Application Case 2
Cases involving the
use of Microsoft Excel to analyze business data. You will need to submit the
excel sheet that contains the workings of your case on Bright Space in addition
to a brief Microsoft Word report describing your workings and results. The application
cases will not only be graded on the correctness of the final answer, but also
on the explanation provided by students with respect to the different decisions
that they took to arrive at the answer. These cases are aimed to illustrate the
use of the analytical tools learned in class for day-to-day business
activities. Only MS Excel and MS Word files will be accepted. Please reformat
into these formats before submitting your response.
The
tasks for the second application case are as follows:
In the
accompanying excel sheet, you will find information about the economies of
countries around the globe expressed in 2015 US dollar values, i.e., the data
is adjusted for exchange rate fluctuations and inflation. This sheet is
interesting as it provides a lot of information about the different countries.
You could look at how certain economic blocks have developed over the years,
how certain geographies have fared, the effects of global slow-downs, etc. In
short, it is a treasure trove of information extending from 1970 to 2021. For
those interested, you can find additional information on the UN statistics
website. For businesses, this information can help firms make strategic
decisions- especially concerning investments in foreign countries.
Historically, high levels of growth in a country’s GDP have attracted foreign
investors while risk has kept them away. You might have to utilize this
information as a part of an environmental scanning exercise soon. This is what
your current assignment is all about.
Part 1 Reduce the number of countries that we
want to consider. This will greatly help with our exercise. You are free to
choose the countries. You may focus in on one region (like Europe or South
America) or focus in on some other theme (like countries that participated in
the last World Cup). You are free to use any set of countries. You should have
at least 10 counties in this list.
Part 2 Focus in on the countries respective GDP
growth rates (focus in on the GDP in the IndicatorName column) has trended over
the period between 1970 and 2021.
Task 1: Track the GDP growth rate from 1970 to 2021
of the countries identified in Part 1 (referred to as ‘your countries’ from
here on). Utilize appropriate graphs for this. What do the graphs indicate? Do
you see over- and under-performing countries? (20 points)
Task 2: Calculate the trend of the GDP growth for
each of your countries for the period between 2008 and 2021. Which countries
exhibit positive and negative trends? Create a table that summarizes your
findings. (20 points)
Part 3 If we base our decision solely on a
positive trend in growth rates, we overlook the risk associated with the
decision. We need to quantify the potential risk and incorporate it into our
decision-making. One way of quantifying risk is to calculate the Coefficient of
Variation (COV) of the GDP growth rates over the 2008-2021 time period. The COV
is defined as the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean. A higher COV
indicates a wider standardized variation and potentially higher risk.
Task 3: Calculate the COV for each of your
countries in the sub-set. Summarize your findings in a table. (20 points)
Task 4: Create one chart on which you plot the
growth rate on the Y-axis and the COV on the X-axis for the period 2008 to 2021
for all your countries. Using this graph, identify the top three countries that
would you plan to invest in and explain why? (20 points)
Task
5: For
the three countries that you have chosen to invest in, utilize external sources
of information to augment your analysis. You can refer to country reports
presented by different government and non-government institutions to put
together a summary of factors not captured by quantitative analysis that you
have performed in the prior tasks. You should have a minimum of three sources
for each country. If you find a source that lists many countries (like the UN)
you may use this source for each country and cite each individual country
report, separately. This means the country report for the United States counts
as one source and the country report for Canada will be a different source.
These need to be appropriately cited and referenced using APA style. (20
points)
The
following website provides more information on the APA style: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
Total is 100
points. This will be divided by 10 to give the 10 points (10% points) in
Brightspace
The
data for this assignment was downloaded from
https://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/
