ANALYSING A SPREADSHEET AND PRESENTING A BUSINESS REPORT

Case Study

Colin Hammer has decided to trial a Mobile App that will enable retail outlets to dispatch fruit juice orders from their smartphones. Paperwork will be reduced and Hammer Wines will be able to improve their service quality through reduced waiting times for order deliveries. The Mobile App logs orders and optimises delivery routes using all available jobs/deliveries and a mapping feature. A simple drag-and-drop feature will enable all customer orders to be tracked.

Margaret Brand, the Director of Marketing has sent an email to all customers, explaining the benefits of the app and encouraging them to download it. Colin has decided to provide an incentive to retail outlets to encourage them to download the app. Each time a customer completes an order using the mobile app they will receive additional promotions for fruit juice products on the customer order screen.
The Director of Sales, Jamie Sellars, thinks the use of mobile devices for ordering and tracking delivery is an excellent idea. He has suggested a trial of the Mobile App, and a concurrent social media promotion (using email/text) to provide a source of comparison. Colin has asked Margaret Brand, to plan the trial and concurrent social media promotion. Margaret recently joined Hammer Wines Pty Ltd and is enthusiastic about the use of mobile devices and social media.

The social media sales promotionwas planned over a 5 week period (Feb 2 to March 7, 2015).Thispromotion was publicised to members of their current retail customer database (ie. those who have previously purchased fruit juice) via email/text. Margaret started the campaignwith an email to all current retail outlet contacts, advertising Apple and Grapefruit juices. This was followed up by an email/textreminderin Week2 highlighting the saleof Apple and Grapefruit juices.

During the same time period, Orange and Mandarin juices were advertised via the smartphone app. A two for one sale of Mandarin juice was advertised in Week 4 (via the smartphone app).

A spreadsheet has been provided for you that contains the data collected during the 5 week period of the trial of the Mobile App and the concurrent social media (email/text) campaign. Colin wants, in particular, to analyse the impact of the Mobile App and use of smart phones on sales performance during the campaign, using this data. He would like you to make recommendations to improve sales during future campaigns.

PREPARING THE BUSINESS REPORT

The analysis, findings and recommendations which you prepare for Colin should be outlined in a professional business report.
This report should include:

? A Title Page - With an appropriate graphic, report title and student name / number. You should also provide your contact phone number, the course name (Business Computing 1), course number (ISYS2056), your workshop time and your workshop tutors' names.

? A Table of Contents (TOC)generated by the word processor. MSWord default settings for the table of contents should not be altered.

Report Format

The report should be presented following the guidelines presented at the ‘Business Communications' Workshop (see in particular the material in the Pearson Media Library - Communicating Business Problems and Business Solutions Consolidation Online Business Communication - Report Writing) Specifically you should:

• Ensure your report is concise: 800words. This word count includes title page and TOC. It does not include appendices. (Note: a 10% variance is acceptable)

• The report must be presented in a professional, business format with no spelling or grammatical errors.

• Use headings and subheadings throughout the body of the report.

? Use Times New Roman 12 pitch point font, with 1.5 line spacing.

? Align text using full justification.

? Include a page header with a suitably formatted title (the header must not appear on the title page)

? Include a pagefooter with your name, id number and page number. Page numbering should start on the page where the "Introduction" section of the Business Report starts.

? Include at least one chart - which you have created - either in the body of your report (appropriately labelled) or as an appendix at the end of the report.

Your business report should:

? Include a brief introduction that clearly outlines the purpose of the report.

? Briefly present the analysis you have carried out of the data contained in the spreadsheet.

? Identify and discuss the results of your analysis. (Note: It should compare products and marketing strategies.)

? Identify and discuss other factors that may be affecting the results.

? Provide a short concluding summary of the content of the report.

? Finally, include at least two clear recommendations that Colin can adopt. These recommendations must be drawn from the analysis that you have carried out, and discussed in the body of your report.

Some issues to consider when analysing the data:

• Which marketing strategy had the largest impact on sales? Do you feel eithercampaign has been successful in terms of generating increased sales?

• How were sales affected by: (1) the email reminder in Week 2; (2) the 2:1 offer via the smartphone appin Week 4?

• What other factors may be affecting the results of this five week trial?