Case Study:
Sony Music Entertainment (sometimes known plainly as Sony Music or by the initials, SME) is an American music corporation managed and operated by Sony Corporation of America (SCA), a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony Corporation and is the world's second largest music company, after Universal Music Group. Out of the "Big Three" record companies, with Universal Music Group, being the largest, and Warner Music Group, SME can be considered a middle-sized company which has managed to survive despite all fluctuations in the music industry.
In today's music industry, considering the challenges that record companies face (e.g., music piracy and music streaming), it is important for all players in the industry to constantly monitor the market and foresee new waves in the industry. In line with this, SME has assigned its marketing department to conduct a survey in order to have a clearer picture of the company's performance in the market and against competitors.
Having compared the company's position in the market and against the competitors, the General Manager - asked you, to conduct exploratory and descriptive analysis to gain a better understanding of Sales performance of Sony Music.
The Data
The data relates to a random sample of 150 albums released by SME in the last 6 years. The 13 variables in the data table are described below:
| Variable Name |
Description |
| Album No. |
Unique ID of the album |
| Adverts |
Advertising expenses before releasing the album ($) |
| Sales |
Album sales in the month after release (#) |
| AirPlay |
The number of times the album is played on Fox Radio (the U.S's biggest national radio station) during the week prior to release |
| Attract |
Attractiveness of the band/singer (1 = Not attractive at all - 10 = Very attractive) |
| Price |
Price of the album ($) |
| Gender |
Gender of the album's singer |
| StreamingServices |
Whether or not the album has been available on Spotify or Pandora (S = Spotify/ P = Pandora / N= Neither) |
| Piracy |
Total number of illegal downloads of the album in the first two weeks after release (#) |
| Top20 |
Whether any tracks of the album has appeared in the Billboard's Top20 list, in the first two weeks after release |
| Age |
Age of the album's singer |
| No. Previous Albums |
No. of previous albums by the band/singer |
| iTunes Download |
Total number of downloads from iTunes, in the first two weeks after release (#) |
Task One - Summary of Sales
Only analyse Sales by itself. The importance of other variables is considered in other tasks. You should, at the very least, thoroughly investigate relevant summary measures (and their reliability) for this variable. Also, there may well be suitable tables and graphs that will illustrate, further and more clearly, other important features of sales. In your report you should comment, where relevant, on data location, central tendency, variability, shape and outliers for this variable.
Reference: Module 1 - Topic 2
Task Two - Factors influencing Sales
Analyse album sales against other variables included in the data set. Use appropriate descriptive techniques such as cross-tabulations, comparative summary measures, and/or scatter diagrams to identify key relationships. In your ‘report' you should only include the most important factors that impact sales.
Reference: Module 2 - Topic 4
Task Three - Development of a multiple regression model for Sales You should follow the model building process outlined in topic 5. You are only required to consider linear relationships in the model. Each stage of developing your model should be included in your analysis. You will notice in the Sony Music 2 spreadsheet that there are tabs called Q3.1, Q3.2, etc.
These are where you place each version of your model. Note that if you have undertaken more iterations of the model then add more worksheets.
The report should only include your final model and a description of its overall strength as well as the influence of each variable.
Task Four - Time series analysis
Quarterly albums sales (in Million dollars) for Sony Music from Q2, 2010 to Q1, 2014 are given in the ‘Quarterly Sales' worksheet. Develop a multiplicative time series model to forecast Sales ($m) for the next 4 quarters (Q2, 2014 to Q1, 2015).
If the observed values for those 4 quarters are as below, calculate the MAPE of the forecast.
Task Five - Critique the Business Research Approach
Discuss the suitability of the general business research approach taken. In your response, include possible alternative approaches and other sources of (secondary) data. If the analysis was to be repeated in the future, would you recommend a different approach? Note that no actual analysis is required for this task
Attachment:- Sony Music.xlsx