Research proposal FOR ARTEC CORPORATION MBAS 906

Research proposal FOR ARTEC CORPORATION

MBAS 906

Assignment 1 - group

Executive Summary

As the Head of Business Analytics, for this Artecs Strategic Planning Information Report (ASPIRE), we have developed a reserach proposal. The report that is research proposal is for will aim to highlight any issues that Artec Corporation currently have that are impacting its commitment towards innovative products, sustainability and profit margins. It will also aim to research, analyse and provide strategies that can be used to achieve the key set targets for the 5 year growth plan. Data will be treated and a descriptive analysis will be conduscted along with SWOT Analysis. Moreover, data modelling techniques will also be performated to provide transparency and data driven solutions. Lastly, the use of SAS Viya will aid in analysing this data to make predicitions and showcase future trends to gain valuable insights that can be presented to various departments working cohesively to improve the business operations at Artec Corporation.

Table of Content

Research Background

The Arctec Corporation, a multinational toy manufacturing and marketing organizations has been operating since 1980 according to the data provided by the Organization. Their product line consists of eight different categories.

Arctec Corporation, manufactures out of 32 countries. Some of these countries have multiple facilities.

Based on the data sets provided, various issues have been highlighted. Operating in a global toy market, many companies have faced downfall in sales due to a rising interest in computer/video games and toys becoming less interesting to kids of all ages (Richards et al., 2019). To tackle this arising issue many businesses have evolved and become innovative, and the competitiveness has created their demand to generate more sales and profit margins, along with automated manufacturing facilities and distribution to cut back of costs (Bemthuis et al., 2021). To improve its growth, Artecs past performance based on the assessment of analytical data will be assessed and a Artecs Strategic Planning Information Report will be created.

Problem Statement

The problem statement for Artec Corporation is the consideration of working cohesively and prioritizing the alignment of digital marketing strategy and customer care with the corporations growth (Gunawan 2019).

Opportunities and Issues

The dataset provided by Artec which consists of data from 1980 to 2017 has been assessed to understand the underlying opportunities that can be used and the issues that are impacting the growth and performance of the company. It allows us to explore the reasons Artecs performance has been deteriorating over the years and cash in the opportunities to recapture the global market. Some issues that have been identified in the organizations are as follows.

• Some manufacturing facilities are relatively less efficient than others.

• Customer satisfaction rate is very low.

• Market penetration for all product lines is low and has decreased over the years.

Artec will have to increase and adhere to enhanced quality levels, strategies to increase market penetration and attracting new customers will be a priority. The implementation of technology and the aid in strategy building on be bases of results from the analytical trends tend to be highly significant (Mallon 2019). One of the opportunities of Artec Corporation also their ability to initiate the value addition they want and rely on the analytical advice provided to tackle these issues (Neis 2017). Artecs opportunities are also associated to the dedicated teams that are willing to improve and implement the necessary changes.

The research questions for the proposal are:

• Will the dataset and industry research provide insights into our operations that the questions above do not capture?

• What countries and facilities need to improve to increase sales?

• What is causing the customer satisfaction to stay below par?

• What marketing strategies should we use to increase children interest in toys?

• Which product lines should be managed better to improve sales?

Theoretical Framework

• Data treatment: Preparing the data will be the first step where the data will be extracted and any unwanted data will be illiminated.

• Descriptive analysis: Once the data has been treated, it will be used to create a descriptive analysis to understand trends and create potential strategies. This will be used further to create models such as cluster analysis model, decission tree and or regression with the help of SAS Viya.

• Cost Analysis: It is a crucial framework which will help analyze any gaps in past marketing activities and generate potential effective strategies. It will also be effective in assessing and cost deductions that Artec could impliment and mpve those funds operations that will help in improving customer satisfaction and manufacturing efficiencies.

• SWOT Analysis: This will be conducted based on the descriptive research accumulated. This will help assess any current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that Artec has may have. It has been considered as a great tool used to create marketing and business planning (Thomas 2019).

Methodology:

• Software: Numerous large datasets which holds detailed information about sales, facilities, customers etc have been provided by Artec Corporation, SAS Viya will be used to assess it. SAS Viya will also be used to conduct descriptive analysis to reveal and comprehend the difference in sales, customer satisfaction and efficiency of facilities that are impacting the growth and performance of the organization. (Peterson 2019) describes the predicition of any trends of the future to be a relevent part of historical data. It helps in finding the most optimal solutions that are effectively implemented to improve the performance of the business.

• Techniques: To establish a relationship between different variables to assess Artecs performance, models will be created to comprehend the issues and establish factors to answer the research questions. Data exploration will be undertaken and any missing values will be removed to ensure the results and models are acurate. Regression analysis and forecasting models will also be used to predict the future growth of the organization.

Furthermore, industry research, peer reviewed articles and or media sources will be used to assess and compare any past information that may be relevant to the ASPIRE.

Project Delivery Timeline

Project planning 25th Feb 2023

Understanding the datasets provided and upload them in SAS Viya 1st Mar 2023

Implementing the Business Intelligence Tools (SAS) 02 05 Mar 2023

Research and descriptive analysis 8th March 2023

Compiling strategies based on industry reseach and analytical data analysis 12th Mar 2023

Presentation of the findings and insights 23rd Mar 2023

Limitation of business analytics and modelling tools

Several limitations of the business analytics and modelling tools are related to the privacy concern of data and data breaches, related to the information of customers' sales and marketing and lack of commitment and patience can increase the complexity of the analytic solution (Kuz'mina et al., 2020). Also, lack of alignment and cooperation can limit the business analytics process and provide low-quality of data the data secrecy and dealing with the large volume of data and the changes in the technology and the landscape are the major challenges and limitations. Also, a large number of sources can be a limitation for the business analytic process.

Conclusion

To conclude, ASPIRE will aid in the improvement of the business operations. It will focus on the 5 year growth strategy set target and highlight what needs to be illiminated and or improved to generate more sales, divert cost from facilities that are under performing towards marketing to attract new customers and invest in strategies that will enhance customer satisfaction. The report will also use SAS Viya to generate regression analysis, correlation matrix and forecasting sales to provide strategies for profitable options.