Business Analytics — Master: EverydayCart — Growth Under Pressure

Lead a household-essentials retailer with growing sales and falling margins. Compete for customers, negotiate with rival teams, and use evidence to build a profitable, reliable business.

2 weeks · 2–8 teams (Suggested 3–6 students each) · tools: Excel, SQL, Python, Power BI, GenAI · instructor-led, private cohorts

The challenge

Sales have grown by 25%, but operating margin has fallen from 8% to 3%. Customers face late deliveries and unavailable products while cash is tied up in inventory. You have 14 simulated trading days to improve profitability, protect cash, and deliver reliable service.

Your company sells household and personal-care essentials through an app, a website, and neighborhood pickup locations. Discounts, expensive deliveries, product returns, and poorly allocated stock are eating into profit.

Improve profitability, protect cash, and keep your service promises. You decide what to charge, what to buy, where to spend, and who to work with. Your evidence needs to stand up to scrutiny.

How the simulation unfolds

• Days 1–2 · Excel: Find the margin. Build a margin and cash model. Set prices, buy capacity, and negotiate your first partnership.
• Days 3–6 · SQL: Find the signal. Trace orders, promotions, returns, and customers. Use your queries to improve a business already in motion.
• Days 7–11 · Python: Model the future. Forecast demand and model uncertainty. Rework your inventory and deals when the market changes.
• Days 12–14 · Power BI + GenAI: Defend the decision. Build a board dashboard. Challenge AI recommendations and defend a strategy grounded in evidence.

Day by day

1. Day 1 · The growth trap: Why is EverydayCart selling more but earning less?
2. Day 2 · Cash before growth: Can you afford the growth you want?
3. Day 3 · One version of the numbers: Can everyone reproduce the same commercial baseline?
4. Day 4 · Growth with a cost: Which categories and segments contribute after costs?
5. Day 5 · The service bottleneck: Where is growth breaking the customer promise?
6. Day 6 · The SQL investment memo: Which intervention deserves the next rupee?
7. Day 7 · Forecast under pressure: How much cash should survive the supplier payment?
8. Day 8 · Quantify uncertainty: What if demand is different from your forecast?
9. Day 9 · Design an allocation: How should a limited budget be divided?
10. Day 10 · Stress the strategy: Can your strategy survive a disruption?
11. Day 11 · A model others can trust: Can another analyst reproduce your recommendation?
12. Day 12 · The board's view: Which few measures explain performance?
13. Day 13 · Challenge the AI: Can a persuasive recommendation be wrong?
14. Day 14 · Defend the turnaround: Did you build a healthier business?

How teams are assessed

• Business decision quality — 20 points
• Technical execution — 35 points
• Collaboration — 15 points
• Negotiation — 15 points
• Business outcomes — 10 points
• Responsible practice — 5 points

Before you start

• Desktop or laptop
• Access to Microsoft Excel and Power BI
• Basic analytical familiarity
• An instructor-managed team