MIS781 Business Intelligence
Assignment 2 (Group): Development of BI Reporting Solution
Due date: 13 September 2015 (11:59pm AEST)
Mark: 40% of overall unit assessment mark
Word limit: up to 5500 words
Assignment: in a team of 3 students
(Note: off-campus/Cloud students can seek permission to do it individually; at least 2 weeks
before the assignment due date)
BI Solution Development and Report
In the BI software practicals, we saw how the tools interact with data sources to produce BI
reports and dashboards for managers. This practical assignment requires you to
demonstrate your understanding and apply IBM Cognos Insight and/or Watson Analytics
tool.
Scenario
Walton Supermarket is a large supermarket chain in USA. Due to intense competition from
companies like Aldi, the company is facing a number of sales challenges. Your BI
company was hired to consult on a number of problems and your team were responsible for
the BI aspects of the solution.
After a discussion with the senior executive team (e.g. CIO, CEO, COO, Sales Director,
etc), your team managed to zone into a number of problems that they want you to address.
These problems span a number of areas in their business. Your task is to use your
appreciation of BI tools to address these problems. The Supermarket Transaction record
between 2012 and 2014 is provided to you too (Excel file).
The CIO reveals that the company has been collecting sales data and they are able to link a
large part of the sales to their customers through their loyalty rewards program “Uncle Sam
Card”. Through their analytics, they were able to categorise households into six different
categories:
 Affluent buyers – families buys mostly high quality product offerings from the
supermarket;
 Lifestyle shoppers – families who buy mostly high quality products but are
buyers of lifestyle products such as chocolates and pet food;
 Busy families – families who seem to buy a lot of ready to cook items and ‘fast
food’ such as instant noodles, can soups, etc.;
 Budget conscious – families whose total spend are largely below $100 per week;
 Discount shoppers – families whose purchases include mostly home brand
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items and discount items;
 Battling families – families who purchases include mostly necessities and have a low number of GST applicable purchases.
The CIO went on to elaborate that the company at the moment deploys different ‘carrots’ for different family types. For example, the “affluent” group is not so concern about discounts (targeted at budget conscious families) but are more interested in incentives such as ‘VIP status’ or invitation to special events so you are to keep this in mind. Nonetheless, the following BI reports/performance indicators might be considered:
 Sales revenue over each month, quarter and year for each state, region and cities
 Year to date sales versus last year and Year to date profit versus last year
 Sales for each product category as a proportion of total sales, etc.
Your team have been asked to apply some BI tools to produce ‘Best practice’ BI reports for the senior executives of Walton next week.
Tasks:
1. What are the BI reporting solution/dashboards you will need to develop for the Senior Executives of Walton Supermarket? Develop the BI reporting solution/ dashboards based on the given Supermarket Transaction sample data file and IBM Cognos Insight and/or Watson Analytics tool.
2. Justify why these BI reporting solution/dashboards are chosen and why those attributes are present and laid out in the fashion you proposed (feel free to include all other relevant justifications).
Note: To ensure that you discuss task (2) properly, you must include visual samples of the reports you produce (i.e. the screenshots of the BI report/dashboard must be presented and explained in the written report; use ‘Snipping tool’), and also include any assumptions that you may have made about the analysis in your assignment report (i.e. the report to the senior executive team of Walton).
3. Furthermore, the CEO would like to improve the sales. Based on your BI analysis and the insights gained from “Uncle Sam” loyalty rewards program, make some logical recommendations to the CEO, and justify why/how your proposal could increase the sales revenue. Include the relevant screenshots of the BI analysis, and also any assumptions that you may have made about the analysis.
NOTE:
 You MUST produce the actual visuals in IBM Cognos and/or Watson using the sample dataset.
 If you think the best presentation above is to use, say, only a pie chart, then discuss using a pie chart and indicate what the pie chart would show, why you picked the pie chart, and so on.
 It may be useful to try with various BI reporting/dashboards/presentations before rushing to conclusion.
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Report guidelines
1. The body of the report should contain ‘Table of Content’, logically organised sections, and ‘List of references’.
2. The contribution of each team member must be clearly stated on the Table of Content. E.g. Introduction (done by Alex Smith).
3. You may include figures, diagrams, tables and charts, etc.
4. For this practical assignment, the length of the assignment includes everything (e.g. Table of content and References list).
5. Reports should be written in Microsoft Word (font size 11) and submitted as a Word file.
6. Assignments are to be submitted online to the CloudDeakin dropbox (see submission details below).
Submission Details
The assignments should be submitted as a Word file, called surname1-surname1-surname3.docx (e.g. Smith-Patel-Tan.docx) and submitted via CloudDeakin (your group’s Dropbox; not individual one even though if you are allowed to do it individually – so, just join any group number as a sole member, or else your mark will not be automatically recorded by the group assignment system). It is worth 40% of your overall mark for this unit.
Also, the Cognos file (if you use only Watson, include your login detail on the first page – next to your name) AND the Turnitin report of the assignment (i.e. the entire Turnitin similarity report with highlights) must be submitted. Assignments with Turnitin index of 15% or more will be reported to Faculty Academic Misconduct Committee.
Referencing format
You should include any website, journal, or conference papers you have cited in your research paper as references.
Please use the Harvard or APA style for referencing your sources. See:
http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/authordate-harvard.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/referencing-apa.php
Assessment of Assignment
The Marking Rubric should give you an idea of the relative effort you need to apply to each section of your assignment.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism will cause the grade on any written assignment to be zero (0). Do ensure your Turnitin similarity index is less than 15%.
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Getting Help
All students can obtain help by posting messages to the Assessment Discussion in CloudDeakin. In addition, all students can seek help during the classes or consultation hours.
Academic Misconduct
Deliberate academic misconduct such as plagiarism is subject to severe penalties. Plagiarism includes:
 copying words from other students
 re-using assignment material done by other students
 contracting other people to do the assignment, etc.
Extension
No extensions will be considered for this assignment unless a written request (email is fine) is submitted and negotiated with the Unit Chair at least 48 hours before the due date. Assignments submitted late without an extension being granted will not be marked. It is your responsibility to keep backups of the assignment.
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