Data driven Decisions for Business CW2 Summative Assessment Brief | BPP

1. General Assessment Guidance

• Your summative assessment for this module is made up of this 2500 submission which accounts for 100% of the marks
• Please note late submissions will not be marked.
• You are required to submit all elements of your assessment via Turnitin online access. Only submissions made via the specified mode will be accepted and hard copies or any other digital form of submissions (like via email or pen drive etc.) will not be accepted.
• For coursework, the submission word limit is 2500 words. You must comply with the word count guidelines. You may submit LESS than 2500 words but not more. Word Count guidelines can be found on your programme home page and the coursework submission page.
• Do not put your name or contact details anywhere on your submission. You should only put your student registration number (SRN) which will ensure your submission is recognised in the marking process.
• A total of 100 marks are available for this module assessment, and you are required to achieve minimum 50% to pass this module.
• You are required to use only Harvard Referencing System in your submission. Any content which is already published by other author(s) and is not referenced will be considered as a case of plagiarism.
  You can find further information on Harvard Referencing in the online library on the VLE. 
• BPP University has a strict policy regarding authenticity of assessments. In proven instances of plagiarism or collusion, severe punishment will be imposed on offenders. You are advised to read the rules and regulations regarding plagiarism and collusion in the GARs and MOPP which are available on VLE in the Academic registry section.

You should include a completed copy of the Assignment Cover sheet. Any submission without this completed Assignment.

1.Assessment Brief

2.1.Assessment learning outcomes

This assessment is designed to gauge your understanding, skills and application of common data analysis techniques used in business and other organisations today. As such you need to demonstrate your attainment in these areas according to the four Module Learning Outcomes (LOs):

• LO1: Critically evaluate the evolving use of data in solving business problems, presenting logical arguments based on evidence
• LO2: Explore how data analytics can be used within a business context
• LO3: Critically appraise the presentation of data within a business environment
• LO4: Critically evaluate different business analytical techniques as part of planning a data analytics initiative.

2.2.Scenario

You have recently been employed by Alegria Insurance Ltd. as a data analyst. Alegria Insurance Ltd. is an international UK insurance company offering insurance products in the UK and over 20 subsidiaries in countries around the world. Its main services cover the areas of Motor, Home, Life, Health and Travel insurance.

Alegria Insurance Ltd. has been providing exceptional insurance services for over 50 years. Its commitment to people-centric insurance has allowed the company to support a wide range of customers managing their risk, while keeping its duty to shareholders. Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s personalised approach to personal insurance and the creative delivery of technology has helped fuel its continued growth.

As Alegria Insurance Ltd. growths, it continues to increase its data analytic roles within the organisation to strengthening its strategic decision-making capabilities. The recruitment strategy is to employ young professionals with strategic and data analytics skills willing to provide Alegria Insurance Ltd. top management with strong evidence-based foundation for their business decisions. They like recruits to have a broad management experience combine with strong academic background. Your MSc degree at BPP University was a key element in their decision to recruit you.

As part of your first assignment at Alegria Insurance Ltd., you have joined the Underwriting department as dada analyst. Other departments of the company bank include claims, finance and legal.

The underwriting department seeks to develop insurance products that can be sold to their customers at a premium. The department will craft its own collection of forms and endorsements to provide the marketing department with the ability to say “yes” to customers and potential customers. While the underwriting and marketing departments want to sign up as many insureds as possible to collect premiums, the claims department manages claims when an insured seeks to recover on its insurance assets. The marketing and underwriting departments are judged by their premium collections (the revenue of the company) and retention volume/ratios (i.e., the

percentage of insureds who renew their policies with the company), while the claims department is judged by how little it incurs resolving claims. These financial measures drive insurance company management and profits, as well as the bonuses paid to department management1.

Your manager requested you to complete a number of tasks to ensure that you have a grounded knowledge and understanding of data analytics and its application in decision-making. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your capability and give your employer the confidence to let you run your own project in the future.

The Underwriting team is analysing different growth options so they can provide a more balanced growth in the future, combining traditional face-to-face with online services. In particular, the Underwriting department has teamed up with the IT department to explore how AI based technologies can provide the basis for process automation, claims optimisation, and developing effective customer engagement strategies. However, it makes sense to define the growth strategy based on these technologies only if the current insurance business model does not provide the expansion and growth opportunities expected by the company’s top management. So, you have been given the responsibility to analyse Alegria Insurance Ltd. current business performance.

Your job will be to analyse the performance of three of the best international subsidiaries of Alegria Insurance Ltd.: India, Spain and UK. Alegria Insurance Ltd. has experienced strong competition in these countries from multinationals insurance companies such as Aviva and AXA. So, the performance of these three subsidiaries is a good indication of the current global market performance of the company.

2.3.Research objectives and tasks

The Underwriting Director is interested in understanding the options available for an expansion strategy.

For this purpose, he wants you to:

Question 1: Perform an analysis of the revenue (written premiums) and retention volume (number of clients who renew their policies) of the three subsidiaries to identify the best country to start an expansion strategy.

As part of the analysis, the Marketing Manager wants to consider the re-development of company’s global brand strategy to better support the insurance service offering in each country. Her objective is to increase the number of customers covered by the company’s insurance products through a strong brand marketing plan. In order to do so, she wants to focus the promotion efforts only on the high-performance insurance products of the company, that is, those products with high revenue and high retention volume. The insurance products Alegria Insurance Ltd. offers in its three subsidiaries is made of the following insurance product categories: home insurance, car insurance, life insurance, health insurance, travel insurance and income protection insurance. In this respect, she wants you to:

Question 2: Perform an analysis of the insurance product categories offered in the three subsidiaries to identify those categories with the best performance.

Alegria Insurance Ltd. has used in the last 20 years digital technologies to increase speed, efficiency, and accuracy across every area of its business. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the latest technology the IT department wants to adopt to significantly accelerates its digitisation strategy. AI can assist the company in assessing risk, detecting fraud, and reducing human error in the application process, as well as enabling customer service using chatbots. However, there are also challenges and risks in adopting AI. It has been reported that financial institutions using AI have received numerous complaints from frustrated customers trying to receive timely, straightforward answers from their financial institutions.

The IT department has taken a careful approach to AI by implementing an AI chatbot in its India subsidiary to test the technology. Other insurance companies have adopted AI enabled chatbots in India such as Aviva with its Alisha chatbot. The test started in July 2022 and was available through its local website. Initially the system was used to answer customers’ enquiries about checking account/card balances, making a payment (e.g: loan or credit card), transfer funds between accounts, report lost or stolen card, ask for the most recent charges on an account or card, exchange rate or stock price questions and current interest rates for loans and mortgages.

The IT Manager and the Underwriting Director are keen to understand if the implementation of AI chatbots could be applied to other subsidiaries of the company. So, he wants you to address the question:

Question 3: Did the implementation of AI chatbot in India have a positive impact on revenue (written premium) of the subsidiary?

The responses to requests detailed below should be included in a summary MS Word report that you save and submit as a PDF format file.

Because this is your first project within Alegria Insurance, the Underwriting team has given you additional details regarding the structure and content that it is expected to see in your report.

This is set out in Section 3 – Report Structure

A set of data is available (see module dataset spreadsheet file). Since the data comes directly from the subsidiaries, quality issues are present which will require your attention!

You have five tasks to complete for your summative report. The first three are exactly the same as for your formative report and you should update your answers to these tasks based both on feedback on your formative submission together with your own further learning across the module.

Task 1: Introduction and project plan (20 marks)

Summarise what you are going to present in the report and justify your plan for delivering the research project to the Underwriting Director. Ensure you also clearly reference a data analytics implementation framework as part of your plan. Finally, specifically explain how data analytics can add value and drive business performance improvement to Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s subsidiaries.

Guidelines:

• State the purpose of report and describe the report structure and contents
• Present your overall project plan for delivering the project
• Ensure that your project plan explicitly refers to a data analytics implementation framework and explain how the selected framework can be used to addresses the core business questions assigned to you.
• Suggest a list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s subsidiaries
  and explain how better data analytics enables improvements against these KPIs.

Task 2: Data quality issues and remedies (10 marks)

Discuss first, the generic issues that data analysts encounter in collecting, reviewing and cleansing data. Second discuss specific issues the project data has that the Underwriting team has provided and how you propose to address those issues.

Guidelines:

• List and explain generic data problems and how to identify them. What are the different options for resolving these generic issues?
• List all data problems you have identified in the Alegria Insurance Ltd. dataset. Explain how you identified the problems (give examples of the issues) and how you propose to address/solve them.

Task 3: Data analysis and commentary (20 marks)

Using tables, set out and explain the results of your numeric data analysis including summary of exploratory data and supporting commentary. Explain how your results provide an understanding of Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s subsidiaries performance. This should include three tables setting out:

(Table A) Data and trends in revenue and retention volume by month, by year and across the 3 years period,
(Table B) Benchmark comparisons of insurance products categories performance covering in revenue and retention volume by quarter, by year and across the 3 years period, and (Table C) Benchmark comparisons of in revenue and retention volume between subsidiaries by quarter, by year and across the 3 years period.

Guidelines:

• Include summary exploratory data calculations for total in revenue and retention volume. The analysis could include for example top and bottom performing insurance products categories, ranges, averages, standard deviations; top and bottom performing time-periods, etc.
• Ensure your tables are professionally presented: Headings, units, data formats. Highlight and annotate key data elements.
• For each table, include firstly an explanation of the table and its contents and then a bullet- point list of what you can see or infer from your analysis of the data.

Task 4: Data charting and commentary (20 marks)

Use your data charting and interpretation skills to develop graphical presentations of your findings together with bullet-points setting out the key findings and inferences from the charting. This should include three charts presenting:

(Chart A) Comparison of revenue trends across subsidiaries over time
(Chart B) Insurance product category performance comparisons between subsidiaries, and (Chart C) Impact of the AI-based chatbot implemented in the India subsidiary, and in comparison with the other two subsidiaries.

Guidelines:

• Ensure you provide well-presented and labelled charts
• Use a combination of visual data presentation techniques such as bar charts, stacked bar charts, trend charts, pie charts and tree map charts
• For each chart, include firstly an explanation of the chart and its contents and then a bullet- point list of what you can see or infer from your analysis of the data.

Task 5: Conclusions and recommendations (20 marks)

Based on your analysis and findings in Tasks 3 and 4 set-out your conclusions and recommendations.

Guidelines:

• What conclusions can be inferred regarding Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s subsidiaries performance and operations? Remember to answer the three questions raised by Alegria Insurance Ltd. top management.
• What are your business recommendations to Alegria Insurance Ltd.’s CEO and top
  management?
• Include any suggestions related to data analytics and its better use within the company.
• Note that it is also acceptable to add to your data analytics recommendations, possible actions that Alegria Insurance Ltd. might take, based not only on your findings but also on your wider knowledge of business and insurance market sector.

Report Structure and References (10 marks)

In addition, ten marks are awarded for the overall professionalism of your report and the adoption of academic standards.

Guidelines:

• Your report should follow the section naming structure and order set out in the Brief. You should also add your own sub-headings as you see fit to demonstrate your ability to on-develop structure and content
• Your report should include an auto-generated contents page including section headings and sub- headings. The contents page should also include a page-referenced list all tables, charts and
  figures provided in our report. Remember to number all pages in your report, for example ‘Page 8 of 12’.
• Ensure you develop your discussion in a logical progression: Findings, inferences, conclusions, recommendations
• Do not make general assertions without supporting evidence
• Zero spelling errors and grammatical mistakes
• Cite all your sources in the body of the text and in the Referencing using the Harvard Referencing style
• Include a blend of industry research, case studies and academic references

2.Report Structure

You should set out your report according to the following heading structure. You should add sub- headings under this overall structure as you feel fit to demonstrate your ability to on-develop the section themes and to provide meaningful sub-structure. But you must use this overall structure in order to provide a consistent framework against which your marker will allocate marks. You will be deduced marks if you do not follow this structure. Also note that there is no requirement for producing an Executive Summary.
University Cover Page Table of contents
1.Introduction and project plan

2.Data quality issues and remedies

3.Data analysis and commentary

4.Data charting and commentary

5.Conclusions and recommendations

6.References

7.Appendix (optional)

In addition, you may wish to add further appendices as you see fit in order to support your work.
Word count: 2,500. Cover Page, Table of Contents, References, Appendices, Tables, Charts and Figures do not count towards word count.

3.Mapping Learning Outcomes to Assessment Tasks
The table below sets out the mapping between the four Module Leaning Objectives and the key tasks in your Summative Assessment which test your achievement against these Learning Objectives.

4.Marking Guide

The assignment is marked out of 100 and counts towards 100% of your module mark. The following table shows the tasks, marks and marking rubric. You should iteratively self-assess your performance against the Marking Guide as you develop your draft submission, in order to evaluate your performance against your target grade.