Business Intelligence BI Solution Development & Reporting

BI Solution Development and Report
Lab sessions have provided you with an introduction to data analysis, producing reports and
visualisations with the help of BI tools such as IBM Cognos and Watson. This assignment is designed
to broaden your understanding of BI tools and further develop your analytical skills.
 You will first analyse a sample dataset provided, design a BI dashboard for executive use
and, finally, make a set of recommendations based on your analysis. A certain level of independent
learning and research will be required for the completion of this assignment.

Scenario
9Eleven is a small format supermarket chain in Australia, New Zealand and USA. Due to intense
competition from new entrants into the market, such as Aldi, 9Eleven is facing a number of
challenges in terms of revenue generation. Your organization, Deakin-BI, is a BI consultation firm
that has been contracted to assist 9Eleven.
The CIO revealed that 9Eleven was collecting sales data. They were able to link a large part of
their sales data with their customer information obtained through a loyalty rewards program
“9Eleven Rewards”. A file containing supermarket transaction records between 2012 and 2014 was made
available to you. According to preliminary analysis, they have subdivided their customer base into
six household categories:

1. Affluent buyers – families buying mostly high quality product offerings;
2. Lifestyle shoppers – families which buy high quality products but are purchasers of lifestyle
products such as chocolates and pet food;
3. Busy families – families which seem to buy a lot of ready to cook items and ‘fast food’ such as
instant noodles, canned soups etc.;
4. Budget conscious – families which spend below $100 per week;
5. Discount shoppers – families that purchase mostly home-brand items
6. Battling families – families that purchase mostly discount items and necessities and have a low
number of GST applicable purchases.

The CIO further elaborated that different ‘carrots’ were deployed according to the category a
particular family belonged to. For example, the “Affluent” group is not concerned with discounts
but are more interested in incentives such as ‘VIP status’ or invitations to special events.
Whereas “Battling families” category is mostly focused on discounted items. You have been asked to
help 9Eleven isolate ways in which sales revenue could be increased. Some examples of performance 2
indicators that could be considered:

• Sales revenue over each month, quarter and year for each city and state
• Year-to-date sales versus last year’s sales and Year-to-date profit versus last year’s
• Sales for each product category as a proportion of the total sales

Your team has been asked to put your appreciation of BI tools to good use and produce a BI solution
for the senior executives of 9Eleven.

Tasks:

1. Develop Dashboard: Develop a dashboard to be used by the Senior Executive Team of 9Eleven. It
should be based on the supermarket transaction record sample provided. Use IBM Cognos Insight
and/or IBM Watson for this task. It will be up to you to decide which data should be displayed,
which visualisation elements to be utilesed and how the elements should be arranged.

2. Justify Dashboard Design: Justify why these BI reporting solution/dashboard elements were chosen
and why they were laid out in the fashion you have proposed.
The screenshots of the BI reports/dashboards must be presented and explained in the written report.
Also include any assumptions made.

3. Make Recommendations: Furthermore, the Board would like to improve company’s sales revenue based
on the six-fold household types identified. Using insights gained from analysing supermarket
transaction record propose a set of ‘fact-based’ recommendations that would help 9Eleven increase
their sales revenue. You must provide a critical analysis of your proposal and discuss how each of
the solutions would increase the sales revenue. Include relevant screenshots from BI tools that
have aided your analysis. State any assumptions.

NOTE:
• You MUST produce the actual visuals in IBM Cognos and/or Watson using the sample dataset.
• It may be wise to experiment with various BI visualisations and dashboards before making your
selection of dashboard elements to use for the task.

Report guidelines
1. The body of the report should contain a table of contents, a series of logically organised
sections of the report body, and a list of references at the end.
2. The contribution of each team member must be clearly stated on the Table of Contents. E.g.
Introduction (done by Alex Smith).
3. You may include figures, diagrams, tables and charts as you see fit.
Submission Details

Also include the Cognos file (if you use only Watson, please include your login detail on the first
page next to your name)
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Data Column Heading Descriptions

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