BI solution of an Executive Dashboard

Sales Trends for 2015 of BMW Company

The above graph clarifies sales trends during the next following months for the year 2015. The month of March, April, may and June offers of BMW Company were observed to be very low sales they all were between $102,360 – $143,000 Noteworthy increment seen in the month of July and sales were $244,240 and at all sudden it dropped to $199,740 in a month of August. From the September and October, it had the dramatic increase in comparison to March to August. Through the assessment of the sales trend, the company will be able to make an assessment of their current sales against their desired sales. The dashboard makes it possible for the policy makers in the organization to see the trend and consequently make an assessment of their current situations (Web-based dashboard, 2009). The ability to meet their sales targets as well as the inability is evident from the dashboard. Additionally, in the event they were not able to meet their sales target, it will be possible to make an assessment of the factors that inhibited the attained as well as the possible interventions needed. In the case of BMW, the management can notice that there are some months that are recording low sales and thus the need to consider the measures that could promote their sales. These could range from adopting social media marketing strategies to the motivation of the sales team, giving them the incentive to augment their commissions via better sales. The overall objective of the business, in this case, is developing a competitive advantage that will assist them to have a superior competitive edge over the competitors and thus generate better sales (Pratt, 2014).

Revenue of Sales Person and Their Commission
Karthik was found to be active and significant in comparison to other sales person in marketing and making the business. His overall sales for the year 2015 from June to October were $278,360. And Akhil and Sachin found to be same revenue range of $160,800-165,000 but the sum of a commission of Sachin’s is 4.41% comparatively low to Akhil’s sum of commission. The graph additionally indicates that Brijesh has the lowest sum of revenue as well as a sum of commission comparative to all others in above dashboard. The assessment of the sales that employees’ are making for the business makes it possible for the business to be aware of the individuals making the greatest contribution to the business. Additionally BMW can assess whether there are skills that are necessary to improve the productivity of their sales people. Through the assessment, it is possible to ascertain the sales doing the best job via looking at their compensation and finding ways of addressing those with lower compensations (Podgórski, 2015).

Revenue by Sales Person per Month

The revenue of sales per month of Ramesh is $135,000 from June to October, where it is comparatively very high to other sales. The sales of Chandu, Akhil, Sachin, Suresh, Vamshi, and Brijesh are below then $76,000. The application of the sales cycle KPI for the sales people is instrumental to the BMW as they can examine the duration it takes one individual to generate revenue from the sales. The assessment of the sales person average cycle will assist BMW make an accurate evaluation of their employees in the sales in assessing their performance. Thus, the KPI will assist BMW to retain as well as recruit the sales people who are productive to the company. Additionally the company can make sale projection by relying on their monthly sales (Hildreth, 2012). Their expansion and marketing strategies heavily rely on the sales they make as they offer the necessary incentive in directing the organizational performance as well as the available resources for their investments. Additionally assessing the monthly revenue that the business is making will assist in making right evaluations of business growth trend and the factors that may hinder the growth.

Revenue by States
The above chart illustrates the revenue of the states that BMW made from the sale of different car models in the diverse above chart illustrates the revenue of the states that BMW made from the sale of different car models in the diverse states. The California has revenue of $258,860 this was the highest revenue generated comparatively to other states. We can also see that Atlanta has very low revenue i.e. $54,000. There are various KPIs that the business applies in promoting its revenue in these states. In this case, the objective of the company is enhancing their revenues collection in each state and one of the KPIs that can assist in assessing the revenue collected the examination of the customer retention rate. The higher the number of customer retention the better the revenue collection (Data Visualization, 2010). Thus, the assessment of the sales made in the different states will give the business a platform to assess their performance and consequently design the strategies that will improve their performance in the respective states. The ability that the company has in assessing their perform states.

The California has revenue of $258,860 this was the highest revenue generated comparatively to other states. We can also see that Atlanta has very low revenue i.e. $54,000. There are various KPIs that the business applies in promoting its revenue in these states. In this case, the objective of the company is enhancing their revenues collection in each state and one of the KPIs that can assist in assessing the revenue collected the examination of the customer retention rate. The higher the number of customer retention the better the revenue collection. Thus, the assessment of the sales made in the different states will give the business a platform to assess their performance and consequently design the strategies that will improve their performance in the respective states (Hein, 2009). The ability that the company has in assessing their performance in the different states will make it possible to outline the specific issues driving the various customers’ states in these states depending on the sales. Through the description of the sales targets for these states, it will be possible to strategies on the most effective marketing strategies that will promote the sales in these states.

Sales by Invoice Amount
This above chart illustrates the following sales by invoice amounts. By this chart, we can assume that the sales from invoice amount of 31560-41559 are the second highest sale from Invoice amount of 71560-81559 as the highest number of sales. Through assessment of the invoice amount, the business can assess the sales they have made and at the same time make the work of the auditors easy as the records of sales are available. Additionally through the assessment of the sales invoice, BMW can attract the effectives of the employees by tracking their sales via invoices as well as the amount generated (Hildreth, 2012).

Revenue by Product
The above graph illustrates the sales of products of the company BMW. It seems to BMW Z 650i has the highest sales comparative to the other products. We can also see that BMW i8 had very low sales from all other products. The application of this KPI offers the business with the advantage of examining the sales they are making depending on their car models. Through this examination, it is possible to assess the models that the customers prefer and thus increasing their availability in the market to boost the sales. Ability to see the models that have low sales makes it possible for BMW to conduct research on the reasons the models are unpopular among the customers and thus make modifications or pull them out of the market (Hein, 2009). BMW will be able to assess the circumstances around each model in the context of the reasons that are promoting the sales of a particular model such as an effective marketing campaign. On the other hand, the low sales for the other model could be because the competition is offering an identical model at a lower price. Thus through the application of this KPI, the BMW will be able to assess the issues that are revolving around the performance of a certain model and how to improve each model to attain the desired sales.

Literature review

Daily companies based on information technology are facing a lot of issues and computing challenges due to the data management. There is the wide usage of cloud and mobility, and it is opening up new opportunities for that information technology companies to be more service centric and productive. The database is the hidden workhorse that many businesses’ IT systems, storing critical business intelligence and bearing out hundreds to thousand so transactions each day (Cheung et al., 1996). Many companies are storing their information on relational databases, and they anticipate taking advantage of the emerging technologies such as XML or object-based databases. Instead to discarding the previous RDB or building non-relational data on it, it becomes better to convert the old data and applications onto a new environment (Maatuk et al., 2008). However, the question that remains is which of the databases is the most appropriate to migrate? That is the reason there is a need for an integrated method that handles database migration for it to be a success.

The method of migration needs to assist in the selection of the most suitable databases when comparing the databases that are available in the market. It should allow the development of the required applications to provide the required functionality and high performance than the previous one (Vitthal et al., 2013). A canonical model can be useful in the intermediate stage of data conversion and schema from the input database to the various output targets. Many researchers have been researching on the database migrations while focusing on different areas. There are many assumptions in most of the literature that restrict the successful migration. For the migration to a new database to be successful, there is a need for further normalization to third normal form (Premerlani & Blaha, 1994). Many of the literature assume key-based conclusion dependency with key attribute consistencies while another assumption is that the design often initial schema is okay. In Kronsys, the migration has to take place seamlessly, and I will have to ensure the application of the best methodology while working with the company’s database managers and data administrators.

In that research, I will prefer the application of an integrated method for database migration that can preserve the semantics and structure of an existing relational database to generate ORDB/XML schemas. The method also provides an effective way of loading data into the target databases without the loss of unnecessary redundancies. The method is superior to many of the approaches proposed in many kinds of literature, and it leads to three types of databases including an object-oriented, relational database, and XML schema. The method also helps to exploit excellent feature provide to the target outputs. Because there is heterogeneity among the three data models provided as outputs, the method makes it possible to develop a canonical data model (Callan, 2006). That canonical data model is useful in bridging the semantic gap that exists between those data models and consequently facilitate the migration process. The canonical data model does preserve and enhance the target database’s integrity y constraints as well as the data semantics that fit in with the target database characteristics.

The integrated method will consist of three phases including semantic enrichment, schema conversion and data conversion (Maatuk et al., 008). The first phase produces a canonical data model that contains much of the relational database’s constraints and data semantics that did not have an explicit expression in it. There is then the mapping of the canonical data model obtained into the target schemas of the second phase. The third phase is where the conversion of the relational database data into its equivalent in the new database takes place. There should be early designing of the system architecture and implementing a prototype to demonstrate that process that should show the success of the whole process before the actual migration takes place. In a nutshell, the integrated database migration project should entail three phases including semantic enrichment, schema translation, and the data conversion (Topor & Tanaka, 1997).

The semantic enrichment of database migration is where the analysis of the RDB to understand its meaning and structure takes place. That means you make the hidden semantics explicit. For Kronsys, the semantics enrichment phase will involve the extraction of data semantics from the old database and then representing in relational schema format. After that, there will be the conversion of the data into a much enriched canonical model. The schema translation will involve the translation of the canonical model produced in the previous phase into its equivalent target schema (Maatuk et al., 2007). There is following of the necessary rules during the translation that are not in the scope of this paper. The data conversion as the last phase will entail the conversion of the existing database data onto the format required by the target schema. Te canonical data model created in the previous phase is useful in guiding the conversion process.

Proposal
The paper focuses on tracking the internship at Kronsys Inc. in database migration so as to ensure that the migration process takes place seamlessly, and there is no disruption of the business processes. During my internship, I will ensure that the migration task goes on according to the requirements of the business. I will also be in the requirement to explore various modules of the new database and integrate them to benefit the company business operations. While carrying out an internship in database migration at Kronsys Inc, the internship consists of various phases like orientation, training, gathering or understanding requirements, and testing and implements the changes. These phases have explanation below through iterations.

Iteration 1 Orientation
The orientation session helps in understanding the company and their culture. During orientation at Kronsys Inc., the primary goal will be to explore the company and understand its vision and the mission statement. I will also have a good understanding of the focus and key players of the company.

Iteration 2 Training
In this phase, Training on the database migration essentials and operations will have an explanation so as to understand clearly my role in the entire process. During training, there will be a brief introduction to the ethics and standards of the organization plus the provision of real time examples to work on before actually project assignment.

Iteration 3 gathering requirements
After the training, I will analyze the project and obtain a proper understanding of the requirements. There will be the understanding of the project and requirements for the changes through the data gathering process and after analyzing the requirements, I will identify changes and perform analysis on the proposed changes. Later in this phase, there will be making a decision on the changes and obtaining of approvals.

Iteration 4 Test and Implementation
In this phase, there will be finalizing of the database changes and applying them to the existing system and then proper testing of the new database will follow to check the functionality is working properly. The testing will also serve the purpose of finding out if other services are effective because of the change implemented.

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework
According to Creswell (2014), the conceptual framework does create a logical chain of evidence through which the researcher does test and verify conclusions. The conceptual framework is usually developed so as to generate a comprehensive understanding of the applicability of employee involvement in project management. Involvement in decision-making is the independent variable while the goal achievement is the dependent variable.

Goal Setting Theory
The identified conceptual framework for this study is based on Goal Setting Theory. The goal setting theory normally assumes that a direct relationship does exist between the definition of the measurable and specific goals and the performance. The researcher, Edwin Locke primarily developed the theory when he started the goal setting research in 1960s (Locke & Latham 1979). Goal setting theory does involve the process of establishing levels of performance so as to obtain the desired outcomes. Based on the theory, it purport that the source of motivation involves the desire and the intention to reach a particular goal. According to Armstrong (2013), when managers know what they aim at achieving, they are motivated to put more effort that increases performance. The goal setting theory was advanced by Armstrong (2013), who emphasize on goal setting and encouragement of decision rights as the basis for employee performance. When the management allows the employees to get involved in decision-making on matters concerning them and the organization, it tends to increase the employee’s commitment. Employee involvement in decision-making wins the commitment of employees and when the management can win the employee’s commitment; it does increase job satisfaction and motivate employees to work hard.

Taking responsibility for the results requires that the members of the organization receive a chance to influence their results favorably and have freedom of taking action. Based on the theory, the decision rights tend to allow greater involvement of employees in deciding issues that do affect their work Armstrong (2013), He argues that employees are likely to meet their performance goals when they are empowered with authority to make decisions and also solve problems that relate to the results that they are accountable. The goals of an organization represent a shared responsibility among all its employees each of whom has a role in the success of the organization. The contribution of the employees tends to be a starting point for enumerating the results of which they are accountable. Thus, the goal setting theory is used in developing the study’s conceptual framework.

The employee can contribute significantly towards achieving the objectives and the goals of the organization. Hence, it is essential that the organization should have knowledge of the various factors that affect the behavior of their staff so as to bring out the best in these employees. Because of this, the researcher selects the goal setting theory as the conceptual framework for the study. The goal setting theory tends to be one of the most practical and influential theories of motivation. Several studies have been conducted to support the theory, and there tends to be a strong support that is setting goals related to performance improvement. The aim of the study is to examine how employee involvement in decision-making predicts goal achievement. Locke suggests that goals normally tell an employee what they need to do and how much effort should be expended (Latham, 2004). The theory does suggest that specific goals tend to increase performance and that the difficult goals when they are accepted do lead to higher performance.

From the theory, it suggests the significance of setting difficult goals as it leads to the increase in the likelihood of goal achievement. Locke postulated that through employee involvement and participation in goal setting, the employees are likely to participating in the goals and increasing performance; thus, enhancing the job satisfaction (Latham & Locke 2006). Goal setting tends to be an effective strategy of affecting performance through employee involvement, participation, and providing feedback. The involvement of the employee in setting goal tends to direct the behavior of the employee, and it contributes to higher performance than the absence of feedback and the lack of involvement. Latham, (2004) claims that difficult goals normally lead to participation through involvement employees in decision making and setting goals, enhanced employee-employer relations and also improved performance through producing high levels of planning and effort. Hence, goal setting may be an effective strategy for influence performance through enhances the initiatives of employee involvement by providing regular feedback and appropriate communication (Locke et al. 2010).

According to Latham & Locke (2006), the employee involvement in decision-making does include the process that results in some degree of transfer of then decision control and the responsibility from the superior to his subordinates. The participation in the setting of the work goals tends to fall in this definition as employee’s determination of goals is the transfer of the decision control and the responsibilities from the superior to the subordinates. Locke et al. (2010) conclude that participation in goal setting leads to increased performance. Erez et al. (1985) conducted a study to investigate the impact that participation in goal setting has on goal acceptance and the performance of the American college students. The researchers hypothesized that the level of the goal acceptance would increase as participation increased and participation influence performance through influence on acceptance. The study by Erez et al. (1985) revealed that the participative and representative goal setting increased the individual goal acceptance and the goal acceptance contributed to the performance. Locke et al. (2010) state that the involvement of employees in decision-making may contribute to the development of an effective strategy for attaining the goals that in turn increase the self-efficacy of the participant that the goal is attainable.

An examination of the goal setting theory, purport that the participation of the employee in setting the goal makes the goals to be more acceptable and it also leads to more involvement. With regards to involvement in setting the goals, the employees need to ensure that they have the necessary skills, abilities, and knowledge for reaching the goals. When the employees do not have the necessary skills, setting the outcome goals, have indicated to result in a lower level of performance (Seijts & Latham, 2005). Seijts & Latham (2005) state that people are more likely to feel helpless when they do not have the ability to reach the goals and making it difficult to achieve the goals.