Brief Proposal

Amazon recently acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The acquisition is about two things: data and product. In particular, Amazon is interested in the treasure trove of consumer data that comes with this acquisition.

What exactly is in the Whole Foods data that Amazon would want? The answer is the grocery buying habits and patterns of its customers, and the correlations between purchases of different products and even different categories. Furthermore, groceries, compared to other e-commerce purchases, are habitual and frequent: People need groceries every week.

With massive amounts of data from Whole Foods shoppers, Amazon will ultimately be able to tailor the grocery shopping experience to the individual. Amazon has already mastered the process of upselling, i.e. offering additional items that go with the items the consumer is looking to buy. Amazon now aims to increase upselling in the grocery segment.

Unit 1, Assignment 1: Memo

For their first Unit 1 assignment, students will compose a short (250 words) memo about an opportunity to leverage analytics at an organization. They will write this memo as though they were writing to the head of analytics at the organization. Students will be assessed on organization of the memo, economy of words, and application of communication techniques taught in class.

Think about the data that Amazon now has after the acquisition of Whole Foods.

What kind of analytical approaches could be implemented on the data to address the business problems and opportunities outlined above?

If this analytical project were approved, how might these approaches address the business problems?