PwC Distribution Project
Milestone 1 Information
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UNSW Sandbox
PwC-COMM5000
T1 2024
PwC Distribution Project Statement
Wholesale distribution companies typically purchase products from
manufacturers/suppliers and then sell them to retail stores, making them available for
consumers. Typically, wholesale distributors deal in large quantities of goods and are
set up to have warehouses, distribution centres, and logistic functions to manage and
deliver inventory to retail stores. We are interested in better understanding the
profitability of wholesale distribution companies.
IN THIS PROJECT YOU WILL:
As a business analyst, do a preliminary Exploratory Data Analysis over the dataset.
You are expected to find or reveal possible properties, characteristics, patterns,
and statistics hidden in the datasets. This is what you will do in Milestone 1.
The results from your M1 may be used for the analysis in M2 and in the final goal of identifying
the top factors that are likely to determine/predict a company's profitability
Synthesise your potential insights from the M1 and M2 and construct a model that can predict
whether a company's profitability is dependent on jurisdiction, whether there was an effect
from the Covid-19, and from other key economic factors like interest rates hikes,
china economic crisis, etc. More on this in the final report.
Based on your analysis, deliver recommendations for PwC, to better understand the drivers
of profitability of distribution companies in Australia.
THE DATA
Dataset files: PwC provided spreadsheets with information about distribution companies and their
characteristics for the following countries:
Australia
China
New Zealand
UK
US
The columns in each country dataset are variables observed over six years (2017-2022).
The dataset is three dimensional (three characteristics):
(1) distribution company, (Industry/SIC)
(2) country of jurisdiction, (two allocated/student)
(3) Year, (2019/2022)
Where to find the Data
- Random allocation of a pair of countries
Country Allocation
WHAT IS NEXT?
• Go to Country Allocation and check the countries allocated to
you (look up your zID in your seminar excel sheet)
• Go to the the data excel spreadsheets corresponding to your
countries allocated
• Upload the spreadsheets to your own device where you will
use Excel
• Note: This is an individual work. You will have to submit your
OWN work on the due date Sunday Week 4 by 11:99
(extended)
Seminar Activities
• You will be grouped into teams of 4/5
• This is for the purpose of seminar collaborations on the
tasks of the Case study
• The teams are random, so you may have different
countries
• You can formulate team common questions to share on
the course Teams forum
• The teams will be used to setup random peer marking of
the individual M1 submission
Milestone 1 Tasks
- (Suggestion) For each country: Group the distribution companies
into industries by SIC
- For each industry: compute the summary statistics of the target
variables
- Present in the form of measures of central tendency and spread
- Use bar charts for graphical summary/presentation
Variables of interest.
The columns in the data files have many variables that may proxy for profitability, like:
1) Operating Revenue (Turnover) US$
2) Gross Profits US$
3) Gross Profits Mark-up (%)
4) Gross Profit / Total Operating Costs (%)
5) Gross Profit / Total Assets (%)
6) EBITDA (margins, growth/change)
You DO NOT need to analyse all of these variables
You must decide which variable(s) to address PwC profitability questions
(1)Correlation analysis: a cross-sectional analysis of correlation patterns between
the profitability proxy variables and the local jurisdiction’s key economic factors like GDP.
(here GDP is used to indicate whether the country is in Economic recession)
(2) Covid-19 effect analysis of cross-sectional patterns across the years may capture
the effect of Covid on profitability (by country).
(here use bar chart to check whether there are differences between 2019 and 2022
results per country and per variable)
Thank you