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MKT356 Project Check Point 1&2: Checkpoint1: Industry Analysis: 1

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MKT356 Project Check Point 1&2: Checkpoint1: Industry Analysis: 1. What product category you are investigating? Can you find some background information using our library resources (and/or Google)? Background information and industry overview outside of the given dataset is an indispensable part of a project that involves data analysis. Please find some industry trends (in dollar terms and growth rates, preferably for 2005-2007, but more recent trends can still help us understand what is going on in your chosen product category), distribution channels, and typical products and consumer behavior in the category. For library resources, you may find this resource guide useful: https://libguides.csun.edu/mkt346 We are investigating the gourmet food market. From our research we have found that in 2005 consumers desired more convenience food options that were of high quality. A company by the name of Graphic Packaging Inter-national (GPI) introduced their microwaveable luxury seafood which was very popular after being newly introduced to the U.S. Around this time the use of the internet and sales on it exploded. Consumers were more willing to buy over the internet as the amount of information about the product was more easily available. 2. Industry overview with data: what do the data tell us? This investigation should allow you to talk about industry trends as you observed in these data. Please consider the following charts: a. Total sales by year; by channel, by year and channel; what do you see? : The sales dropped about 2 million from 2005 -2006 then slightly more from 2006-2007. b. Total sales by month and check seasonality;-overlay the years to show seasonality. c. Total sales by month and by channel. –overlay the years; d. Add Price (recall: price=dollars/quantity) to a b c as an addition chart in the same sheet. a B. C. e. Channel analysis: how does this industry use the three channels? Things to consider include: – high/low price channels? How do consumers behave differently across channels, do people spend more in some channels than others? Are these channels experience different patterns in seasonality? A majority of companies tend to use the catalog and internet as their most used channels. Other channels is the least used channel. The channels follow similar trends where they rise between September through December. Customers spent the most amount of money on catalog sales. Other channel is the highest priced goods and internet is the lowest priced goods. Checkpoint2: Company Analysis: 3. Show the top 5 firms and ‘Other’ to see industry concentration. A) Plot the total sales and avg price for the firms, and then B) check to see whether each firm has grown in the three-year period or not. Identify the winner firms in terms of growth (list their companyID’s), and observe if they are a high price seller or a low price seller (relatively speaking). 153 and 943 are considered to be winning firms in terms of growth. Firm 153 is on the low end of price sellers while 943 is at the midpoint to higher end. 4. For each of the top five firms, show how they used channels in different ways. Contrast these with the industry trend. a. Submit your Tableau images with simple comments in a word document. b. And, in a separate Word document, write 2-3 strategic questions for a client firm, and what you plan to do in order to answer each. 1. Based on what you see so far, pick one of the loser firms (in terms of growth) in the top five companies as your client. In order to help your client firm, what are some strategic questions you can ask to these data, and can explore further? -Our team has concluded that firm 961 is struggling. We will pick firm 961 to be our client firm. Below are strategic questions that we will be asking to the data to further explain why firm 961 is struggling. We need to change questions to “how to” “how to they develop their internet channel” ? Are the companies sales higher Internet, Catalog, or Other? Does a person's zipcode/state matter how they are buying? ? Do customers buy more items in a trip in Internet, Catalog, or Other? ? As they lowered their prices the same with there downward growth, could raising their prices make them seem more luxury and attractive for buyer? 2. What information do you need in order to answer each question? -In order to answer these questions we will need to use the data given to us in the data set. We will also need to use simple data research from Google. 3. Please also choose two other “role-model” firms that your team will investigate in detail for the purpose of providing information to the client firm. -Our team has concluded that firms 153 and 943 are on a good upward growth rate and we will look at them as “role-model” firms. Looking at their reason for growth will help us find out what our client firm can also do to have a good growth rate. MKT 356 GROUP PROJECT GUIDELINES A group project will be an important component of this course. The projects will be done in selfselected groups of about 6 students. Each group will choose a set of questions that could help improve a firm’s business, and use data analysis to inform the firm’s decision-making process. Candidate datasets will be provided. The questions to be investigated will need to be approved by the instructor. The teams will use the provided project datasets and come up with a set of questions to work on. Note: the project analysis cannot already be done elsewhere. Plagiarism of metrics analysis will be grounds for a zero on the project for all group members. Please note these dates for the group project: March 11: March 25: April 15: May 13: Project kickoff, pick a dataset for project Initial investigation complete, demo and pick a client checkpoint review and presentation Project final report and presentation The following items are to be submitted for the group project: Project proposal: This will be in form of a PowerPoint presentation submitted to me and presented in class (applies only to client projects – if you use my data, we will do this in one of the checkpoint assignments). Project final report and presentation: The final deliverables are A) a PowerPoint presentation that will be submitted on Canvas and presented in class, and B) a written project report that will be submitted on Canvas. Each team should also submit a technical appendix with additional supporting Statistical outputs (you have the freedom to choose any software for generating the outputs). For group project checkpoints, I will meet with each group to check progress and give feedback. Below I have given more detailed description of what are expected in your presentation and the final project report. Presentation Each group (including all team members) needs to present the project result in class. The presentation covers the same contents as the final research report, and should be around 22 minutes long (depending on how many groups are formed in this class). All group members are expected to participate in the presentation – I hope each student can take this as an opportunity to strengthen their presentation skills. The presenters need to be able to effectively deliver the ideas and answer questions from the audience. The following contents are suggested with your chosen project dataset: 1) Introduction and industry background. What is the current profile of the industry? What was going on in this industry in our sample periods? 2) For the top leading firms in this category, do they show similar sales patterns in terms of seasonality? In terms of their channel use? In terms of their pricing patterns? 3) How do these firms compete? Comment on their channel use, their pricing strategies (and how consumers react to their price changes in terms of price elasticities?), their consumer profile, and their consumer movements which can measure consumer loyalty to the firm. You will choose one of the top companies as your client, and you will help them investigate these data and recommend to moving forward? 4) The above questions are investigated in the checkpoint assignments. In your final report, you should re-organize your thoughts and findings around the strategic questions you asked for the chosen client company, and write the report addressing to this client company. 5) Support all your recommendations with evidence from the data. You may combine such insight with marketing theories. Project Report Each group will be required to submit a typed research report at the completion of the project. The content of the report will be the same as in the presentation, but should be organized differently, as detailed in the following. There is no formal requirement on the length of the paper. However, it is recommended that the final project report should not exceed 8 single-spaced typed pages (excluding exhibits). The report must be typed (font size 12), and must conform to proper spelling and grammar rules; otherwise, they will be marked down and may even be unacceptable. The report should contain the following: 1) Title page 2) Table of contents 3) Executive summary: This provides a summary of research report, including introduction, results, conclusions, and recommendations. 4) Introduction: This section should describe the purpose and background of your project. It should tell why the questions you have sought to answer are important and meaningful to the firm, and provide any background material relevant to the project. 5) Method: The procedures you used should be described in this section. This would include a description and justification of analysis you choose to do for your project. 6) Results: This section should contain the results of data analysis. The results of the data analysis should be clearly and concisely presented in the body of the paper in charts and tables. It is important to make sure you organize your results in a logic sequence and present them clearly by explaining your findings from the data, and how such findings are useful to your chosen client. 7) Conclusion: This is the final section of the paper and should show a summary of how the research findings have answered the questions you initially posed. This section should include the implications of your findings for management and your recommendations based on the results. Also, any limitations or weaknesses of your study and how these may have affected your results should be explained. Directions for further research may also be included if appropriate. 8) Appendices: It may include references and any supporting information not contained in the body of the paper that are relevant to understanding the results. Grading Your group presentation (.pptx file) and project report (.docx file) are due on the final presentation class. Please submit your files on Canvas. Grading will be based on quality of end project. 1. How well did the group understand the firm and the business problem? 2. The relevance and quality of the metrics used. A variety of metrics that measure issues crucial to the firm is good. Ten slightly different measures of the same thing are not good. 3. The depth and insightfulness of the discussion of the strategic implications. 4. The thoroughness of the analysis. 5. Format, flow, and readability of the final project report. CATME Peer Evaluations Participation in the project work is mandatory. All team members are expected to be able to carry out the whole project, and to participate in all stages of the project, and all the checkpoint activities. A group project is for us to learn from each other in collaboration and to share some work load for repeated type of analysis, and not to be used as an excuse to know only partially about the project. The final project grade will be reduced accordingly if a student fails to participate fully. We will use CATME peer evaluations to evaluate individual contribution to the term project. Group members can evaluate each other's performance and give their feedback to their teammates on the project. If a student fails to turn in their evaluations on time, it may be considered as evidence of the individual’s not actively participating in team work, and the instructor will use available information for assessing contributions. CATME is an external tool. You will receive an email from CATME when your evaluations are due. Just follow that link. We will do practice evaluations at an appropriate time as indicated below. To improve your collaboration and team skill development we will use five dimensions: contribution, positive interactions, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and developing knowledge, skills, and abilities. The CATME system uses behaviorally anchored scales. A score of “3” on a five point scale indicates that you are a good participant in a team, a good collaborator. A score below a 3 on any dimension indicates the need to do additional development in that area; a score above a 3 indicates that you are viewed as doing well on that dimension. From a grading standpoint, I will use my observations and student peer evaluations on contribution (the first dimension) to develop a grade for your individual grade on the project. Note that the only dimension that will impact your grade from the peer evaluation score will be your contribution to the team’s work. Moreover, achieving a score of 3 on contribution from your peers will indicate that you have done the minimum required for full credit for your team score. No group member will receive a grade for the project higher than that is given to the group. We will use the remaining four dimensions to help further your skill development in collaboration and teamwork. Thus, we will use the system so that you can provide feedback on collaboration and team skills to other members of your study team and they can provide feedback for you. Week 9: Available Tuesday - Friday, practice CATME will not impact your evaluation Week 11: Available Tuesday - Friday, practice CATME may impact your evaluation Week 15: Available Wednesday - Friday, Final CATME can impact your evaluation Resolving Possible Group Conflict We will use the evaluation on week 11 to help resolve possible group conflicts, but earlier intervention is possible upon your request to the instructor, and with proper communications in the group. Often times, such conflicts arise because of lack of communication or misunderstanding among group members. For good communication, we suggest the following: a) the group keeps open communications from the beginning of the project (by using email ‘Reply All’ or any other communication means your group decides), and keeps these as public records in the group. All members are expected to show respectful and responsible behavior in communications and in class. b) each team assigns a team coordinator (or team members take turns to play this role), who will oversee the work progress at different phase of the project, including the checkpoint activities and the final report. It is a good idea to set your team’s internal deadline at least one day prior to the deadline on Canvas, so that the coordinator will have time to react to possible delays that may happen due to various reasons. c) attending classes, especially the ones when we discuss checkpoint activity feedback, is very important for minimizing the chance for team members’ mis-communication. We will discuss each team’s improvement points, and will allow time for the teams to correct their (possible) errors and get ready for the next assignment. d) it is helpful to keep in mind that forming a team with others include an implicit commitment of accomplishing something together and helping each other through in this process. When conflict arises, we may express our feelings but we should not accuse others. Staying with facts and reaction/solutions to such facts, in order to get better results than the status quo. We are here to learn, not here to fight each other. Please try your best to keep good communications, and actively participate in the group work. If a team decides to dismiss a team member at week11-12, it will be that student’s job to find an alternative group in week 12. We will not break any groups after week12. Please keep in mind that the job market is expecting cooperative team players. Students join this class for the purpose of knowledge and skills and practices, and it is part of everyone’s responsibility to allow others to learn in a peaceful and friendly environment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdOZA_5CjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEw_zGQhh-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEw_zGQhh-s