Business Computing

ANALYSING A SPREADSHEET AND PRESENTING A BUSINESS REPORT

Case Study

William has performed a stocktake at Hammer Wines. The results revealed excess stock at the warehouse for DUNKLES, DURST, BASS and HELLES beers. William discussed the issue at the regular weekly staff meeting. Even though Hammer Wines is not a retailer of their products, from time to time it is has been necessary to have warehouse sales to increase turnover and clear slow moving stock. Usually the Director of Sales, Jamie Fairservice organises the design and development of a costly brochure that is posted by surface mail to existing customers.
Jamie Fairservice, has suggested running a trial to investigate moving to online communication with customers to promote sales rather than posting traditional hardcopy brochures. A side-effect of the transition to online marketing and communication is the potential to grow the customer database contact list and consequently move stock more quickly. Customers can order and pay for products online now, anyway. William thought this was a great idea. He asked Louise Brand, the Director of Marketing, to organise a warehouse sale and to trial the idea of online (email) communication with customers to promote sales. Louise ran a 6 week sale and trial, as follows:

• DURST and BASS beer were marketed to customers using the existing customer list. An email was sent to customers each week of the Sale. A second email sent in Week 5, as a reminder, included a "2 for 1" offer for cartons of BASS beer.

• During the same time period, DUNKLES beer was marketed using the original customer list and employee retail business contacts.

• Sale information for HELLES beer was also emailed each week to a purchased customer list. A "2 for 1" offer for cartons of HELLES beer was included as part of the email sent in Week 5.

Louise handed the development and implementation to her assistant, Emily Ventes. Emily, had recently joined Hammer Wines Pty Ltd, and was enthusiastic about the use of social media and its importance as a business tool in the 21st century. Emily developed a series of promotional emails that were sent out each week over the period of the campaign. Potential customers heard about the campaign, through forwarded emails from friends and the number of requests to be added to the Hammer Wines customer list increased during the marketing campaign. Emily kept detailed records of the number of emails sent and the new email addresses to be added to the online customer database, over the period of the trial. Louise has also purchased access to a marketing database to try and improve sales.

William now has access to a quantity of data about the relative success of the sale using the three customer lists. William wants you to analyse the data and compare the overall performance when the sale was offered to the:

• Original customer list drawn from previous sales,

• An extended original customer list that included employee retail contacts • Purchased access to a new customer list.

In particular, he would like you to draw conclusions and make recommendations for future campaigns, as follows:

Business Report

• Which marketing strategy had the greatest effect on sales?

• Should William continue to use the purchased customer list to increase his customer database or should he focus on increasing the size of his customer database list using traditional marketing strategies?

• Specify any further significant factors that may influence the success of the marketing campaign?

PREPARING THE BUSINESS REPORT

The analysis, findings and recommendations which you prepare for William 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 (ISYS2059), 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 provided in the Communications Workshop notes (see the ‘Online Business Communications - CLA' Workshop).

Specifically you should:

• Ensure your report is concise: 800 - 1000 words. NOTE: A penalty will apply if the report is longer. This word count includes title page, Table Of Contents (TOC) and any appendices.

• 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 page footer 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 table or 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.

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

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