Reference no: EM132840814

Business Analytics

Walmart is the largest retail corporation of discount department and warehouse stores in the world. In 2017, the company's global net sales amassed approximately 481.32 billion U.S. dollars. These figures have grown considerably over the last few years; increasing about 0.8 percent in 2017 compared to the prior fiscal year. As of the 2017 fiscal year, the company operated more than eleven thousand stores throughout the world and this figure is more than likely to increase as the company continues to expand into emerging markets.

Walmart is predominantly broken down into three divisions: Sam's Club, Walmart International and Walmart U.S., with the latter generating the majority of the companies earnings. In 2017, the U.S. segment of Walmart alone generated over 300 billion U.S. dollars, which correlates to about 60 percent.

However Walmart is challenged heavily by recent upscaling of online megastores, hence looking for new strategies to maintain their growth patterns.

You are required

01. To explain how Walmart can use Affinity Analysis to achieve sustainable sales growth.

Major cities around the world are beginning to understand the huge potential of using Big Data in Town Planning and Management.

In Barcelona, those possibilities have started to become the reality. Starting in 2012, the city deployed responsive technologies across urban systems including public transit, parking, street lighting, and waste management. These innovations yielded significant cost savings, improved the quality of life for residents, and made the city a center for Big Data.

Spain was among the countries hardest hit by the 2008 recession, and recovery throughout Europe has been slow. In the face of these economic challenges, Barcelona harnessed technology to transform itself into a model of data-driven, sensing, smart urban systems. Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona from 2011 to 2015, ran on a platform of technological innovation in city services. Upon taking office, he formed a new team, Smart City Barcelona, tasked with integrating existing projects and identifying new opportunities to enhance services for all of the city's people and businesses. Smart City Barcelona identified 12 areas for intervention, including transportation, water, energy, waste, and open government, and initiated 22 programs, encompassing 83 distinct projects across urban systems.

In launching its Big Data driven Town Planning and Management, Barcelona had a solid foundation: the projects took advantage of 500 kilometers of fiber optic cable within the city. This extensive network was initiated 30 years ago when the city connected two municipal buildings with early fiber technology. The fiber network now provides 90 percent fiber-to-the-home coverage and serves as a backbone for integrated city systems.

You are required to
Explain, using examples, how Big Data can be used in "Effective Town Planning".

The National Sports Foundation (NSF) for Country Z is a public body which operates within the central government department for Sport and Culture. NSF's role is to support and develop a sporting environment across all communities in Country Z and to increase the number of people participating in sport.

NSF is mainly funded by the Government of Country Z. Up until 2010, it employed several hundred staff and relied upon thousands of volunteers throughout Country Z to run the various sporting clubs and associations, such as amateur football clubs and children's out of school sports activities.

Following cuts in Government funding in 2010, NSF's level of staffing was considerably reduced. This resulted in NSF relying more on private sector partnerships and volunteers.

Until three years ago, the economic, social and technological environment in Country Z had been relatively stable, with NSF receiving guaranteed funding from the Government and the numbers of sports participants and volunteers being reasonably predictable. Therefore, the Board of NSF has not considered frequent and regular environmental analysis to be necessary. NSF's Board has been taken by surprise by the changes that have occurred in the environment in the last three years. In addition to Government funding cuts, local administrative government bodies have been forced to sell off local community sports grounds and facilities for commercial projects to raise finance.

Furthermore, the level of financial and operational support provided by private sector organizations has also declined due to similar economic challenges. Increasingly stricter regulations and rules have resulted in fewer volunteers throughout the country.

The rapid growth in technology-based entertainment products has been blamed for the reduction in the number of young people participating in sports. The Board is trying to assess the future trends in the development of gaming technology in the world since they believe it could have a strong correlation with the level of interest in physical sports.

In addition, NSF has failed to consider the changing demographics and ageing population of Country Z and the impact that this will have on sports participation in future years. Economic experts have raised concerns of a long-term recession which could hamper the job opportunities and raise cost of living.

The Chairman of the Board of NSF has recently attended several conferences where the value of undertaking thorough ‘scenario planning' has been discussed. The Chairman now realizes that there is a serious gap in NSF's knowledge about the environment in which it operates. He considers that if NSF is to continue successfully in the future then it must improve its foresight to actively plan for the future.

You are required to Carry out a "Scenario Planning" exercise to understand different scenarios in "engagement of the population in physical sports".

In the dynamic business environments persisting today, unstructured data is available in meg quantities. However, businesses fail to capture and process un structured data due its loose structural form and the inability to invest in tools to process them.

You are required to Explain, the difference between structured data and unstructured data, using examples to illustrate the arguments.

Discuss, using simple examples how unstructured data can be captured and processed for strategic decision making purposes.

Attachment:- EXAM Paper.rar