Business Brief and Proposed Requirements

Scenario and purpose

Mara Consumer Distribution Ltd. is a fictional consumer-goods distributor. This brief prioritises investigation into profitable growth and revenue performance against plan.

This brief was derived from a synthetic learning scenario. No real requirements workshop, stakeholder interview, signed approval, or implementation is implied.

Intended stakeholder needs

• Commercial leadership: understand growth alongside margin, choose areas for review, and avoid celebrating revenue alone.
• Finance: compare actual performance with budget and matching prior-year periods using consistent calculations.
• Category managers: identify product-category contributions, gaps, and evidence needed for a focused investigation.
• Regional sales managers: locate regional pressure and distinguish scale from profitability.
• A reader new to the meeting: understand the company, terms, comparison period, findings, and requested decision without a verbal briefing.

Scope

Included: net revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, gross margin, sales-line discounts, monthly revenue budget, and category/region/channel comparisons. Main reporting window: January–August 2026 against January–August 2025.

Excluded: net profit, inventory availability, cash collection, delivery economics, causal claims, forecasts, and implementation of recommendations. These would require additional evidence.

Requirements and acceptance criteria

BR-01 : Assess profitable growth

Question: Are sales and gross profit growing together?

Deliverable: Revenue, gross profit, gross margin, and year-on-year comparisons.

Acceptance criteria: The periods contain matching months. Gross margin is total gross profit divided by total revenue, not the average of transaction margins. Gross profit is distinguished from net profit.

Evidence: Revenue +21.9%; gross profit +8.1%; gross margin 21.2% → 18.8%. Case-study finding 1 and stakeholder briefing.

BR-02 : Assess performance against plan

Question: Are we meeting revenue targets, and when did gaps appear?

Deliverable: Monthly actual-versus-budget chart and total budget variance.

Acceptance criteria: Actuals and budget are independently aggregated at compatible grain before comparison. Missing actual groups must not erase planned revenue. Budget comparisons use whole months. No channel-level budget is fabricated.

Evidence: KES 24.02M actual vs KES 26.13M budget; -8.0%. Case-study finding 2 and reproducible script. Power BI budget measures return blank for channel selections.

BR-03 : Prioritise investigation

Question: Where should management focus first?

Deliverable: Category, region, and channel comparisons linked to proposed next steps.

Acceptance criteria: Segment totals reconcile with the total. Favorable offsets are included when explaining contributions to a net gap. Hypotheses are separated from observed results.

Evidence: Household contributes 69.6% of the net shortfall; Personal Care contributes 58.1% of gross profit. Findings 3–4 and recommendations.

BR-04 : Make the work understandable and accessible

Question: Can a reader unfamiliar with the project follow the argument?

Deliverable: Business introduction, definitions, plain-language explanations, public evidence charts, and supporting files.

Acceptance criteria: Every main finding explains its implication. Currency and periods are labelled. The case study remains readable without JavaScript or a Power BI login. Charts include explanatory text or accessible figures, and information is not conveyed by colour alone.

Proposed decision and follow-up

Propose priority investigations, owners, evidence to collect and a 30-day review. No commitment has been approved.

• Household review: category team, Sales, and Finance; collect account/product demand, availability, and actual selling prices.
• Margin review: Commercial, Finance, and Procurement; compare product costs, mix, realised prices, and discount exceptions.
• Personal Care review: category team and Operations; check availability and service levels.

Proposed scorecard: revenue, gross profit, gross margin, and budget variance. Numerical intervention targets require evidence and stakeholder agreement; none is invented here.

Open questions for a real engagement

• How was the budget set, and did its assumptions change?
• Do reported sales include returns and rebates consistently?
• Are price changes, supplier cost changes, and stock availability recorded?
• What delivery costs and payment terms affect account profitability?
• Who can approve discount exceptions and pricing changes?
• What trade-offs between volume, margin, and service would management accept?

How success would be assessed

Portfolio success means accurate, reproducible comparisons and traceable proposed actions. Real business outcomes would require an intervention and a suitable comparison period; none is claimed here.