$(2)$ Create Your Data$-$Driven Story

For the Project, you will use data analysis and visualization skills to produce a data$-$driven business report.

Scenario

You are an expert who provides data$-$driven advice to managers and CEOs to inform their business strategy. The CEO of a company that owns a chain of shops approaches your team. The shops sell various categories of products. The CEO asks you to generate a data$-$driven business report for the enterprise$$s performance over the last few years. The purpose of this report is to gain insight and thus provide valuable knowledge for better decision$-$making. The information arising from the available data will contribute to the company$$s business strategy, thus expert visualizations of data are of the utmost importance.

For this Project, you will use two datasets: the first dataset contains the shop$$s performance $($sales$,$ profits, salespersons, etc.$),$ and the second the product returns for the years $2012-2015.$

To prepare:

Download the datasets at

Using the datasets, submit a business report which addresses the following:$$

The CEO wishes to see information about the profits and sales per product category during the last three years. Therefore, create effective visuals that present the sales per product category and the profits per product category for the last three years.

Make clear which countries are the most profitable for the company and the profits per product category. In addition, the CEO wants to see the products sales with the least sales for some product categories, thus finding out the countries with the lowest level of sales during the last three years.

The company wants to provide a bonus for the top salespeople, find the people with the highest profits and sales during the last three years, and depict their performance per product category.

Discuss the number of returns of products compared with the number of sales orders for the last three years.

Create a data$-$driven story including more data visuals to provide the key points of the company during the last three years and make suggestions about future actions. If you wish you can also use other data from open data sources to strengthen your recommendations.

Identify trends of profits per category and segment over time. Describe the trend lines model and discuss the results of your analysis.

Forecast how sales and profits will evolve in the following year $(2016).$

Complete the business report by adding an introduction plus sections for methods, conclusions, and references. Ensure all your visualizations are clear and understandable, and your recommendations are supported by available data.

Submit your completed report which includes annotated screenshots of the data visualizations. Cite and reference all sources following APA format and style guidelines.