Data Analytics Case Study: Woolworths Group

Introduction to Data Analytics for Business
Data Analytics Case Study

Introduction
This report entails the data analysis case study of an organisation that describes the data analytics
for helping in creating(Grover, V., Chiang, R.H., Liang, T.P. and Zhang, D., 2018) more efficient
business decisions and help improve the strategies. In this particular case, The Woolworths Group
that leads in extensive retail interests in Australia has been considered. It deals with food and also
specializes in supermarket and consumer store operations on wide range of products. The report
proposes a data-driven decision making application of the data analytics. The various operations
and modes of operation of the Woolworth Group has been covered which sets a base for discovering
factors and grounds for implementing data-driven decision making. The minute and possible
inefficiencies have been included along with the solution to refactor them. In the light of data
analytic, the different sources from where the organisation gets the data, i.e. the Data sources have
been included. With close analysis of the data gathered, a proposed data analysis technique and
analysis has been given. With the dataset analysis and the outcomes of it, the possible developments
and implementations have been drafted out to reach out to the stakeholders of the organisation to
create an opportunity for the data analytics and decision making.
The Woolworth Group
The Woolworth Group is a huge organisation with 215000 employees that offers the retail
operations throughout Australia and New Zealand. It deals with supermarket and merchandise
stores and also involves in food, liquor and wide range of products procurement. It also operates
hospitality services such as hotel chains that includes number of food outlets, pubs and gaming
operations. Apart from all these, it also operates the financial and insurance services.

Current Mode of Operation
The Woolworths manage their business in the fields of supply chain and distribution network. The
strategies are mostly in the supervision, design and redesign of the business operations for wide
range of products and services. Their mode of operation is customer based(Woolworths,2019), i.e.
the customers they serve. The current mode includes, sales report, supply distribution, chain supply
reports etc. The distribution of the supply chains is based on the customer demands and proportions.
The organization has the strategy of building the modes of business operations based on the sales
and product demands. They redesign this if there is any shift in the trend of the products demanded
by the consumers or the purchase trends of the supermarkets. Woolworths is known for providing
cheaper and reliable products in Australia. It manages all sort of products and supermarket shopping
experience.
The main operation mode of this organisation is the survey method. It tasks its merchandise and
other retail outlets and the suppliers to create and perform surveys to determine the engagement of
the organisation and its services, meeting with the demand requirements, equitably with the
suppliers, audits and customer rating system.
Possible Inefficiencies
There are a lot of inefficiencies in the current operation mode of the Woolworths organisation. The
main sources of the information about the business and the decision making is based on the reports,
audits and ratings. This creates grounds for false and unreliable data and information. The chances
of errors and wrong data is high in the above operation modes specified. The sales reports are the
main information source that provides the right and true clauses for decision making and drafting
business opportunities. The design of the business standards and strategies is based on these input
factors that are not truly reliable. The customer ratings and surveys may be done in a way that does
not provides sufficient data and information for the proper analysis of the business. Customer

ratings could be falsified by the end parties and most of the surveys are not independent or from
reliable sources. In the food sector, there is no proper system for creating surveys and analysing on
them. The food and hospitality outlets cannot determine the customer satisfaction based on the sales
or the productivity of the services offered. This creates an abyss between the supplier and the
current demands of the consumer and also leaves the organisation clueless about the factors for
making diverse and efficient strategy for the business in this sector.
Available Data Sources
Since the organisation manages business in the customer and consumer domains, there are lot of
sources for data that can be collected and then analysed for creating business strategies and
decisions to improve the consumer satisfaction as well as the business growth and reputation. The
available data sources for the organisation are as follows:
1. Supermarket sales: The database from the different supermarket chains under the organisation
can individually create huge datasets for data analytics. Each product that is offered in the
supermarket can be categorized on different factors to determine the demand and supply
requirements. The products available in the supermarkets and the stock data can be collected to
create real-time sales insights that is authentic and generated at the root source. The shopping trends
can be analysed in these data sources to present a comprehensive report for products and the need of
the consumers for any particular product. Based on the sale insights, the products can be analysed or
designed in such as way that the business can make strategies such as discounts and customized
sales for engaging more customers and business growth.
2. Merchandise sales: The business can collect data from the social media and other platforms to
create an insight of what merchandise is currently in demand and trend. This can later be
implemented to stock the merchandise outlets with the current product demand. The watch on
current merchandise and trend in the entertainment world can help boost up the merchandise sales
more.