Hi there,

can you please help me with some ideas to discuss.

Budget Food Ltd is a fictional retailer that operates low cost groceries across the Australasian. The company is well known for its low cost healthy foods. It has the largest market share of customers across the Australasian region and it is the fastest growing groceries retailer by number of franchisees. Its adoption of technology has no doubt contributed to its success in the present pandemic business environment. Further, its long standing in technological architecture had seen the company grow exponentially since it first introduce loyalty-card programme called Myfood.

Customers are required to provide their basic but important information when Myfood card is obtained. Myfood offers substantial points and instant discount to Budget Food customers on every purchase and during special sales. Since the introduction of Myfood card, revenue has triple and profit has increased in threefold. The CFO who is also responsible for the financial strategies at Budget Food Ltd called the loyalty programme a game changer and recommended the acquisition of additional IT security system to enhance the entity database system. A recent research published on International Journal of Accounting Information Systems called this loyalty programme and the use of customers information as "Data Mining and Big Data analytics".

Further, a recent fictional company known as Affordable Foods NZ Ltd competes with Budget Food Ltd in New Zealand. A top executive at Affordable Foods NZ Ltd recently read an article titled "No. 1 Retailer in Britain Uses 'Clubcard' to Thwart Wal-Mart" (see attached). He is convinced that the information in this article could enhance Affordable Foods NZ Ltd strategy and competitive advantage in the New Zealand market.

Required

1. As an assistant accountant in Affordable Foods NZ Ltd, you are required by your CFO to examine the meaning of "Data Mining and Big Data analytics".

2. Based on the case of Wal-Mart and Tesco in the given article, your CFO is specifically interested in knowing the following:

i. What information can Affordable Foods NZ Ltd collect from its customers using loyalty card?

ii. How could Affordable Foods NZ Ltd motivate its customers to sign up for the loyalty programme?

iii. What are the responsibilities of Affordable Foods NZ Ltd on the customer information collected? Discuss this from the perspective of privacy act 2020.

iv. What are the disadvantages of loyalty programme that Affordable Foods NZ Ltd must be aware of?