NORTHWIND TRADERS

This is an analysis of Northwind Traders sales data and recommendations to reduce cost and increase profits.

Data Analysis Recommendations

Amber Emelander

1. I used conditional formatting to highlight the highs and lows of the country sales on my revenue by country worksheet. First I had the condition that each countrys gross and net revenue that was over $100,000 be highlighted in green. This clearly shows that the highest net revenue totals are in USA, Germany, followed by Brazil and Austria. Secondly I added the condition of each country with gross and net revenue under $10,000 be highlighted in red. The results from this condition show that Norway, Poland, and Argentina all have extremely low sales revenue. I also used conditional formatting to find the top and bottom sales people. I made a condition to have the top three net revenue sales highlighted in green, along with the bottom three net revenue sales highlighted in red. From this information we see that Buchanan, Dodsworth, and Suyama have the lowest net revenue of sales. Peacock, Leverling, and Davolio come in with the top net revenue of sales.

Country

Gross Revenue
$8,119.10 $139,496.63 $35,134.98 $114,968.48 $55,334.10 $34,782.25 $19,778.45 $85,498.76 $244,640.63 $57,317.39 $16,705.15 $24,073.45 $5,735.15 $3,531.95 $12,468.65 $19,431.89 $59,523.70 $32,919.50 $60,616.51 $263,566.98 $60,814.89

Net Revenue
$8,119.10 $128,003.84 $33,824.86 $106,925.78 $50,196.29 $32,661.02 $18,810.05 $81,358.32 $230,284.63 $49,979.91 $15,770.16 $23,582.08 $5,735.15 $3,531.95 $11,472.36 $17,983.20 $54,495.14 $31,692.66 $58,971.31 $245,584.61 $56,810.63

Argentina Total Austria Total Belgium Total Brazil Total Canada Total Denmark Total Finland Total France Total Germany Total Ireland Total Italy Total Mexico Total Norway Total Poland Total Portugal Total Spain Total Sweden Total Switzerland Total UK Total USA Total Venezuela Total

Last Name
Buchanan Total Callahan Total Davolio Total Dodsworth Total Fuller Total King Total Leverling Total Peacock Total Suyama Total

Net Revenue
$68,792 $126,862 $192,108 $77,308 $166,538 $124,568 $202,813 $232,891 $73,913

2. The next analytical tool I used was pivot tables. I like the pivot table because I can change the different information for each part of the table to figure out which sets of data give me the most valuable information. On my sales by month worksheet I created a pivot table that lists the countries and the months to see which months have the highest and lowest sales overall. Within this pivot table I used conditional formatting color scale. This table points out that June has the lowest sales and April and May are at the top. I also used a pivot table to see which products have the lowest quantity of sales. This table is shown on my lowest sales products worksheet. It lists the bottom ten products. These are the items that have the lowest quantity of sales in all combined countries.
Count of Gross Revenue Month Country Argentina Austria Belgium Brazil Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Ireland Italy Mexico Norway Poland Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland UK USA Venezuela Grand Total 2 6 13 7 31 11 4 4 29 31 2 4 6 4 4 5 2 2 2 6 9 2 25 6 24 30 15 10 201 211 1 1 24 1 24 8 12 3 9 20 6 10 3 7 7 12 22 6 2 13 27 23 4 4 3 3 3 1 13 21 14 22 11 218 4 5 9 7 15 14 13 9 21 16 13 9 9 4 27 9 30 45 3 8 6 8 10 8 4 5 10 3 6 8 11 9 8 9 20 21 25 46 22 19 258 261 6 7 8 9 1 8 2 13 4 3 3 2 7 7 13 30 4 9 4 1 1 4 2 8 3 4 2 6 6 12 9 29 15 18 35 3 4 3 7 7 6 2 9 1 3 3 2 4 1 7 3 6 2 13 8 7 10 7 1 6 36 14 36 10 6 9 9 140 78 138 154 10 11 3 4 5 3 10 11 8 4 2 4 6 12 8 31 34 14 9 3 2 16 1 12 Grand Total 34 16 125 3 56 11 203 3 75 5 46 3 54 30 184 17 328 2 55 6 53 4 72 16 16 2 30 2 54 7 97 16 52 16 135 24 352 6 118 173 2155

3 4 6 3 3 7 2 6 3 37 48 3 8 161 162

Product Quantity Chocolade 138 Genen Shouyu 122 Gravad lax 125 Laughing Lumberjack Lager 184 Longlife Tofu 297 Louisiana Hot Spiced Okra 239 Mascarpone Fabioli 297 Mishi Kobe Niku 95 R?d Kaviar 293 Valkoinen suklaa 235

3. Finally I used the pivot chart and graphing tool. I like to use graphs because the give the user an overall view to quickly see trends, highs, and lows. I made a chart showing the gross revenue and net revenue for each country. This graph lets us see which countries have the best sales. This graph also shows the gross revenue, amount before discounts, and the net revenue, amount after discounts. The second graph I used was to show the bottom ten products along with their total quantity. This let us see that we have several products that have less than 150 sales in total.

Revenue by Country
$300,000.00 $250,000.00 $200,000.00 $150,000.00 $100,000.00 $50,000.00 $0.00 Gross Revenue Net Revenue

Low Sales
Valkoinen suklaa R?d Kaviar Mishi Kobe Niku Mascarpone Fabioli Louisiana Hot Spiced Okra Longlife Tofu Laughing Lumberjack Lager Gravad lax Genen Shouyu Chocolade 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Total

4.

I also used multi-level sorting. I used this in a few of the different parts of my analysis. First I converted the original sales data into a table. I then sorted the table by Country, Last name, and then finally category name. I did this to increase readability of the overall data. I also used the sorting feature on my different sales data worksheets. Along with sorting, I used grouping to hide unneeded columns on different worksheets to consolidate the data into a smaller area for easy viewing. 5. My recommendations- After analyzing the data of Northwind Trading I have come to many conclusions. First I believe that the sales to Argentina, Norway, and Poland should be stopped. These countries have net revenue under $10,000. Not shipping to these three countries would reduce transit costs. I also believe that the discounts for USA and Germany may be too high. The difference in the gross revenue and the net revenue for these two countries is pretty big. I would recommend lowering the discounts for these two countries to see if sales would decrease at all. If they do not decrease I would keep the discounts low in the future to increase net revenue. Second I believe that the low sales of Bachanan, Dodsworth, and Suyama should be changed. I would recommend they take some training courses or get some helpful tips from one of the top three salesmen. The worst month of sales is in July, I would recommend that discounts be raised during July to encourage more sales. Finally I think the bottom ten products should first be discounted to see if sales improve at all. If the sales do not improve I would think about eliminating them from your list of products for sale. From working with this data and analyzing it on my own I leaned that excel is a great tool. Excel has many different kinds of tools to break down data. It makes it easy to see different things about the given information that would have never been understood without excels features. I like that I can take a large volume of information and make it readable. I can then take that data and organize, analyze, and come to different conclusions about the information that could help benefit a company.