Description

Assessment 2 – Business Analytics Project (Due Aug 07, 2022)
Description
The Insight Toys Company is an organization that manufactures toys at different production sites
worldwide. We are trying to find ways to be more competitive and are striving to increase customer
satisfaction. Managers of finance department need to better understand profitability and sales issues.
Data
The INSIGHTTOY_SALES data set, contains 57 variables and 1,416,058 observations. It represents the
historic transactional data from the company start. For each transaction we have:
Information on the items sold (Product Brand, Line, Make, Style, SKU);
The sale value (Order Total);
Various related costs (Distribution, Marketing, Product);
Information on the sales representative (Rating, Target, Actual, etc.);
Geographic information (xyFacility Lat, xyFacility Lon, xy…, etc.);
Information on the vendors (Rating, Satisfaction, Distance to nearest facility);
Text Notes taken at the moment of the order taking, based on conversation with the customer
(vendor).
Data Dictionary
Name Type Class Description
Facility Character Category Unique identifier of the selling facility
Facility City Character Category City where the selling facility is located
Facility Continents Character Category Continent where the selling facility is located
Facility Country/Region Character Category Country where the selling facility is located
Facility Country/Region Code Character Category Unique 2-letter code for each country
Facility Date Closed Date Category If a facility were ever to be closed, none are in this dataset
Facility Date Opened Date Category Date the manufacturing facility was opened, varies from 1980 to 2010
Facility State/Province Character Category State or Province where the selling facility is located
Manufacturing Batch Character Category Manufacturing batch corresponding to each transaction
Manufacturing Batch SKU Character Category Stock Keeping Unit of various Manufacturing Batches
Manufacturing Facility Character Category Identifier and location of the manufacturing facility
Order Character Category Unique identifier of the order
Order note Character

Document
Collection

Free form text – notes taken at the moment the vendor ordered items.
This can be used in Text Analytics
Product Brand Character Category 2 brands of products: Novelty and Toys
Product Line Character Category 8 lines of products, falling in the two product brands
Product Make Character Category 77 product make, falling into the 8 product lines
Product SKU Character Category 779 product SKUs produced, falling into the various product styles
Product Style Character Category 355 product styles, falling into the various product makes
Sales Rep Character Category Identification of the sales representative who made the sale
Transaction Date Date Category Date of the sale
Transaction Day of Week Date Category Day of the week of the sale
Transaction Month of Year Date Category Month of the sale
Vendor Character Category Identifier and location of the vendor (customer)

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Vendor Date Ended Date Category When the vendor stopped doing business with us
Vendor Date Started Date Category When the vendor started doing business with us
Vendor Loyalty Program Character Category

Binary field (Y/N) representing whether or not this vendor is in our loyalty
program
Vendor Type Character Category

5 types of vendors: Convenience store, Discount store, Department store,
Kiosk or Other

Market Penetration Numeric Measure

For each transaction, the corresponding % of market share in that
particular region at that time.

Order Distribution Cost Numeric Measure Distribution cost associated with that transaction
Order Marketing Cost Numeric Measure

Marketing cost assigned to that transaction (through an activity-based
costing exercise)

Order Product Cost Numeric Measure

Direct manufacturing costs associated with that transaction. Included I the
calculation of gross Margin

Order Sales Cost Numeric Measure

Sales-related costs assigned to that transaction (through an activity-based
costing exercise)
Order Total Numeric Measure Revenue from that sale
Sales Rep % of Target Numeric Measure

A ratio of Sales Rep Actual sales divided by Sales Rep target. Calculated
DAILY
Sales Rep Actual Numeric Measure

Cumulative DAILY sales for each sales representative. This value should
not be summed across the transactions (since it has already been
aggregated)

Sales Rep Orders Numeric Measure Number of orders assigned to the sales representative on a given period.
Sales Rep Rating Numeric Measure

Subjective evaluation of the salesrepresentative by the vendors- from 0%
to 100%.
Sales Rep Target Numeric Measure

Daily sales Target (goal) for each sales representative. This value should
not be summed across the transactions (since it has already been
aggregated)

Sales Rep Vendor Base Numeric Measure

Potential revenue (funnel) from all the vendors assigned to a sales
representative. This value should not be summed across the transactions
(since it has already been aggregated)

Sales Rep Vendors Numeric Measure

Number of vendors assigned to a sales representative. This value should
not be summed across the transactions (since it has already been
aggregated)

Vendor Distance Numeric Measure Distance from the vendor location to our selling facility
Vendor Rating Numeric Measure

Subjective evaluation, from 0% to 100%, representing the potential value
of a customer (vendor) for insight Toy.

Vendor Satisfaction Numeric Measure

Satisfaction of the customer (vendor) based on a marketing survey. From
0% to 100%.

xyFacility City Lat Numeric Measure Latitude of the city where the selling facility is located
xyFacility City Lon Numeric Measure Longitude of the city where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Continent Lat Numeric Measure Latitude of the continent where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Continent Lon Numeric Measure Longitude of the continent where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Country/Region Lat Numeric Measure Latitude of the country where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Country/Region Lon Numeric Measure Longitude of the country where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Lat Numeric Measure Latitude where the selling facility is located
xyFacility Lon Numeric Measure Longitude where the selling facility is located
xyFacility State/Province Lat Numeric Measure Latitude of the state where the selling facility is located
xyFacility State/Province Lon Numeric Measure Longitude of the state where the selling facility is located
xyManufacturing Facility Lat Numeric Measure Latitude where the manufactory facility is located
xyManufacturing Facility Lon Numeric Measure Longitude where the manufactory facility is located
xyVendor Lat Numeric Measure Latitude where the vendor is located
xyVendor Lon Numeric Measure Longitude where the vendor is located

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Assessment 2 – Business Analytics Project
Part 1: Analytics Reports (50%)
Business intelligence (BI) reports are very important communication tools in managerial
decision-making and are targeted to a variety of audiences that include accountants, finance
professionals, marketers, salespeople, product managers, among others. The relevance, utility
and timeliness of presented information are critical for effective and efficient decision-making.
Business Case:
You are the manager of the business intelligence department at Insight Toys Corporation, one of

the world’s largest toy manufacturers with operations across the globe. As a member of cross-
functional committee, three departments managers have asked you for help in developing a

case study (a visual story line) that will help the executive team for better and faster
understanding of the presented information. They want to go over some facts about current
business performance and then use that data to collectively make the case for a new strategy.
The managers are not sure what type of data/numbers will ultimately be used, and therefore,
they have asked you to make the business report as flexible as possible in order to allow for
further explorations, e.g., filtering, slicing and dicing.
You are to create three interactive analytics reports for the manager of the following
departments:
1. Finance managers need to monitor continuously the sales in each country, including
revenues and profitability. (10%)
2. Product Line managers want to check vendor satisfaction, market penetration, costs and
revenues per product. (10%)
3. Customer Relationship managers want to check vendor satisfaction and rating in each
country, but also the performance of their sales representatives. (10%)

Please note:
• Use at least six different Objects from Tables, Graphs, Controls, Analytics, Containers and
Content provided by SAS Visual Analytics.
• Decide on the appropriate visualization tool/type to use based on the data you choose,

and information you intend to portray. How will these charts be perceived by a non-
technical user? What questions he/she may ask and answer with it? (10%)

• Make use of additional tools/functions such as global and local filters, text inputs, text
content displays and images. (10%)
• Your final BI report should be submitted as a recorded presentation (5 minutes max.)
Part 2: Investigation (50%)
You are to write a short research report (maximum 1500 words) on

“Critically evaluate the role of big data and business analytics in supporting business decision-
making and gaining competitive advantage.”

for one of the following sectors:

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• Social Media Services
• Online Retail Business / Online Services Business
• Human Resources Management
• Banking and Financial Management
• Automotive (e.g. cars, planes, ships, rails, drones)
• Transports Logistics (e.g. aviation, shipping, rails, trucking, pipelines, warehousing,
postal)
• Manufacturing
• Hospitality (e.g. hotels, restaurants, catering)
• Retail (Bricks and Mortar)
• Utility (e.g. electricity, water, gas)
• Energy (e.g. hydro, coal, solar, wind, biomass, gas, nuclear)
• Risks Management (e.g. insurance, any security)
• Real Estate, Building and Construction Management
• Infrastructure Management
• Healthcare