Business Report Assignment - Doc

Research report
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Business report
Student Name:
Student number:
Lecturer:

Research report
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Table of contents
Content Page
1.0 Introduction ................................................................3
2.0 Problem statement.............................................................3
3.0 Research questions............................................................4
3.1 Top and worst performers....................................................4
3.2 Difference in payment methods ........................... ................5
3.3 Difference in sales performance ...........................................6
3.4 Difference in sales and gross profit........................................8
3.5 Test for correlation-sales and rain ........................................13
3.6 Test for correlation-sales and gross profit ...............................13
3.7 Product category.............................................................14
4.0 Discussion and recommendation ..........................................15
5.0 Reference........................... ..........................................16

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1.0 Introduction
New enterprises in the market face a lot of challenges in the market especially if the industry is
dominated by organizations which have been in the business for long (Kotler , 2012) and
(Romano, 2009). Start up business face various problems from competition to low sales
volume due to unpopular company name or products that they sell. Harvest kitchen, a company
that deals in green groceries has also not been spared. It has been facing challenges from
competition from other established businesses to low sales.
2.0 Problem statement
The main challenge to harvest kitchen organization has been inability to close in on leads hence
leading to low sales across the year. Other factors that contributed to the staggering sales levels
were assumed to be rainfall and location of the produced products in their shops. In order to
increase sales, harvest kitchen has decided to conduct an research survey to understand the
various factors that are perceived to be influencing sales and hence gross profit.
3.0 Research questions
The main research questions for this report are;
 What are the top and worst performing products in terms of sales?
 Are there differences in payment methods?
 Are the differences in sales performance based on where the product is located in the
shop? How does this affect both profits and revenue?
 Is there a difference in sales and gross profits between different months of the year?

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 Are their differences in sales performance between different seasons?
 How does this relate to rainfall and profits?
3.1 PRODUCTS AT HARVEST KITCHEN IN TERMS OF SALES
Graph of best and worst performing products
Ayurvedic
Bakery
Chocolates & Slices
Dairy
freezer
drinks
dry goods
678.75
10137.55
135.92
9305.82
4477.2
20673.7
8772.81
best performing products
Figure 1
The figure above is a graphical description of average sales for various products being sold at
Harvest Kitchen. It can be observed that the products varied in terms of sales. For example, the
graph shows that chocolates and slices performed poorly compared to the rest of the products. It
had an average annual sale of 135.92 thousand dollars. Another relatively worst performing
product is Ayurdevic which had an average annual sale of 678.75 thousand dollars. The best
performing product in terms of sales is seen to be drinks which had an annual sale of 20637.7