What was going on in this industry in our sample periods?

Project proposal: This will be in form of a PowerPoint presentation submitted to me and presented in class (applies only to client projects – if you use my data, we will do this in one of the checkpoint assignments). Project final report and presentation: The final deliverables are A) a PowerPoint presentation that will be submitted on Canvas and presented in class, and B) a written project report that will be submitted on Canvas. Each team should also include a technical appendix with additional supporting Statistical outputs in the report (you have the freedom to choose any software for generating the outputs). For group project checkpoints, I will meet with each group to check progress and give feedback. Below I have given a detailed description of what are expected in your presentation and the final project report. Presentation Each group (including all team members) needs to present the project result in class. The presentation covers the same contents as the final research report, and should be around 15-20 minutes long (depending on how many groups are formed in this class). All group members are expected to participate in the presentation – I hope each student can take this as an opportunity to strengthen their presentation skills. The presenters need to be able to effectively deliver the ideas and answer questions from the audience. The following contents are suggested with your chosen project dataset: 1) Introduction and industry background. What is the current profile of the industry? What was going on in this industry in our sample periods? 2) For the top leading firms in this category, do they show similar sales patterns in terms of seasonality? In terms of their channel use? In terms of their pricing patterns? 3) How do these firms compete? Comment on their channel use, their pricing strategies (and how consumers react to their price changes in terms of price elasticities?), their consumer profile, and their consumer movements which can measure consumer loyalty to the firm. You will choose one of the top companies as your client, and you will help them investigate these data and recommend to moving forward? 4) The above questions are investigated in the checkpoint assignments. In your final report, you should re-organize your thoughts and findings around the strategic questions you asked for your team’s chosen client company, and focus the report on helping this client company address the identified issues. 5) Support all your recommendations with evidence from the data. You are expected to combine such insight with marketing theories. Project Report Each group will be required to submit a typed research report at the completion of the project. The content of the report will be the same as in the presentation, but should be organized differently, as detailed in the following. There is no formal requirement on the length of the paper. However, it is recommended that the final project report should not exceed 5 single-spaced typed pages (excluding title page, table of contents, exhibits and appendix). The report must be typed (font size 12), and must conform to proper spelling and grammar rules; otherwise, they will be marked down and may even be unacceptable. The report should contain the following: 1) Title page 2) Table of contents 3) Executive summary: This provides a summary of research report, including introduction, results, conclusions, and recommendations. 4) Introduction: This section should describe the purpose and background of your project. It should tell why the questions you have sought to answer are important and meaningful to the firm, and provide any background material relevant to the project. 5) Method: The procedures you used should be described in this section. This would include a description and justification of analysis you choose to do for your project. 6) Results: This section should contain the results of data analysis. The results of the data analysis should be clearly and concisely presented in the body of the paper in charts and tables. It is important to make sure you organize your results in a logic sequence and present them clearly by explaining your findings from the data, and how such findings are useful to your chosen client. 7) Conclusion: This is the final section of the paper and should show a summary of how the research findings have answered the questions you initially posed. This section should include the implications of your findings for management and your recommendations based on the results. Also, any limitations or weaknesses of your study and how these may have affected your results should be explained. Directions for further research may also be included if appropriate. 8) Appendices: It may include references and any supporting information not contained in the body of the paper that are relevant to understanding the results.