: 30%
Submission Format: A written report (electronic form) and electronic submissions of analytics solution files on the LMS site.
Learning Objective
The first assignment aims to assess analytical thinking as well as technical skills in the use of self-service analytics software packages to develop an analytics solution. You are required to understand the business context, apply the analytics software packages to explore the given dataset to unveil the business insights, and make analytics recommendations. You are also tasked to develop an analytics report to convey your findings.
The Context
In the past two decades, the pharmaceutical, personal care, and nutritional industries have converged to address growing demands in the beauty, health, and wellness market. This convergence has resulted in the formation of the new industry segments – Nutraceuticals, Cosmeceuticals and Nutricosmetics.
Figure 1: Emergence of new industry segments
- Cosmeceuticals: topical cosmetic products that have medicinal or drug-like benefits (creams and fortified syrups).
- Nutricosmetics: supplementation of nutrients that are formulated for beauty care (both oral and topical).
- Nutraceuticals: products derived from food sources that provide extra health benefits, in addition to the basic nutritional value found in food (dietary supplements and functional food).
These three new segments are mainly driven by an increasing awareness and need for preventive healthcare, natural therapies, and anti-aging products. The annual global growth rate of all three segments is approximately 4%–8%. A noticeable geographical dominance is observed in different segments – China and Japan are key Nutricosmetic markets accounting for 90% of global sales, while the USA dominates the Nutraceutical category at approximately 45%.
You have recently joined a start-up analytics consultancy firm as an Insights Specialist. The first task is to analyse the emergence of these industry segments in Australia. An end-user survey has been already conducted and the data is available for your perusal. Your line-manager has not laid out any specific expectations; however, he has re-iterated the need to ‘understand these industry segments, consumers, the potential markets and opportunities’.
The Survey
Are you a regular consumer of beauty, health and wellness products?
(Data was only collected from regular consumers of beauty, health and wellness products.)
| Question | Corresponding column in data file |
| Which state do you live in? | State |
| Select your annual income from the following three options. | Income ($) |
| (<50,000; 50,000 – 70,000; 70,000 – 90,000; > 100,000) | |
| Select your age band from the following options | Age Band |
| (<30; 30-40; 40-50; 50-60; 60-70; >70) | |
| Select your gender. | Gender |
| (F for female; M for male) | |
| How would you like us to contact you? Please select only one. | Channel |
| (Social Media; Email; Post) | |
| In which type of products are you most interested? | Product Type |
| (Nutraceuticals; Nutricosmetics; Cosmeceuticals) | |
| How much would you be willing to spend monthly on this type of product? | Monthly ($) |
| (<$50; $50-$100; >$100) | |
| In which form are you most comfortable to consume this type of product? | Form |
| (pills; beverage; food) | |
| How confident are you of the results from using the products? | Confidence Rating |
| (1-5; 1: least confident and 5: most confident) | |
| How confident are you to recommend to a friend? | Recommendation Score |
| (1-10; 1: least confident and 10: most confident) |
The dataset BUS5PB_Assignment1_datafile.xlsx contains the data collected from 360 participants. There are eleven (11) columns in total as the data file starts with an ID column as an identifier for each row.
Your Tasks
Task 1:
Conduct a critical review of the survey and its outcomes. Suggest improvements to the survey in terms of data coverage and data metrics. You may refer to external sources of information to justify your evaluation.
Task 2:
Develop two analytics solutions to analyse the dataset using data visualisation software packages.
- You need to select either one of IBM Cognos or SAP Lumira as the first software to build the first visualization dashboard
- It’s mandatory to select Power BI as the second software package to build the second visualization dashboard
It is recommended to explore insights among data to pinpoint characteristics of each segment – for example, age or gender distribution for product type.
Task 3:
Based on the insights obtained from the analytics solutions and any external sources of information, recommend effective marketing strategies (market opportunities, targeted customers, channels for campaigns, etc.) for a potential client intending to enter these new industry segments in Australia. You need to decide on the number of recommendations with a brief justification for your choice. Recommendations should refer to visualisations (a combination of diagrams and charts) from your analytics solutions and external references.
(Note: You are free to make reasonable assumptions and justifications given the educational nature of this case study.)
Report Guidelines
- The report should consist of a ‘table of contents’, an ‘introduction’, logically organised sections or topics, a ‘conclusion’ and a ‘list of references’.
- Choose a fitting sequence of sections or topics for the body of the report. Three sections for the three tasks are essential, you may add other sections deemed relevant.
- You must include diagrams, tables and charts from the analytics solutions to effectively present your recommendations. (Consider using Alt + Print Screen or Snipping to capture screenshots).
- Page limit: At least five (5) pages for the main report writing but not more than ten (10) pages.
- Reports should be written in Microsoft Word (font size 11) and submitted as a Word file. (The PDF file is acceptable.)
- Final submission will comprise three separate files, two analytics solution files and the written report as a Word file. Do not compress these files into a zipped archive, submit as three separate files.
- <Student_ID>_Assignment1_Report.doc
- <Student_ID>_Assignment1_Solution.lumx or <Student_ID>_Assignment1_Solution.cdd
- <Student_ID>_Assignment1_Solution.pbix
Marking Rubric
A grade will be awarded to each of the tasks and then an overall mark determined for the entire assessment. The rubric below gives you an idea of what you must achieve to earn a certain ‘grade’.
As a general rule, to meet a ‘C’, you must first satisfy the requirements of a ‘D’. And for an ‘A’, you must first satisfy the requirements of a ‘B’, which must of course first meet the requirements of a ‘C’ and so on.
The marking rubric for this assignment is given below.
| Criterion | Pass (D) | Credit (C) | Distinction (B) | High Distinction (A) |
| Critical evaluation of | Reasonable evaluation | Good evaluation with | Excellent evaluation | Extensive evaluation |
| the survey (8 marks) | with consideration for | consideration for | with consideration for | with consideration for |
| few criteria. | several criteria. | many criteria. | all criteria. | |
| Analytics solution 1 | Limited effort to | Fair effort to structure | Excellent effort to | Exceptional effort to |
| (6 marks) | structure and present | and present | structure and present | structure and present |
| information and | information and | information and | information and | |
| insights. | insights. | insights. | insights. | |
| Limited knowledge of | Fair knowledge of the | Excellent knowledge | Comprehensive | |
| the software package. | software package. | of the software | knowledge of the | |
| package. | software package. | |||
| Analytics solution 2 | Limited effort to | Fair effort to structure | Excellent effort to | Exceptional effort to |
| (6 marks) | structure and present | and present | structure and present | structure and present |
| information and | information and | information and | information and | |
| insights. | insights. | insights. | insights. | |
| Limited knowledge of | Fair knowledge of the | Excellent knowledge | Comprehensive | |
| the software package. | software package. | of the software | knowledge of the | |
| package. | software package. | |||
| Recommendations | Recommendations | Recommendations | Recommendations | Recommendations |
| (10 marks) | reflect a fair grasp of | reflect a good grasp of | reflect an excellent | reflect an inclusive |
| the problem domain, | the problem domain, | grasp of the problem | grasp of the problem | |
| data, insights and | data, insights and | domain, data, insights | domain, data, insights | |
| expectations. | expectations. | and expectations. | and expectations. |
Other important Information
- Standard plagiarism and collusion policy, and extension and special consideration policy of this university apply to this assignment.
- A cover sheet is NOT required. By submitting your work online, the declaration on the university’s assignment cover sheet is implied and agreed to by you.
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