This assignment will help you learn how to prepare a management report. This submission needs to be ONE (1) page (one-sided) only. You will need to identify the most important points in the data and provide recommendations. Note that if the submission is more than one page in length, ONLY the first page will be graded.
Pelican Stores, a division of National Clothing, is a chain of women’s apparel stores operating throughout the country. The chain recently ran a promotion in which discount coupons were sent to customers of other National Clothing stores. Data collected for a sample of 100 in-store credit card transactions at Pelican Stores during one day while the promotion was running are contained in the file named PelicanStores.xlsx. The Proprietary Card method of payment refers to charges made using a National Clothing charge card. Customers who made a purchase using a discount coupon are referred to as promotional customers and customers who made purchase but did not use a discount coupon are referred to as regular customers. Because the promotional coupons were not sent to regular Pelican Stores customers, management considers the sales made to people presenting the promotional coupons as sales it would not otherwise make. Of course, Pelican also hopes that the promotional customers will continue to shop at its stores.
Your firm has been contracted by Pelican Stores to analyze the data and make recommendations for future promotions. The contract is worth $125,000 and will be awarded to the best recommendation which is supported with your statistical analysis. Be thorough in your analysis and interpretation which will be presented in the form of a one-page report.
Most of the variables contained in the data file are self-explanatory, but two of the variables require some clarification.
Items The total number of items purchased.
Net Sales The total amount ($) charged to the credit card.
Pelican’s management would like to use this sample data to learn about its customer base and to evaluate the promotion involving discount coupons. Additionally, Pelican’s management would like to use this sample data to learn about its customer base and to evaluate the promotion involving discount coupons. You can take the approach of advising them to build the current customer base or look at this as a way to learn more about what customers you need to attract to your store. All assumptions around the approach chosen must be stated and defined.
Deliverable: Provide a one page (not double-sided) report. Your report should include three sections and supporting graphs. The three sections are as follows:
1. Key Trends and Insights
This section shows your deep understanding of performance, ability to segment the data, understanding what matters, and why the results are the way they are. Include relevant descriptive statistics here that will tie in with your recommendations below.
2. Recommendations
In this section you will make statements such as “Do x based on y insights. Do m based on n insights. Do z based on insights q” (note you will fill in statements for x, y, m, n, z, and q, and those letters are used for generic purposes).
3. Impact to Business
In this section you will make statements such as, for example, “If you do x, our conversion rate will go up by 18%. If you do y, amplification rate will increase by three times. If you don’t do z, your job will be in extreme jeopardy due to business failure.”
I bet you are wondering….Where do I start? There are two documents attached to this assignment. First, read through the document attached to this assignment that describes this assignment in detail. Second, open up the Excel data file associated with this assignment. You will need to analyze the data by creating graphs and descriptive statistics (see the computer assignments that you have done to in the lectues leading up to this assignment that prepare you to be successful in this assignment).
You will create several graphs, and then you need to decide which graphs to include in your report (remember, the management report is only one page in length). I highly recommend creating and evaluating the following graphs (just because these graphs are in the list below doesn’t mean that they will be part of your story. You need to figure our your own story. These graphs will help you start this process.):
Evaluate variable independently (bar, histogram, or pie graph), and appropriate descriptive statistics.
Understand comparisons (using contingency tables and stacked and clustered bar graphs):
Compare the number of customer purchases and the method of payment.
Understand net sales by various classifications of customers. For example, you may want to understand if the females are married or single and were regular or promotional customers if you take the approach to build the female customer base as shown in the sample data.
Age vs net sales: Specifically what is going on with age of customer and how much they spend money?
Type of customer (regular or promotional) versus net sales. Are there any similarities or differences present?
YOU MUST INCLUDE COMPARISON GRAPHS IN YOUR SUBMISSION TO RECEIVE FULL CREDIT!
The presentation needs to resemble a management report. If you have a graph, the narrative points in the report need to be supported by the graphs. Your report needs to look professional, be concise, and well organized.
