SuperStores Storyboard — Profit Analysis for Technology Category

Tools: Tableau, Excel

Skills Demonstrated: Data Visualization, Profitability Analysis, Time Series Analysis, Segment Performance Tracking

Situation

The business needed to evaluate profitability trends within its Technology category across different product sub-categories, time periods, and customer segments. Leadership required a tool to identify profit drivers, detect performance issues, and support strategic product and segment planning.

Task

Develop an interactive Tableau dashboard that:

1. Breaks down profit by sub-category (Copiers, Phones, Accessories, Machines).
2. Tracks profit trends over time to spot patterns and anomalies.
3. Analyzes quarterly profitability across multiple years.
4. Compares profit contributions from Consumer, Corporate, and Home Office segments.

Action

1. Data Preparation:
2. Cleaned and structured sales and profit data in Excel.
3. Created calculated fields for quarterly/yearly aggregations and profit variance tracking.
4. Dashboard Development:
5. Designed bar charts to visualize sub-category and segment-level profitability.
6. Built a line chart for time series profit analysis from 2016–2019.
7. Used stacked bar charts to display quarterly profit trends by year.
8. Added filters for category, region, and segment to allow dynamic exploration.
9. Analysis:
10. Identified Copiers as the most profitable sub-category.
11. Detected a negative profit in Q4 2018 (-$2.7K), signaling a potential pricing or cost issue.
12. Highlighted Consumer as the most profitable customer segment, followed by Corporate and Home Office.

Result

1. Delivered a profit analysis dashboard that reduced report preparation time for quarterly reviews by over 50%.
2. Revealed Copiers as the top profit driver (~$25K) in the Technology category.
3. Uncovered the late 2018 negative profit event, prompting further investigation and corrective measures.
4. Informed leadership to maintain focus on the Consumer segment (~$70K profit) while exploring ways to grow Corporate and Home Office contributions.
5. Enabled real-time monitoring of profitability trends to support proactive decision-making.

Portfolio Value: This project showcases my ability to use Tableau for profitability tracking, anomaly detection, and strategic insight generation, turning raw performance data into clear business intelligence tools.