BPP Business School

Coursework Cover Sheet

Please use this document as the cover sheet of for the 1st page of your assessment.

Please complete the below table – the grey columns

Module Name
Student Reference Number
(SRN)
Assessment Title

Please complete the yellow sections in the below declaration :

Declaration of Original Work:

I hereby declare that I have read and understood BPP’s regulations on plagiarism and that this is my
original work, researched, undertaken, completed and submitted in accordance with the requirements
of BPP School of Business and Technology.

The word count, excluding contents table, bibliography and appendices, is ______ words.

Student Reference Number: __________ Date: ______

By submitting this coursework you agree to all rules and regulations of BPP regarding assessments
and awards for programmes.

Please note that by submitting this assessment you are declaring that you are fit to sit this
assessment.

BPP University reserves the right to use all submitted work for educational purposes and may
request that work be published for a wider audience.

Page 1 of 10
 MSc Management

Data Driven Decisions for Business

FORMATIVE Coursework Assessment Brief

Submission mode: Turnitin online access

Page 2 of 10
1. FORMATIVE General Assessment Guidance

• The deadline for submission is shown on the submission link. Please note late submissions will
• not be marked.
• You are required to submit all elements of your assessment in one Microsoft Word document,
via The Hub
• Assessment area. Only submissions made via the specified mode will be accepted and hard
copies or any other digital form of submissions (such as via email or pen drive etc.) will not be
accepted.
• For coursework, the submission word limit is 1,000 words, excluding your list of references. You
• must comply with the word count guidelines. You may submit LESS than 1,000 words but not
more. Word Count guidelines can be found on the assessments tab of your module.
• Do not put your name or contact details anywhere on your submission. You should only put
your student registration number (SRN) which will ensure your submission is recognised in the
marking process.
• You are required to use only Harvard Referencing System in your submission. Any content which
is already published by other author(s) and is not referenced will be considered as a case of
plagiarism.
• You can find further information on Harvard Referencing in the online library on The Hub (Found
in Help & Support)
• BPP University has a strict policy regarding authenticity of assessments. In proven instances of
plagiarism or collusion, severe punishment will be imposed on offenders. You are advised to
read the rules and regulations regarding plagiarism and collusion in the General Academic
Regulations (GAR) and Manual of Academic Procedures (MOPP) which are available on The Hub
in the Academic registry section (Found via Help & Support).
• You should include a completed copy of the Assignment Cover sheet. Any submission without
this completed Assignment Cover sheet may be considered invalid and not marked.

Page 3 of 10
2. FORMATIVE Assessment Brief

This Formative Assessment Brief covers the first three tasks of your Summative.

2.1. Assessment learning outcomes

This assessment is designed to gauge your understanding, skills and application of common data
analysis techniques used in business and other organisations today. As such you need to
demonstrate your attainment in these areas according to the four Module Learning Outcomes (LOs):

• LO1: Critically evaluate the evolving use of data in solving business problems, presenting
logical arguments based on evidence
• LO2: Explore how data analytics can be used within a business context
• LO3: Critically appraise the presentation of data within a business environment
• LO4: Critically evaluate different business analytical techniques as part of planning a data
analytics initiative.

2.2. Scenario

You have recently been employed by Café On The Sea (COTS) as a data analyst. COTS is a chain of
caffes located on seaside cities around the UK. It was established 15 years ago with vision to bring in
the UK the relaxing environment found in caffes around Italy and France coasts. COTS has grown
successfully with a chain of 15 cafes in locations such as Brighton, Bournemouth, Southampton,
Portsmouth, Blackpool, and St Ives.

As COTS expands, it continues to increase its data analytic roles with the organisation to
strengthening its strategic decision-making capabilities. The recruitment strategy is to employ young
professionals with strategic and data analytics skills willing to provide COTS top management with
strong evidence-based foundation for their business decisions. They like recruits to have a broad
management experience combine with strong academic background. Your MSc Management degree
at BPP University was a key element in their decision to recruit you.

As part of the induction process, COTS, you have joined the Corporate Strategy Department as junior
dada analyst. Your manager requested you to complete a number of tasks to ensure that you have a
grounded knowledge and understanding of data analytics and its application in decision-making. This
is your opportunity to demonstrate your capability and give your employer the confidence to let you
run your own project in the future.

As part of your first duties, your manager asked you to join the team in charge of the development
of the 3-Year Strategic Plan for the company. The team is analysing different options for growth,
which include expanding abroad, new product development and diversification into new business
areas. However, it makes sense to define the strategy based on these options only if the current
business model does not provide the expansion and growth opportunities expected by the top
management. So, you have been given the responsibility to analyse COTS current business
performance.

Page 4 of 10
Your job will be to analyse the performance of the best three coffee shops of the company located
one in Blackpool, one in Southampton and one in Portsmouth. COTS has experienced strong
competition in these cities from coffee chains such as Costa, Café Nero and Starbucks. So, the
performance of these shops is a good indication of the current overall market position of the
company.

2.3. Research objectives and tasks

The Corporate Strategy Manager, who is leading the 3-Year Strategic Plan project, is interested in
understanding the options available for a local expansion strategy, including increase the size of the
shops. For this purpose, he wants you to:

Issue 1: Perform a sales value and volume analysis of the three coffee shops to identify the
best shop to invest in expanding its floor area.

As part of the analysis, the Procurement Manager wants to improve the profitability by reducing the
total cost of ingredients used to produce the menu for the shops. The current menu is made of the
following product groups:

• Cakes,
• Coffee,
• Cold drinks,
• Hot drinks,
• Pastry and
• Sandwiches.

In order to reduce the cost, the Procurement Manager wants to simplify the menu by removing the
products with the worst sales performance. Therefore, he wants you to:

Issue 2: Perform an analysis of the product offering to identify those products with the worst sales
performance which are the candidates to be removed from the shops’ menu.

COTS wanted to explore whether the option of home delivery adds value to its business. In April
2022, the company decided to partner with Deliveroo, a food delivery company, to start a trial
project in its Blackpool’s shop, so the company could take advantage of the “home-working” trend
originated as result of the COVID pandemic affected the UK. Now, the Sales Director is keen to
understand if this new delivery option could be expanded to other shops in the chain. So, he wants
you to address the question:

Issue 3: Did the home delivery service offered in Blackpool have a positive impact on the
sales performance of the shop?

The responses to requests detailed below should be included in a summary MS Word report that
you save and submit as a PDF format file.

Because this is your first project within COTS, the Corporate Strategy Manager has given you
additional details regarding the structure and content that it is expected to see in your report. This
is set out in Section 3 – Report Structure.

Page 5 of 10
A set of data is available (see module dataset spreadsheet file). Since the data comes directly from
the coffee shops, quality issues are present which will require your attention!

You have five tasks to complete for your summative report. The first three are exactly the same as
for your formative report and you should update your answers to these tasks based both on
feedback on your formative submission together with your own further learning across the module.

Task 1: Introduction and project plan (20 marks)

Summarise what you are going to present in the report and justify your plan for delivering the
research project to the Corporate Strategy Manager. Ensure you also clearly reference a data
analytics framework as part of your plan. Finally, specifically explain how data analytics can add
value and drive improved business performance for COTS’s coffee shops.

Guidelines:
• State the purpose of report and describe the report structure and contents
• Present your overall project plan for delivering the project
• Ensure that your project plan explicitly refers to a data analytics framework and explain how
the selected framework can be used to addresses the core business questions assigned to
you.
• Present COTS’s coffee shops Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how improved analytics
enables improvements against these KPIs.

Task 2: Data preparation quality issues and remedies (10 marks)

Discuss first the generic issues that data analysts encounter in collecting, integrating and cleaning
data. Second, discuss the specific issues with the project data that the Corporate Strategy team
has provided to you and how you propose to address those issues.

Guidelines:
• List and explain generic data problems and how to identify them. What are the different
options for resolving these generic issues?
• List all the data problems you have identified with the COTS dataset. Explain how you
identified the problems and how you propose to address them.

Task 3: Data analysis and commentary (20 marks)

Using tables, set out and explain the results of your numeric data analysis, including summary of
exploratory data and supporting commentary. Explain how your results inform understanding of
COTS’s shops performance. This should include three tables setting out:

(Table A) Sales volume and value by month, by year and across the 3 years period,
(Table B) Benchmark comparisons of product groups performance covering sales volume
and value by quarter, by year and across the 3 years period, and
(Table C) Benchmark comparisons of sales volume and value between coffee shops by
quarter, by year and across the 3 years period.

Guidelines:

Page 6 of 10
 • Include summary exploratory data calculations for total sales value and volume. The analysis
could include for example top and bottom performing product categories, ranges, averages,
standard deviations; top and bottom performing time-periods, etc.
• Ensure your tables are professionally presented: Headings, units, data formats. Highlight
and annotate key data elements
• For each table include firstly an explanation of the table and its contents and then a bullet-
point list of what you can see or infer from the analysis of the data.

3. Report Structure

You should set out your report according to the following heading structure. You should add sub-
headings under this overall structure as you feel fit to demonstrate your ability to on-develop the
section themes and to provide meaningful sub-structure. But you must use this overall structure in
order to provide a consistent framework against which your marker will allocate marks. You will be
deduced marks if you do not follow this structure. Also note that there is no requirement for
producing an Executive Summary.

University Cover Page

Table of contents

1. Introduction and project plan

2. Data quality issues and remedies

3. Data analysis and commentary

4. References

5. Appendix (optional)

In addition, you may wish to add further appendices as you see fit in order to support your work.

Word count: 1,000. Cover Page, Table of Contents, References, Appendices, Tables, Charts and
Figures do not count towards word count.

Page 7 of 10
4. Mapping Learning Outcomes to Assessment Tasks

The table below sets out the mapping between the four Module Leaning Objectives and the key
tasks in your Summative Assessment which test your achievement against these Learning Objectives.

Learning Outcome Mapping to Summative Assessment Tasks

LO 1: Critically evaluate the evolving use of Task 1: Introduction and project plan
data in solving business problems,
presenting logical arguments based on
evidence

LO 2: Explore how data analytics can be Task 2: Data quality issues and remedies
used within a business context Task 3: Data analysis and commentary

LO 3: Critically appraise the presentation Not tested in Formative

of data within a business environment

LO4; Critically evaluate different business Task 1: Introduction and project plan
analytical techniques as part of planning a
data analytics initiative

Page 8 of 10
5. Marking Guide

The assignment is marked out of 100 and counts towards 100% of your module mark. The following table shows the tasks, marks and marking rubric. You should
iteratively self-assess your performance against the Marking Guide as you develop your draft submission, in order to evaluate your performance against your
target grade.

Assignment task Distinction (70-100%) Merit (60-69%) Pass (50-59%) Fail (0-49%)
1: Introduction and project plan (20 Guidelines:
marks, LO1, LO4) • State the purpose of report and describe the report structure and contents
• Present your overall project plan for delivering the project
• Ensure that your project plan explicitly refers to a data analytics framework and explain how the selected framework can be used to addresses the core
business question to be answered in your consultancy project: Did the marketing campaign have a positive impact on sales performance in the UK?
• Present BIJ’s own business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how improved analytics enables improvements against these KPIs.

Excellent presentation of an Good presentation to any analytical Satisfactory presentation to any Weak attempt. No mention to any
analytical framework or approach framework or approach that can be analytical framework or approach analytical framework or approach
that can be used to answer the used to answer the business that can be used to answer the that can be used to answer the
business question. Excellent question. Good justification of why business question. Basic justification business question. No justification of
justification of why this analytical this analytical framework or of why this analytical framework or why this analytical framework or
framework or approach can be approach can be effective in approach can be effective in approach can be effective in
effective in answering the business answering the business question. answering the business question. answering the business question.
question.
3: Data quality issues and remedies Guidelines:
(10 marks, LO2) • List and explain generic data problems and how to identify them. What are the different options for resolving these generic issues?
• List all the data problems you have identified with the BIJ dataset. Explain how you identified the problems and how you propose to address them.

Page 9 of 10
Assignment task Distinction (70-100%) Merit (60-69%) Pass (50-59%) Fail (0-49%)
Excellent identification of Good identification of appropriate Satisfactory identification of Weak identification of appropriate
appropriate errors and explanation errors and good explanation how appropriate errors and basic errors and weak explanation how
how they can be fixed. Student they can be fixed. Student identifies explanation how they can be fixed. they can be fixed.
identifies some relevant errors in the some errors and give Student has identified some errors.
database and give specific recommendation on how to solve
recommendation on how to solve them.
them.

3: Data analysis and commentary Guidelines:

(20 marks, LO2) • Include summary exploratory data calculations, for example trend data, top and bottom performing categories, ranges, averages, standard
deviations; top and bottom performing time-periods
• Ensure your tables are professionally presented: Headings, units, data formats. Highlight and annotate key data elements
• For each table include firstly an explanation of the table and its contents and then a bullet-point list of what you can see or infer from the data.

Excellent use of tables to present the Good use of tables to present the Satisfactory use of tables to present Weak use of tables to present the
outcome of the data analysis run to outcome of the data analysis run to the outcome of the data analysis run outcome of the data analysis run to
reply to the business question. reply to the business question. to reply to the business question. reply to the business question.
Commentary to tables is detailed. Commentary to tables is good. Commentary to tables is basic. Commentary to tables is weak.

Page 10 of 10