MBA 504 Project Guidelines and RubricCompetencies
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competencies:
- MBA-50716: Use descriptive statistics for business analysis
- MBA-50679: Perform regression analysis to address an authentic problem
- MBA-50880: Apply statistics in the business environment
Overview
You have been hired as a consultant by TC Ice Cream. As part of its expansion plan, TC Ice Cream wants to limit the number of flavors that they sell and only focus on those that are the most profitable. You will do an analysis of two flavors for a specific division and determine which flavor should be kept and which should be removed.
- Option A: Keep Flavor One
- Option B: Keep Flavor Two
The TC Ice Cream management team has tasked you with doing an in-depth analysis to determine which of the two options will be the most profitable, given the monthly advertising expense of $5,000. Use the division that you selected in Module Two and the two flavors that you selected for Milestone One. Consider the TC Ice Cream data set that contains data about quantity sold, advertising expenses, flavor rating, social media posts, and event promotions.
Prompt
Part 1: Data Analysis Workbook
Analyze the data from the provided TC Ice Cream data set and identify current and future trends and patterns in operations.
Complete the following visualizations for each flavor. The visualizations for Flavor One should be completed in the “Flavor One Analysis” sheet and the visualizations for Flavor Two should be completed in the “Flavor Two Analysis” sheet of the TC Ice Cream Excel Workbook. It is recommended that you use pivot table filtering to filter the data to the specific division and flavor you have selected.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
- Present the key descriptive statistics for the five quantitative variables in a table (quantity sold, advertising expenses, flavor rating, social media posts, and event promotions). The key descriptive statistics include the mean, median, standard deviation, and range.
- Analyze the TC Ice Cream data to identify trends and patterns for the two flavors you have selected. For each flavor, create the following visualizations:
- Create a line chart (also known as a trend chart) using the qualitative variable Date and the quantitative variable Quantity Sold to provide a visualization displaying quantity sold by month.
- Create a line chart (also known as a trend chart) using the qualitative variable Date and the quantitative variable Flavor Rating (average) to provide a visualization displaying flavor rating (average) by year/quarter/month.
- Create a combo chart using the qualitative variable Date (x-axis) and the quantitative variables Quantity Sold (clustered column) and Advertising Expenditures (line – secondary axis).
- Create a combo chart using the qualitative variable Date (x-axis) and the quantitative variables Quantity Sold (clustered column) and total – Social Medial Posts and Event Promotions (line – secondary axis). Hint: create a pivot table variable to sum the social media posts and event promotions.
- Create a box and whiskers chart using the qualitative variable Quantity Sold. This will help identify any outliers in the Quantity Sold data.
- Create a histogram for the qualitative variable Flavor Rating. It is recommended to use the data analysis “add-in” and the analysis tool “Histogram” to create the data for the visualization.
- Outliers: Identify any outliers that you see and explain how they have an impact on the overall admission and expense trends. Outliers are the data points that can have an impact on your averages and basic descriptive analysis.
- Perform two bivariate regressions to provide recommendations.
- For the first bivariate regression for Flavor One, the dependent variable should be Quantity Sold. Choose an independent variable from one of the remaining attributes (Advertising Expenses, Flavor Rating, Social Media Posts, Event Promotions).
- Use the Flavor One Bivariate Analysis sheet.
- For the second bivariate regression for Flavor Two, the variable should be Quantity Sold. Choose an independent variable from one of the remaining variables (Advertising Expenses, Flavor Rating, Social Media Posts, Event Promotions).
- Which independent variable seems most appropriate to lead you to a monthly quantity sold of 3,000–12,000 gallons?
- Perform two multivariate regressions to provide recommendations.
- For the first multivariate regression, the dependent variable should be Quantity Sold (the column in the data set). Choose two independent variables from one of the remaining attributes (Advertising Expenses, Flavor Rating, Social Media Posts, Event Promotions). Use the Flavor One Multi. Analysis sheet.
- Which combination of the attributes seems most appropriate to lead you to the expense of $5,000?
- For the second multivariate regression, the dependent variable should be Quantity Sold (the column name in the data set). You should choose two independent variables from one of the remaining attributes (Advertising Expenses, Flavor Rating, Social Media Posts, Event Promotions). Use the Flavor Two Multi. Analysis sheet.
- Which combination of the attributes would seem appropriate to lead you to a monthly quantity sold of 3,000–12,000 gallons?
Part 2: Final Recommendation Analysis PowerPoint PresentationCreate a PowerPoint presentation designed for the TC Ice Cream management team to share the results of your analysis and provide your final recommendation.
- Current State Analysis (slides 1–4): State the option (A or B) that you chose and three reasons for your choice.
- Predictions and Trends Analysis (slides 5–7): Present the predictions based on the regressions that you have analyzed.
- Executive Audience Summary (slide 8): Summarize your findings for an executive audience.
What to Submit
To complete this project, you must submit the following:
- TC Ice Cream Excel Workbook: Submit your completed TC Ice Cream Excel Workbook as an Excel file.
- Final Recommendations Analysis Presentation: Submit a PowerPoint presentation with 8 to 10 slides. There is no template for this assignment, so you may use an earlier presentation template or create your own design. Any sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.