La Trobe Business School BUS5PB BUS5PB – Principles of Business Analytics Assignment 01:…
La Trobe Business School BUS5PB
BUS5PB – Principles of Business Analytics
Assignment 01: Self-service Analytics Solution
Marks: 30%
Assignment Type: Individual
Due Date: 5:00 PM Friday 29th March 2019 (submit online to LMS)
The first assignment aims to assess analytical thinking as well as skills in the use of self-service analytics
software packages to develop analytics solution. You are required to understand the business context,
apply software packages to explore the given dataset to unveil business insights and make analytics
recommendations. You are also tasked to develop analytics report to convey the findings.
Context
In the past two decades, the pharmaceutical, personal care, and nutritional industries have converged to
address growing demands in the beauty, health & wellness market. This convergence has resulted in the
formation of new industry segments Nutraceuticals, Cosmeceuticals and Nutricosmetics.
Personal Care
Nutrition
AssignmentTutorOnline
Cosmeceuticals Nutricosmetics Nutraceuticals
Pharmaceuticals
Fig 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 approx. 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 available for your perusal. Your manager has not laid out specific expectations,
but he has reiterated the need to ‘understand these industry segments, consumers, the potential
markets and opportunities’.
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The Survey
Are you a regular consumer of beauty, health & wellness products?
(Data was only collected from regular consumers of beauty, health & 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 ($)
(– 70,000, 70,000 – 90,000, > 100,000)
Select your age band from the following options
Age Band
(70)
Select your gender
Gender
(F for female, M for male)
How would you like us to contact you? Please select only one.
Channel
(Social Media, Email, Post)
In which type of products are you most interested?
Product Type
(Nutraceuticals, Nutricosmetics, Cosmeceuticals)
How much would you be willing to spend monthly on this type of product?
Monthly ($)
(<$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 5- most confident)
How confident are you to recommend to a friend?
Recommendation Score
(1-10; 1- least confident 10- most confident)
A total of eleven columns as the data file starts with an ID column as an identifier for each row.
BUS5PBAs01_datafile_CB1_19.xlsx contains data collected from 360 participants.
Tasks
• 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;
• Develop two analytics solutions to analyse the dataset using the two software packages covered
in the subject so far. It is recommended to explore insights among data to pinpoint
characteristics of each segment, for example, age or gender distribution for product type;
• Based on the insights obtained from 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.
• You are free to make reasonable assumptions and justifications given the educational nature of
this case study.
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Report Guidelines
1. The report should consist of a ‘table of contents’, ‘introduction’, logically organized sections/topics, a
‘conclusion’ and a ‘list of references’.
2. Choose a fitting sequence of sections/topics for the body of the report. Three sections for the three
tasks are essential, you may add other sections deemed relevant.
3. You must include diagrams, tables and charts from the analytics solutions to effectively present your
recommendations. (Use Alt + Print Screen to capture screenshots).
4. Page limit: five (5) or more pages.
5. Reports should be written in Microsoft Word (font size 11) and submitted as a Word file.
6. Final submission will comprise three separate files, two analytics solution files and the report as a
Word file. Do not compress these files into a zipped archive, submit as three separate files.
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
Credit
Distinction
High Distinction
Critical evaluation of
Reasonable evaluation
Good evaluation with
Excellent evaluation
Extensive evaluation
the survey
with consideration for
consideration for
with consideration for
with consideration for
(05 marks)
few criteria.
several criteria.
many criteria.
all criteria.
Analytics solution 1
Limited effort to
Fair effort to structure
Excellent effort to
Exceptional effort to
(05 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
(05 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
(15 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 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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