About

Starting Semester: Spring 2025
Assigned: No
Location: Atlanta

Focus Brands, LLC

Client Profile

Focus Brands, headquartered in Atlanta, is a prominent global multi-channel foodservice brand developer. Following the acquisition of Jamba, Focus Brands, and its affiliated brands now operate as the franchisor and operator of over 6,000 restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, and bakeries across the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and more than 50 foreign countries. Their portfolio includes well-known brands such as Carvel®, Cinnabon®, Schlotzsky's®, Moe's Southwest Grill®, Auntie Anne's®, McAlister's Deli®, Jamba®, and Seattle's Best Coffee® at specific military bases and international locations.

Project Description

Client Need

The Focus Brands Supply Chain Team is pivotal in ensuring inventory supply to over 6,000 locations spanning seven brands. An essential factor affecting inventory fill rates and costs is forecasting accuracy. Focus Brands has recognized a substantial opportunity to enhance forecast precision and is initially refining its forecasting processes.



Among the seven brands, diverse methods are employed for planning and monitoring marketing tactics (e.g., $2 off $10 purchase, mobile app offers, buy one get one offer, etc.). While the team acknowledges that these tactics impact overall sales, a standardized approach is needed for:

1. Categorizing and tracking historical and future events across all brands within a unified platform.

2. Analyzing Point of Sale (POS) transactional data to assess the sales impact of these events compared to non-participating locations and off-tactic periods.

3. Leveraging historical POS sales impact data to refine forecasting.

4. Evaluating tactic performance to inform decisions regarding future tactics.



Project Outputs

This project aims to deliver:

1. A quantifiable performance metric of marketing tactics that can be applied to improve forecasting accuracy.

2. Comprehensive reporting on the performance of marketing tactics for each brand.

3. Data-driven recommendations to guide brands in formulating future marketing tactics.

Skills

Project Skills
Essential skills and expertise required for this project include data management, data analysis, innovative problem-solving, machine learning, and coding proficiency, particularly in Python.