Due Week 8: Complete BA Plan including Sections

1, 2, and 3, plus new Section 4: BA Center Location and Projects.

In the final portion of the course project, you will choose a location in the organizational structure for a Business Analytics center, and propose two high-priority projects that the center should undertake. You will also review and update the sections of your BA Plan that were written earlier, incorporating any feedback from your professor on those sections, and submit your completed BA Plan document.

Write a 1-2 paragraph description (100-400 words) describing how a Business Analytics center for this company should be structured and where it should be located within the organization. This should include whether the BA center should be centralized as a formal organizational unit, or decentralized as a virtual organizational unit (see Exhibit 7.4 in the textbook). Also describe where the BA center should report in the company’s organizational structure (e.g., directly to top management; to the IT department; or to some other department such as marketing, finance, etc.). Explain your choices in terms of the organization’s strategy, maturity, and the expected role of the BA center in the organization.

Also, describe two business analytics projects that you believe should be the top priorities for the new BA center to undertake. For each project: (1) state the analytical question to be answered; (2) suggest one or more information sources (such as internal accounting reports, customer surveys, market research, etc.) that could be used in the analysis; (3) identify the general analytical method that could be used for the project (see Exhibit 4.2 in the textbook); (4) describe the potential benefits to the organization of completing the project; and (5) explain how the project relates to the organization’s strategy, objectives, critical success factors, and KPIs identified in previous sections.

In choosing your projects, you should take into account which business processes for the organization are most important given its strategic priorities (see Exhibit 3.13 in the textbook), as well as the criteria for assessing and prioritizing BA projects described in Chapter 8.

Finally, review and revise all sections of your BA Plan document. Incorporate any needed changes based on the feedback given by your professor on your previous submissions. Run a spell-check and grammar check, and proofread to ensure the entire document is professionally written and error-free. Also check that the entire document is professionally and consistently formatted. Include APA-style references for any sources used in the reference list at the end. At a minimum, you should include a reference for the Nexis Uni database used for the financial data in Section 3, as well as any other sources you consulted.

Submit your complete BA Plan document including Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the reference list, to the Week 8: Course Projectassignment.

Week 8 Grading Criteria

CategoryPoints
PercentDescriptionSection 1
30 15%Section 1: Company Background and Strategy satisfies all content requirements for the section, and incorporates all changes in feedback provided by the professor.Section 2
30 15%Section 2: CSFs and KPIs satisfies all content requirements for the section, and incorporates all changes in feedback provided by the professor.Section 3
3015%
Section 3: Analytics Dashboard Example satisfies all content requirements for the section, and incorporates all changes in feedback provided by the professor.Section 4: BA Center Location
20
10%Clearly describes the recommended structure and location of a BA center for the organization, and reasonably justifies the recommendation in relation to the organization’s strategy, maturity, and the BA center’s role. Incorporates key concepts from Week 6 and Chapter 7.Section 4: Projects
40
20%
Each of 2 proposed projects includes a clearly stated analytical question, at least one relevant information source, an appropriate general analytical method chosen from those in Exhibit 4.2, potential benefits to the organization, and a clear explanation of how the project relates to the strategy, objectives, CSFs, and KPIs identified in previous sections.References
10
5%
The reference list includes all sources used in the project, including the Nexis Uni database, and is in proper APA format.Writing, Editing, and Formatting
40
20%
The section is written clearly and professionally; is substantially free of errors in spelling and grammar; and is formatted consistently and professionally.Total
200
100%

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Exhibit 3.13 Correlation between Strategy and Operational Processes with Significant Analytical Potential

We have chosen to give 11 suggestions for processes with great analytical potential in the remainder of this chapter. It’s debatable whether we should have included fewer or more, and whether the methods we suggest are optimal. This will always be the case in this field. But we have chosen these particular ones because we find that they have proven to be valuable in the past and because we think they will continue to have great value in the future. Similarly, we could discuss their positioning in the triangle. And we will do so for each of the 11 suggestions, without insisting in any way that we are presenting the one and only truth.

Customer Relationship Management Activities

CRM activities are one of the processes that historically has been supported by BA. There are several reasons for this. First of all, these are processes that can visibly add value in the very short term, and that own a lot of information— that is, customer data. Primary industries in this field are organizations with stable and long‐term customer relations, such as banks, insurance companies, and telecoms. The names of individual customers are known, and it is possible not only to measure their consumption month by month but also to identify who cancels his or her customer relationship. In the following example, we will take our point of departure in the three focus areas of CRM: getting valuable customers, increasing the value of existing customers, and keeping customers. Digitalization in the form of apps or purchases from the Internet portal, and the subsequent ability to generate customer data and use it for customer dialogue, will however mean that more companies will focus on CRM data. The fact that customers increasingly expect that companies know them and only communicate relevant information to them will also drive the importance of the use of customer data in all channels.