BUS 225 Cost Revenue and Profit
Assignment: Module 4 Assignment
Overview
In this module, you learned about choosing data visualizations and using Excel to create charts and graphs. Now you will have an opportunity to apply your data-driven decision-making skills as well as a chance to create visualizations in the Module Four Assignment, Making Data-Driven Decisions.
Assignment Overview
In order to make decisions, business leaders must make sense of all the data available to them. They do this by working alongside data scientists who generate data visualizations to understand business questions via analytics. This process gives companies insight into what is working and what is not—for example, whether the products or services offered are meeting expectations or whether a shift in strategy is necessary.
Review the following scenario to learn about the business setting of this assignment.
Module Four Assignment Scenario
You are a business leader analyzing whether a new product is meeting expectations. You would like to create a report to post in the company intranet that summarizes your findings in an easy-to-read format for your team. You’ll need to pay special attention to creating meaningful data visualizations, and you should use techniques that make content easy to follow but that also display charts accurately without distorting or skewing data.
Your company’s profit goal is 25 percent of the cost of goods sold (COGS). Remember, COGS is the cost of manufacturing the product, including labor, materials, and overhead. You will need to build trust and an open channel of communication with other leaders on your team. Pay close attention to the story that data visualizations tell you and will tell others reviewing your report.
The purpose of this analysis is to better understand the cost, revenue, and profit associated with the new product launch.
How You Will Create Your Report
Review the steps you will take to complete your Module Four Assignment.
On the next page, you will draft a report of your analysis for your Module Four Assignment. You’ll begin by reviewing data related to the product launch. The webtext will walk you through each step of creating your report using interactive writing templates. Here is a breakdown of the steps you will take to complete this assignment.
Step 1: Download and Review the Data
To begin your Module Four Assignment, you will download and review quantitative and qualitative product launch data. This is the data you will interpret and analyze for your report.
Step 2: Explain the Importance of Data Analysis
Once you have reviewed the data, you’ll start drafting your report by explaining the importance of data analysis. In your explanation, you will address how data analysis can help you understand how the product is performing.
Step 3: Describe Your Findings
In the next section of your report, you will describe the results of your data analysis and explain what the data tells you about the success of the product launch. You will also explain which data helped you determine whether the product is meeting expectations.
Step 4: Summarize the Results of Your Analysis
Once you’ve described what the data tells you about the product launch, you will create visualizations to summarize the data. You will also describe why you chose each visualization and explain how using visualizations helped you understand the data.
Just like with your previous assignments, you will develop your draft here in the webtext, download it as a Word document that you will revise, and then upload your assignment to Brightspace for review by your instructor.
Now that you know the steps to complete the assignment, it’s time to get started. On the next page, you will begin by downloading an Excel spreadsheet of the product launch data you will analyze.
Objective: Analyze cost and revenue data associated with a new product launch and summarize your findings.
This page will walk you through the assignment steps you learned about on the previous page. First, you’ll download and review the company’s product launch data. Then you’ll use that data to better understand the cost, revenue, and profit associated with the product launch.
Step 1: Download and Review the Data
Begin working on your Module Four Assignment by examining product launch data from an Excel spreadsheet.
As you learned in the assigment scenario on the previous page, you have been asked to analyze product launch data to determine whether your company’s product is meeting expectations. Download the following Excel file and carefully examine the data to get started on your analysis.
View attached Excel Spreadsheet: Cost, Revenue, and Profit
This spreadsheet contains data on the number of goods sold, the cost of goods sold, the overhead, the revenue, and the profit. As part of this assignment, you will create visualizations to analyze the data for trends in order to better understand the information.
As you review the data, look for answers to the following questions:
How does the cost of goods sold (COGS) change from month to month?
How does the profit change over time?
How has the profit as a percentage of the COGS changed over time?
What factors are responsible for changes in revenue and profit?
Has your company been able to meet its goal of a profit equal to 25 percent of the COGS?
You’ll also want to experiment with the spreadsheet and the data to find the charts or graphs that best allow you to visualize important trends. Remember, the purpose of this analysis is to better understand the cost, revenue, and profit associated with the new product launch.
Step 2: Explain the Importance of Data Analysis
Start drafting your report to post on the company’s intranet.
To begin your report, write a brief introduction explaining the importance of data analysis and how it is essential for understanding how well a product is performing.
As you write, remember that you are creating an internal report for your coworkers.
Use this writing template to draft the introduction to your report.
< What is the importance of data analysis? How can it help you understand whether the new product had a successful launch? What are you reporting on and what are you analyzing? Why is it important to analyze this information? Your response should be between 100–200 words.
>
Step 3: Describe Your Findings
Draft a description of your findings related to the product launch data.
Now that you’ve introduced your post by explaining the importance of data analysis, you can move on to reporting on your findings. Based on your analysis of the product launch data, provide a general overview of the data and describe the story of the product launch that emerges from your analysis of it.
Use this writing template to draft a description of your findings.
< Describe the results of your analysis. What does the data tell you about the success of the product throughout the year? Was the company able to meet its profit goal? What data did you use to determine whether the product is meeting expectations? Your response should be between 200–300 words.
>
Step 4: Summarize the Results of Your Analysis
Summarize your findings using data visualizations and text.
You’ve introduced your post by explaining the importance of data analysis, and you’ve told the story of your product’s launch. Now it’s time to summarize your most important findings with data visualizations to help employees and fellow company leaders understand your insights about the product launch data.
Consider creating data visualizations that illustrate the following information:
How have the costs of goods sold (COGS) changed over the course of the year?
How has the profit percentage changed over the course of the year?
Keep your target audience in mind as you choose which data visualizations to use. Look for visualizations that best highlight the most useful information in a way that will be easiest for your coworkers to interpret.
For guidance on different types of data visualizations, you can refer back to page 4.2. You can also refer to page 4.3 for guidance on how to create charts using Microsoft Excel.
In the template below, you’ll be asked to create graphs or charts and upload them as JPEG or PNG files. You may need to take a screenshot of these data visualizations in order to do so.
Use this writing template to upload images of your data visualizations and explain their meaning for your audience.
< Upload your first data visualization here as a JPEG or PNG file.
>
< Upload your first data visualization here as a JPEG or PNG file.
>
< Upload your next data visualization as a JPEG or PNG file.
>
< Explain what type of chart this is and the insights it provides about the success of the product launch. Your response should be between 30–50 words.
>
If you want to add more visualizations and explanations, you can add them to your assignment after you download it on the next page.
To conclude your report, use the template below to summarize the purpose of your analysis and explain your most important findings.
Use this writing template to complete the summary of your findings.
< Restate the purpose of your analysis and summarize your most important findings. Be sure to highlight what you learned from the data visualizations you created. Your response should be between 100–150 words.
>
< If you used any research sources to inform your strategy, you must list them using APA Style.
>
Please research and complete the tasks found between the <> carrots. No more than 700 words, no less than 450 words total. Also, include three graphs/data visualizations. No special formatting is necessary as I am copying and pasting this into another form, so I only need content.
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