FINAL PROJECT (Signature Assignment)

In this assignment, you will be asked to apply your knowledge of

• Descriptive Statistics
• Data Visualization
• Linear Regression & Forecasting
• Linear Optimization
• MS Excel

This assignment is used to assess the following Program-Level Learning Objectives (PLLOs) in the
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration program:

• LO1: Demonstrate proficiency in all functional business areas

• LO2: Demonstrate appropriate information technology and information literacy skills
• LO3: Demonstrate appropriate quantitative skills
• LO5: Analyze complex business situations in order to make sound recommendations.
• LO6: Communicate business findings and solutions through effective writing, oral
presentations, and graphical illustrations.
• LO7: Discern ethical choices and critically evaluate the ethical choices of others.
• LO8: Evaluate socio-cultural and international diversity variables in decision making.

You will submit two draft report for the project and make the necessary updates based on the
feedback from your instructor and then you will submit the final report one-day before the final
exam day.

• 1st Draft: Project Report (word file) & Excel File(s) – Module 1
• 2nd Draft: Project Report (word file) & Excel File(s) – Module 1&2
• Final Report

Please carefully follow the following instructions when submitting your paper:
• You must prepare a report for each draft and report must be in MS Word (.doc or docx)
• Your paper must include all necessary output/graphs. All graphs, figures etc. should have a
caption.
• You must turn in your Excel spreadsheet separately with clear spreadsheet titles ie. Part 1:
Mean, Variance, Part3: Pivot Table 1 etc.
• The paper must be presented in a standard 10- to 12-point font, with 1-inch margins, and
include APA format citations to any references used.
• The paper must include a title page that displaying student’s name, email address, your
major (and concentration, if applicable) and your minor(s) (if applicable)
 • The paper must be submitted in the correct D2L Assignments/Dropbox folder by the
indicated due date.
• The submitted final report must be your original work, (See Academic Integrity policy in
syllabus).
• This assignment will have 120 points and will be graded against the following rubric.

Rudimentary
Final Project Excellent 100% Good 85% Basic 75% 65% Unacceptable 0%

Major report Fails to submit a

Minor format issues. Major report
1st Draft Professional report. format issues. report.
1-2 Minor errors. and question Fails to address
(25%) Addresses all questions. Multiple minor
errors. any questions.
errors.
Major report Fails to submit a
nd
2 Draft Major report report.
Professional report. Minor format issues. format issues.
and question Fails to address
(25%) Addresses all questions. 1-2 Minor errors. Multiple minor
errors. any questions.
errors.
Major report Fails to submit a
Major report
Final Report Professional report. Minor format issues. format issues. report.
and question Fails to address
(50%) Addresses all questions. 1-2 Minor errors. Multiple minor
errors. any questions.
errors.

FINAL PROJECT (Signature Assignment)

Each student will submit a final report, excel file and a power point presentation by answering the
following questions.

The information of a credit card applicants for a credit card company are listed in Extended Large
Credit spreadsheet. These customer records include information on the customer’s
• Annual household income (in thousand dollar)
• Household size
• # of years of post-high school education
• # of hour’s watching TV per week
• Age
• Gender
• If his/her credit limit exceeded in past 12 months
• Annual credit card charges
Module 1
Part 1: Descriptive Statistics (Use Extended Large Credit US Operations Spreadsheet)

Find the descriptive statistics for each of these variables (Mean, Mode, Median, Variance, Standard
Deviation, and Minimum and Maximum values) and list them in a table.

Part 2: Outlier Detection (Use Extended Large Credit US Operations Spreadsheet) Create box
and whisker plot for variables listed below and interpret your findings.
• Annual Income (x1)
• Hours Per Week Watching TV (x3)
• Annual Charges (y)

check if there is any outlier in the dataset by using Inter Quartile Concept.

Part 3: Pivot Table (Apply US Operations & Europe Operations Spreadsheet separately)

• Construct a pivot table by using o Annual Charges in Rows and group the annual charges
(each group range is
$12,000) o Household size in columns and
group by 2.
o Number of accounts as values.

• Construct another pivot table, select the variables for row and columns and define the
group size.

Part 4: Apply data visualization (3 graphs) (Apply US Operations & Europe Operations Spreadsheet
separately)

• Part 4a: Column Chart for the pivot tables created in Part 3
• Apply two more charts/graph covered in lectures and explain why these data visualization
techniques are useful to understand/represent the dataset.
Module 2

Part 5: Linear Regression (Use Extended Large Credit US Operations Spreadsheet)

• Apply simple linear regression with the household size as the independent variable and
credit card charges accrued as the dependent variable. Interpret the relationship between
customer’s household size and credit card charges accrued by a customer and explain
regression analysis output.

• Use correlation coefficient and covariance concepts to check if a customer’s annual income
and number of years of post-high school education is linearly related or not.

• Apply simple linear regression with the customer’s annual household income as the
independent variable and credit card charges accrued as the dependent variable. Interpret
the relationship between customer’s household income and credit card charges accrued by a
customer and explain regression analysis output.

• Add three more categorical variables (x2:x7) to your linear regression model and apply
multiple regression model step by step (ie. select one independent variable, add that variable
to your model and make your analysis and then repeat these steps until you have three
categorical variables and x1:Annual income variable in your regression model as
independent variables) and explain your findings.
(You can select any of the independent categorical variables)

Part 6: Forecasting (Use Outstanding Debt Annual & Quarterly Dataset1 for following questions)

• Apply following forecasting approaches for Outstanding Debt Annual spreadsheet and find
the best method by comparing MSE o Naï ve Forecast o Moving Average (select a random k
value) o Weighted Moving Average (select a random k value and random weights) o
Exponential Smoothing Method with smoothing constant is 0.3 o Optimum Exponential
Smoothing Constant Approach o Linear Projection Method

• Use “Outstanding Debt Quarterly” data spreadsheet and apply following forecasting
approaches with all forecast accuracy measures and interpret your findings. o Linear
Projection Method
o Seasonality (Quarterly) without Trend Method o Seasonality with Trend
Method

1 https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/mortoutstand/current.htm
Module 3 (Final Report) Part 7: Linear Optimization

Cal-Bus Mutual Funds, Inc. located in Pittsburgh. Cal-Bus just obtained $10,000,000 by converting
industrial bonds to cash and is now looking for other investment opportunities for these funds. Based
on Cal-Bus’s current investments, the firms top financial analyst recommends that all new
investments be made in the oil industry, steel industry, or government bonds in US and Europe. The
investments, locations and rates of return are shown in the following table.

Investment Opportunities for Cal-Bus Mutual Funds

Location Investment Projected Rate of Return %

B&E Steel 7.3
Oakland Oil 8.6

Pittsburgh Steel 6.8

Atlantic Oil Pacific 8.9

Oil 10.5
Huber Steel 6.8
Midwest Steel 6.5
Government Bonds 4.5
Buckingham Steel 8.2
Eiffel Oil 7.2
Florence Oil 7.6

EU Government Bonds 5.3

What portfolio recommendations – investments and amounts – should be made for the available
$10,000,000 to maximize the projected rate of return? The budgetary and managerially imposed
constraints are listed below
• Cal-Bus should be investing all available $10,000,000.
• The Europe investments cannot exceed the 30% of the overall budget.
• Total Oil Investments cannot exceed the 50% of the total budget.
• Total Steel Investments cannot exceed the 50% of the total budget.
• Cal-Bus should invest on Pittsburgh funds at least 20% of the budget.
• Cal-Bus should invest on New York City funds at least 25% of the total budget.
• Cal-Bus should invest on Europe funds at least 15% of the total budget.
• At most 15% of the budget can be spent on government bonds.
 • Oil sector investments in Europe should be more than Steel sector investments in Europe.
In your report (MS Word File), please include your mathematical model, excel output, and list the
amount of investments for each investment opportunity in a table and interpret your findings.