Data Analytics Assignment: Analysing Business Performance of Wesfarmers

Question

Task

Identify an organisation that you are familiar with and propose a data analytics application that will create efficiencies.

In this data analytics assignment, you will be required to identify an opportunity for the development of a data analytics-based application within an industry that is meaningful to your current or future occupation or career.

Answer

Introduction:
It is evident herein data analytics assignment that increasing complexities in the business world has been changing the business process around the world. Firms now are focusing more on consumer-based data driven approach in case of decision making rather than depending upon the conventional method of decision making based on the understanding of the board members. As per Datnow and Hubbard (2016), through information-driven interaction, organisations are focusing on capturing the consumer preference and based on the same purchasing behaviour is analysed to produce strategy that helps the brand to enhance their sales. As the example of the utilisation of the data driven approach in business, case of the Wesfarmers can be mentioned, which is one of the largest retail chain with allied business in Australia. Through the present study, analysis has been done to determine how data driven mechanism of decision making can enhance the business performance of Wesfarmers.

Present operational model of decision making in Wesfarmers:
With focus on developing its business decision making, moderations of the business process have taken place in Wesfarmers in recent decades. For the last two decades with the information-driven methodology firms is focused on making its decision-making process efficient, although a more significant part of the activity follows manual interaction. From utilising works to monitoring the representatives, is as yet done by the bookkeepers with the assistance of the PC programs, where mechanisation and information investigation need noticeably (Brynjolfsson and McElheran 2016). Notwithstanding, since 2014, the situation has changed as Wesfarmers started to shift their business model from manual to machine-based. Wesfarmers has developed machine driven system that operates through information driven way to deal with their everyday business. With the introduction of internet shopping through mobiles, Wesfarmers has focused on collecting user and employee data through frequent survey. Thiess and Muller (2018) has demonstrated that data driven decision making approach that Wesfarmers is considering now has enabled the brand to capture necessary market data that aids the firm to produce strategic decision.

Figure 1: Existing process of operation of Wesfarmers

Source: (wesfarmers.com.au 2020)

Going to the current activity structure it can be observed that the organisation makes value through reinforcing their current business activity by the enhancing customer satisfaction and creating value at different location of the service chain (Lepri et al. 2017). As the development empowering influences, Wesfarmers has thought about their kin, clients, advancement, social strengthening and business greatness. The basic belief of the firm exists in receptiveness, uprightness, enterprising soul and responsibility. As the strategy for examining worker operation, forecasting of demand, sales performance and stock administration, Wesfarmers rely upon the heritage COBOL framework. It is slow and fails to check the opportunities and risks associated with the business operation. Moreover, the age-old system of business for Wesfarmers is not able to produce value to its best possible way through the COBOL framework as the machine learning system fails to consider human factors in the business process.

Possible inefficiencies existing with the business process of Wesfarmers:
Supporting the distinguished business cycle and way of improvement considered by the Wesfarmers up until this point, there has been a few shortcomings. Business programs like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is not available with the firm till second decade of 21st century and to a great extent, business operation was subject to the heritage COBOL framework (afr.com 2019). The organisation has been testing ERP answers for the information-driven methodology of business and considering information assortment as a period and cash devouring methodology for upgrading business scope(Brynjolfsson and McElheran 2016). The organisation has begun catching client, representative and friends related information from 2014 for additional handling to examine and envision the information. Yet, there is a sure area that goes under the program (afr.com 2019). For example, sexual orientation, local area and district subtleties of representatives alongside the waste generation, power utilisation, squander creation and fossil fuel by-product information has been thought about just for information-driven methodology(Troisi et al. 2019). The Wesfarmers have not considered deals, customer inclination-related information, or demand-related information for an information-driven way to produce feasible development while decreasing waste and fossil fuel by-product and improving sexual orientation variety inside the labour force.

Existing Sources of data for analysis:
For the information driven methodology of dynamic and business measure, Wesfarmers first considers the accessible information. Afterwards, it has considered investigation of the equivalent to catch more arrangement concerning entanglement and openings for the organisation. Then, as the underlying information source, Wesfarmers considers the review done by the organisation to catch client, worker and business measure related information. After primary information, the firm uses optional information; similar to workforce information, market interest and market sentiment information is also considered to perform the data driven business decision making. Finally, as the essential information, aside from survey information, Wesfarmers likewise considers their annual reports to check the monetary exhibition and settle on fundamental choice for development of the firm through information driven methodology.

Generating efficiencies depending upon techniques and concepts:

Process of data analytics that has been utilised:
Information-driven business methodology should be possible in various structures and significant two are information investigation and measurable examination. Information investigation addresses the introduction of information in graphical or even configuration with the goal that everybody can perceive the result. Then again, for top to bottom examination of information, factual investigation is likewise utilised where inferential and graphic investigation is done to deliver dynamic results (Krishen and Petrescu 2019). For the current case, information examination has been finished with the graphical show of information. Through this interaction, data related to sustainability of the firm, wellbeing of the employees and environmental performance data has been analysed. Through conveying this information examination result the key partners of the business, firms demonstrates the gap in its business operation and underpinning the outcome it upgrades the supportability, representative fulfilment of the business.

Sample dataset for Wesfarmers analysis:
In order to showcase the utilisation of data-driven approach for decision-making,preliminary analysis using statistical approach using excel has been done here. Considering sample dataset from the wesfarmers.com.au (2020), Excel has been used to produce the following figures that demonstrates the sustainability, employee wellbeing, environmental performance and firm’s operation related situation:

Figure 2: Total injury rate in Wesfarmers over years

Figure 2 demonstrates that Kmart and Target group has highest case of the injury over the years followed by Bunnings. On the other hand, for the office works department of Wesfarmers, corporate section, Wesfarmers industrial and safety (WIS) division and Wesfarmers chemical and fertilisers industries (WesCEF), the number of injuries is low. It is important to highlight that, since 2017, all the brands under Wesfarmers has faced a sharply reducing number of injuries.

Figure 3: Compensation claim by workers over year

Figure 3, demonstrates that the workers' compensation is highest in the Bunnings followed by Kmart group during the time frame considered for the analysis. On the other hand, for the Wesfarmers chemical industries, Office works, corporate and Wesfarmers industries and safety has faced very low claim or worker’s compensation.

Figure 4: Emission of greenhouse gas by Wesfarmers

Figure 4 demonstrates that the greenhouse gas emission is lowest in the corporate section of the business with highest emission in Kmart group followed by Bunnings, Wesfarmers chemical industries, office works and Wesfarmers securities services segment. Over the years, there has been a good amount of increase in the greenhouse gas emission by Kmart group. For other group under Wesfarmers, there has been rise in the greenhouse gas emission too.

Figure 5: Wesfarmers energy usage

As per the figure 5, it can be seen that, highest amount of energy is being used by the Wesfarmers chemical industries and corporate section of the business use lowest amount of energy. As per the figure 5, it can also be seen that, for the other brands under Wesfarmers, namely, Bunnings, Kmart group, Target and Wesfarmers industrial safety business, energy usage is almost identical. However, apart from Wesfarmers industrial safety business, all brands have faced fall in electricity consumption.

Figure 6: Waste disposable by Wesfarmers

Figure 6 demonstrates that west disposal has been highest for Bunnings followed by Kmart group, Wesfarmers Chemicals and office works section of business. Figure 6 also demonstrates that, over the years, there has been rise in the waste disposable by the respective brands.

Figure 7: Waste recycle by Wesfarmers

Figure 7 demonstrates that the Kmart group has done the highest amount of waste recycling followed by Kmart2, Bunnings, Target, Wesfarmers chemicals, and office works. Waste recycling for the Kmart group has remained uncertain over the years, whereas, it has decreased for the Target and increased foe Wesfarmers chemical industries. For the corporate section and Wesfarmers industrial securities section, there has been no waste recycling.

Figure 8: Indigenous people employment in Wesfarmers

Figure 8 demonstrates that indigenous employment is highest in the Kmart group followed by Bunnings, Wesfarmers chemicals and fertilised, office works department, and corporate section. Indigenous employment in all the brands has increased over the years and major change can be seen in case of the Kmart group during 2021 where indigenous people employment increased exponentially.

Figure 9: Employee distribution of Wesfarmers based on region and gender

Figure 9 demonstrates thatVictoria has the highest quantity of employees in Australia, followed by NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, southern Australia, and other places. Among total employees, female participation is highest in all the region.

Figure 10: Age wise employee distribution of Wesfarmers

Figure 10 demonstrates that most of the employees of Wesfarmers are lower than 20 years and most of them are female as per 2021. During 2020, situation was also similar, however, over the year, there has been significant rise in majority of the employees who are aged lower than 20 years.

Figure 11: Female participation in different job role of Wesfarmers

Figure 11 demonstrates that most of the brands under Wesfarmers has at least 30% female employees by 2021. Department wise distribution demonstrates that, highest female participation is present in the leadership team. Female participation was second lowest during 2017 in leadership team and reached to highest position by 2021. However, it can be seen that compared to 2020 situation, female participation has reduced in limited non-executive director role and other three segment has remained identical.

Figure 12: Hiring of employees based on gender in Wesfarmers

Figure 12 demonstrates that most of the new employees hired by Wesfarmers is casual. Out of the casual employees, male is highest in number during 2021, whereas, for permanent and short-term employees, both the male and female are identical in percentage term.

Outcome and method of communication to stakeholders:
Information driven cycle in business isn't finished until the examination result is conveyed to the stakeholders for making strategic decisions.To present the data collection, graphical presentation method has been considered and utilising the statistical approach all the graphs has been produced. For the presenting the data, here graphical method has been used as it is easy to visualise the same without going into complexity of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. As per Rajabifard, Hoand Sabri(2016), the graphical presentation is straightforward and reasonably clarifies the information for everybody.

Considering the graphs presented above it can be assessed that Kmart and Target group measure of injury event was most noteworthy during the picked period. Other than it can be observed from the figure 2, over the periodic recurrence of the event of injury has diminished for every one of the gatherings. Close to this, it has been discovered that the labourer's remuneration guarantee was most noteworthy in Bunnings and the second most noteworthy was for Kmart over the period. Suppose there should arise an occurrence of ecological effect examination. In that case, it very well may be seen that Kmart Group and Bunning’s having the most noteworthy ozone harming substance emanation and all the more amazing. The wide range of various auxiliaries of Wesfarmers are creating a higher measure of ozone harming substance than past one. As far as force utilisation, Wesfarmers Chemical gathering has devoured a large portion of the energy. If there should be an occurrence of waste expendable, it very well may be seen that Bunning's group has done significant removal. Then again, the Kmart group has done significant reusing over the period among different auxiliaries of Wesfarmers. According to the workforce examination, it very well may be seen that a larger number of representatives in Wesfarmers Australia is available in Victoria. Hence, considering the data driven approach, firm can determine its various operation with close observation and take necessary action based upon the same.

Reference:
afr.com 2019. Wesfarmers finally goes digital. Available at: https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/wesfarmers-finally-goes-digital-20190827-p52l7m

Brynjolfsson, E. and McElheran, K., 2016. Data in action: data-driven decision making in US manufacturing. US Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies Paper No. CES-WP-16-06.

Brynjolfsson, E. and McElheran, K., 2016. The rapid adoption of data-driven decision-making. American Economic Review, 106(5), pp.133-39.

Datnow, A. and Hubbard, L., 2016. Teacher capacity for and beliefs about data-driven decision making: A literature review of international research. Journal of Educational Change, 17(1), pp.7-28.

Krishen, A.S. and Petrescu, M., 2019. Data-driven decision making: implementing analytics to transform academic culture.

Lepri, B., Staiano, J., Sangokoya, D., Letouzé, E. and Oliver, N., 2017. The tyranny of data? the bright and dark sides of data-driven decision-making for social good. Data analytics assignment In Transparent data mining for big and small data (pp. 3-24). Springer, Cham.

Rajabifard, A., Ho, S. and Sabri, S., 2016. Urban analytics data infrastructure: Critical SDI for urban management in Australia. SMART WORLD, p.95. sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au 2020. Our Data. Available at: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/sustainability/our-data

Thiess, T. and Müller, O., 2018. Towards Design Principles for Data-Driven Decision Making–an Action Design Research Project in the Maritime Industry. Troisi, O., Maione, G., Grimaldi, M. and Loia, F., 2019. Growth hacking: Insights on data-driven decision-making from three firms. Industrial Marketing Management.