Using business data to assess the impact of Covid-19 in Portuguese Private Sector Activity

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics, specialization in Data ScienceCOVID-19’s containment measures resulted in a severe shock to all national businesses. The supply and demand were strongly impacted due to suspending the companies' typical behavior and the physical absence of customers. More than ever, there is an increased need for data to monitor these effects quickly and affordably. Therefore, this project proposes to assess the endogenous determinants of Portuguese private sector firms in their financial performance during the first year of Covid-19, while showcasing secondary data's potential within private institutions. The main goal is to extract historical data from one of the largest Banks in Portugal with features that reflect important business characteristics and deliver essential insights into the evolution of national enterprises. Several linear regression models were implemented to study which business attributes, from 2019, made companies more fragile or robust to COVID-19’s outbreak. Hence, delivering knowledge to build catered solutions to the vast spectrum of Portuguese firms and protect them from the next shock. The results suggested that for the variation in total revenue, the variables responsible for the largest coefficients in absolute value were the accommodation and food services and the micro dimension category - both of which showcased a negative impact. Furthermore, the only positive coefficients were the features associated with exporting activity and the energy and manufactory sector. The number of employees was more impacted by the dimension of the company, whose negative impact was proportional to the size. The accommodation and food services, other services and wholesale and retail trading showcased having a significant adverse effect on this target variable, and exportation activity presented the only positive impact