An analytics project for an MBA using Python

An analytics project for an MBA using Python can focus on various

such as data cleaning, data visualization, predictive modeling, and aspects of business analysis,
structured project idca you can consider: decision-making. Here's a

Project: Sales Performance Analysis and Forecasting

Objective:
Analyze the sales data of a company to gain insights into the factors influencing
performance, and forecast future sales to support business decisions. sales

Steps to Implement the Project:

1. Problem Definition:

You are tasked with analyzing historical sales data and predicting
wants to understand:
future sales. The company

Which factors (e.g.,marketing spend, seasonality, product categories) most impact sales.
How to optimize sales strategies and predict future sales trends.

2. Data Collection:

You will need historical sales data for the company. You can
datasets or createa synthetic dataset to practice. either use publicly available

Example Datasets:

Kaggle has datasets related to sales like "Retail Sales Forecasting" or

Sales Data".
Alternatively, you can use a synthetic dataset with the following columns:
Date: The date the
sale was made.
o Sales: The amount of revenue generated from the
sale.
o Marketing Spend: Budget allocated to marketing
Product Category: The type of product sold. campaigns.
Region: The region where the sale was made.
Discount Offered: The discount applied to the sale.

3. Data Cleaning and Preprocessing:

 Load the IData: Use Python librarics such as pandas and numpy to load and inspect the
data.
import pandas as pd
data pd.read csv ("sales data.csv")
print (data . head () )
Handle Missing Values: Check for missing data and decide whether to drop or impute
the missing values.
data.isnull (0 .sum ()
data.fillna (me thod=' ffill', inplace-True) Forward filling missing
values
Convert Data Types: Make sure all columnns are in the correct format (e.g., Date as
datetime type).
data(' Date') = pd.to datetime (data['Date'])
Feature Engineering: Create new features such as:
o Weekday (from the Date column) to analyze if there's a difference in sales on
weekdays vs weckends.
o Month and Year toobserve trends over time.
data (' Weekday' ) = data['Date'].dt.day name ()
data ['Month'] = data('Date'].dt.month
data" Year') = data[' Date').dt. year

4. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA):

DataVisualization: Use matplotl ib and seaborn to plot graphs and identify trends.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

# Plot sales over time

plt.figure (figsize= (10, 6) )
plt.plot (data ["' Date'], data['Sales'], label='Sales')
plt.title ("Sales Trend Over Time")
plt.xlabel ("Date")
plt.ylabel ("Sales")
plt.legend ()
plt.show ()

# Correlation heatmap
corr = data.corr ()
sns.heatmap (corr, annot=True, cmap=" coolwarm")
plt.show ()
Correlation Analysis: Identify which factors (e.g., marketing spend, discount, region)
have the highest correlation with sales.

5. Building Predictive Models:

Train/Test Split: Split the data into training and testing datasets.
 from sklearn.model selection import
X
train test split
dat a( |'Marketing Spend', 'Discount
y dat a['Sales']
offered' , 'Month', 'Year ']]

X_train, X_ test, y_train, y test = train test_split (X,

test size=0,2, random state=42) y
ModelSelection: Start with simple models like Linear Regression and
with more complex models if necessary (e.g.. Random Forest, XGBoost).then experiment
from sklearn.linear model import
LinearRegression
from sklearn.metrics import mean absolute
error, mean squared error
# Initialize the model
model = LinearRegression ()
model.fit (X_train, y_train)
Predict on test data
y pred = model.predict (X test)
# Evaluate the model
mae = mean absolute error (y test, y
pred)
mse = mean squared error (y test, y pred)
print (f"MAE: (mae), MSE: (mse)")
Evaluation: Evaluate the performanceof the model using metrics such as Mean Absolute
Error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), or R-squared.
Model Improvement: Consider using feature engineering, hyperparameter
trying different machine learning algorithms like Random Forests tuning, or
or XGBoost for better
accuracy.

6. Time Series Forecasting (0ptional):

If your data has a time component (like dates), you can also use time series
forecasting models to
predict future sales. You can try using models like ARIMA, SARIMA, or Facebook
Prophet.
from fbprophet import Prophet
# Prepare the data for Prophet
prophet data = data[['Date', 'Sales')). rename (columns={' Date': 'ds',
'y'}) 'Sales' :

# Initialize and train the model

model = Prophet ()
model.fit (prophet data)
# Make a future dataframe and
forecast
future = model . make future dataframe (prophet data,
ahead periods=365) # 365 days
forecast = model.predict (future)
# Plot the forecast
model.plot (forecast)
 rlt.show ()

7. Presentation of Findings:

" Dashboard and Visualization: Create an interactive dashboard using libraries Iike
plotly or dash for business stakelholders to interact with the data and models.
Insight Generation:
o ldentity trends (e.g. higher sales in specific nonths, impact of marketing spend).
o Make predictions for future sales.
Recommend actions based on the analysis (e.g., increasing marketing spend in
certain months).

8. Conclusion and Business Insights:

Conclude your project by summarizing your findings:
Which factors have the most influence on sales?
What recommendations can be made based on the analysis?
How can the company optimize future sales?

Example Python Libraries to Use:

Data Manipulation: pandas, numpy
Visualization: matplotlib, seaborn, plotly
Machine Learning: scikit-learn, xgboost
Time Series Forecasting: statsmodels, fbprophet
Model Evaluation: scikit-learn, matplotlib
Dashboards: plotly, dash

Final Deliverables:

Python Code: All Python code used to analyze the data, preprocess, model, and predict.
Presentation: A business-friendly presentation summarizing key insights and
recommendations.
Jupyter Notebook: Aclean Jupyter notebook documenting all steps, including
explanations of each analysis, visualizations,and model results.
Let me know if you'd like more details onany part of this project!