LO1: Critically evaluate the evolving use of data in solving business problems, presenting logical arguments based on evidence

BPP Coursework Cover Sheet

Please use the table below as your cover sheet for the 1^st page of the submission. The sheet should be before the cover/title page of your submission.

 MSc Management

 Data Driven Decisions for Business

 Coursework Assessment Brief CW2

1.General Assessment Guidance

• Your summative assessment for this module is made up of this 2,500 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 2,500 words. You must comply with the word count guidelines. You may submit LESS than 2,500 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 Hub. You can use the following link to access this information: https://bpp.libguides.com/home/business

• 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 UPPs which are available on the HUB in the Help and Support section under Documents and Forms.
• Use of AI in assessments is only allowed for the purposes of reviewing a draft, correcting language errors or if specified in the summative assessment brief. If you have used AI for any of these purposes, you should indicate this on the Assignment Cover sheet. For more information regarding acceptable and unacceptable use of AI, please enrol onto the Generative AI Foundations course on the HUB.
• You should include a completed copy of the Assignment Cover sheet. Any submission without this completed Assignment Cover sheet may be considered invalid and not marked.

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 BeeSafe Insurance as a data analyst.

BeeSafe Insurance is an international UK insurance company offering insurance products for businesses with over 30 subsidiaries in countries around the world. Its main services cover the areas of Motor, Home, Life, Health and Travel insurance.

BeeSafe Insurance has been providing exceptional business insurance services for over 80 years. Its commitment to people-centric insurance has allowed BeeSafe Insurance to give protection to business clients from the small, everyday business risk to the larger, unexpected compensations

claims. Its services protect organisations’ work, people, reputation, and ultimately, the future livelihood of the business. The company’s personalised approach to business insurance and the creative delivery of technology has helped fuel its continued growth.

As BeeSafe Insurance grows, it continues to increase its data analytic roles within the organisation to strengthen its strategic decision-making capabilities. The recruitment strategy is to employ young professionals with strategic and data analytics skills willing to provide BeeSafe Insurance’s top management with strong evidence-based foundation for their business decisions. They like recruits to have a broad management experience combined with a 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 BeeSafe Insurance, you have joined the Underwriting department as data 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. Whilst 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), Whilst 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 management

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 BeeSafe Insurance current business performance.

Your job will be to analyse the performance of three of the best international subsidiaries of BeeSafe Insurance: Brazil, Australia and Norway. BeeSafe Insurance 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:

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

1 Leonard J., 2019. Inside an Insurance Company: How They Work and What Drives Them. Accessed De 2023. https://btlaw.com/insights/blogs/policyholder-protection/2019/inside-an-insurance- company#:~:text=Insurance%20companies%20are%20generally%20organized,referee%20between%20these%20competing%20interests

revenues and high retention volumes. The business insurance products BeeSafe Insurance offers in its three subsidiaries is made of the following insurance product categories

• Public liability insurance: it protects business if something happens at work that results in injury to a customer, a member of the public or damage to someone’s property.
• Employers` liability insurance: it protects business if employees get injured or become ill as a result of working for the business.
• Professional indemnity insurance: it protects if any recommendations or advice have caused a financial loss for a client and the company is found to be at fault.
• Contents & stock insurance: it covers the cost of replacing items that are important to the business such as goods or specific equipment used to run the operations.
• Cyber insurance: it protects from threats in the digital age, such as data breaches or malicious cyber hacks on work computer systems.
• Building insurance: it covers the costs of repairing the damage caused in an event such as flood or fire at the work premises.

In this respect, she wants you to:

Perform an analysis of the business insurance categories offered in the three subsidiaries to identify those categories with the best performance.

BeeSafe Insurance has used digital technologies in the last 20 years 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 accelerate 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 Brazil subsidiary to test the technology. Other insurance companies have adopted AI enabled chatbots in India such as Zurich Insurance with its Zara chatbot. The test started in July 2023 and was available through its local website. Initially the system was used to answer customers’ enquiries about automated claims processing, lead generation and conversion with prospects, onboarding new clients and FAQs, collect feedback and customer support.

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

Did the implementation in 2023 of the AI chatbot in Brazil have a positive impact on revenue (written premiums) of the subsidiary?

2 https://www.axa.co.uk/business-insurance/

3 https://www.directlineforbusiness.co.uk/

The responses to the issues detailed above should be included in a summary MS Word report that you save and submit.

2.4.  Report Sections

Because this is your first project within BeeSafe Insurance, the management 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.

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

You have four Sections to complete for your summative report

Section 1 (LO4): Introduction and project plan

Summarise what you are going to present in the report. Then justify your plan for delivering the research project to the management of BeeSafe Insurance, making sure you also clearly refer to a data analytics implementation framework as part of your plan. Finally, explain how data analytics can add value and help to drive business performance improvements to BeeSafe Insurance. 

Section 2 (LO2):

a)Data quality issues and remedies

Proceed with preparing the dataset for the analysis. Discuss initially the general issues encountered in collecting, reviewing and cleansing data and then detail the specific data quality issues you found in the project dataset and how these issues will be addressed.

b)Data analysis and commentary

Using only tables, set out and explain the results of your numeric data analysis and supporting commentary. Start by including a summary of exploratory data analysis of the dataset. Then create tables where you can analyse the overall performance of BeeSafe Insurance as well as its performance by country and by business insurance category. To answer the Section, you should perform your analysis using at least 3 tables (see guidelines for further details).

Section 3 (LO3): Data charting and commentary

Use your data charting and interpretation skills to develop graphical presentations of the data together with bullet-points setting out the key findings and inferences from the analysis. Create charts where you can compare and analyse retention volume and revenue trends over time by country and by business insurance category, in particular where you can see evidence of any performance change due to the implementation of the AI chatbot in Brazil during 2023. To answes

the Section, you should perform your analysis using at least 3 charts (see guidelines for further details).

Section 4 (LO1): Conclusions and recommendations

Based on your analysis and findings in Sections 3 and 4 set-out your conclusions and recommendations to BeeSafe Insurance’s top management. As part of your conclusions, include answers to the three project objectives raised by the top management. 

Report Structure and References

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

2.5.  Section guidelines

The following section provides guidelines on the steps needed to perform each one of the Sections of this assignment.

Report structure and references 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 of all tables, charts and figures provided in your 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 deducted 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

• Introduction and project plan
• Data quality issues and remedies
• Data analysis and commentary 
• Data charting and commentary
• Conclusions and recommendations 
• References 
• 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.

1.Marking Guide

The assignment is marked out of 100 and counts towards 100% of your module mark. The following table shows the Sections, 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.