Case Study: Your Home Grocer (YHG) - Assignment

Overview

This assessment takes the form of a narrated video presentation of a given business case and its dataset(s) as part of a consulting project. It requires you to analyse the dataset(s), interpret, draw conclusion(s) and provide recommendation(s) based on your analysis to a client. To complete this assessment task, you are expected to demonstrate the application of data visualisation and descriptive analytics techniques in which you have learned in the course. The case study is provided in Assessment Details and the dataset (ECON1555_YHG_Dataset.xlxs) is available at Canvas > Assignments > Assessment 2.

Assessment Details

Case Study: Your Home Grocer (YHG) 

According to Finder Consumer Sentiment Tracker, the average Australian household spends about $157 per week on groceries, with men spending slightly more than their supermarket shop than women. The arrival of global entrants such as Costco, Aldi, etc. has palpably dented the dominance and compelled the local supermarket giants such as Coles and Woolworths in the Australian market to devise more innovative ways to retain their market power and remain relevant in an increasingly competitive industry.

Your Home Grocer (YHG) is one of the leading supermarket chains in Australia with about 100,000 staff members. There are about 800 stores in the chain all over Australia, with the first one being established 30 years ago. YHG is headquartered in Melbourne but in terms of operation, each state capital has a company office that has significant autonomy in managing its individual state operations. Furthermore, each store manager is individually responsible for the day-to-day business operations of the store. However, the broad and strategic direction and planning is managed centrally at the headquarter office.

With recent investment into building data analytics capabilities in YHG, the newly created business unit, namely Data Lab, aims to bring together data analytics and retail capabilities across the organisation. As a centralised business unit, it will provide data analytics services and support to all other business units in the organisation, ranging from inventory management, marketing and advertising, new product development, etc. Katrina de Jong, the Head of Marketing, has reached out to Data Lab, to analyse some data obtained from the annual store survey of YHG and communicate the results back to her department.

A random sample of 350 stores was extracted and provided to Data Lab. In this assessment, you play the role of Misha Toutou, a data analyst at Data Lab. Katrina has written to you regarding her requests and/or queries relating to the annual store survey. Her email to you is reproduced below.

To: Misha Toutou, Data Analyst, Data Lab From: Katrina de Jong, Head of Marketing Subject: YHG Store Survey – Data Analytics

Dear Misha,

Given the recent price war between Coles and Woolworths and the changing consumer behaviour, my department is very keen to have a look at our own data and understand the performance of our stores. Please complete the following analysis for me and present your findings at our next online meeting via Zoom.

1. I would like to get an overall summary of the gross
2. Are there any differences in gross profit based on the following? I would like to get a brief summary for each of the
3. State
4. Payment method
5. As the other competitors are expanding into inner city suburbs. Can you provide a profile of our store locations? The previous report I received has covered a comparison of averages and variations of gross profit for each location. Can this be repeated for this report and also include a summary across low, medium and high profit stores?
6. I am interested to find out whether the factors listed below are influencing the variation in the gross profits of the stores?
7. Average wage
8. Advertising dollar spent
9. Number of competing supermarkets
10. Average customer rating
11. In addition, I would like to get an understanding of the online channels across the different states, given that there was a significant amount of funds being invested to set up the online channel for each store in the last two years. I was told that Queensland is leading in this space and I wonder if this could be substantiated by our

Lastly, based on your analysis,please draw a conclusion and provide your recommendation(s).

I look forward to your presentation. Thanks, Katrina

References:

Wallis, S. (2021) Supermarket statistic 2021: https://www.finder.com.au/supermarketstatistics-2021

Mitchell, S. (2021) Woolworths doubles down on data, takes control of Quantium: https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/woolworths-doubles-down-on-data-takes-control- ofquantium-20210420-p57knw

MarketLine Case Study (2019) Coles ‘Little Shop’ campaign.

Guidelines:

Some guidelines for completing the assessment are provided below.

Part 1 – Data Analytics

To complete this assessment task, you are expected to demonstrate the application of basic analytical capability based on visual and descriptive analytics which you have learned in this course, specifically the use of Microsoft Excel. You need to consider the types of data and which appropriate visualisation and descriptive analytics techniques should be applied for analysing the data you have in hand. When exploring and analysing the dataset, you should follow the guidelines below:

• Summary of gross profit You should only analyse gross profit thoroughly, not with other variables as the investigation with other variables are listed in the other questions. Where relevant, comment on the data location, central tendency, variability, shape and outliers for this
• Differences in gross profit You should investigate the relationships (dependencies) between the two variables.
• Comparison of gross profit by location You should investigate the relationships (dependencies) between the two variables.
• Identification of influencing factors You should investigate the relationships (dependencies) between the two variables.
• Understanding online channels by state You should investigate the relationships (dependencies) between the two variables.

Part 2 - Presentation

Your presentation is a video screen capture of you talking to your presentation slides. The focus is on the content. You are not required to show your face in the video unless you chose to do so.

Submission Format

For this assessment, you need to submit the following files via Canvas: 1) Narrated video presentation (maximum 5 minutes and maximum 8 slides including title slide, references, charts, graphs and/or tables) in mp4 file (.mp4) 2) Output/ results of visualisations and descriptive analytics in Microsoft Excel file (.xlsx)

Include a slide for a reference list using the Harvard referencing system for any references you have used to support your presentation. If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.