Introduction to the project
For the final project, you will conduct three Tasks:
- Complete your own data analysis and create a presentation to share your findings,
- Develop a dashboard for a Profit and Loss Statement.
- Create a Financial Forecasting Model using three scenarios.
You should start by taking a look at your dataset and brainstorming which sub-category and company you want to focus your data analysis on – the questions leading to this page should have assisted in this process! Then you should use spreadsheets or another Excel-like software to conduct your analysis and choose a sub-category and company you are most interested in. This project is open-ended in that there is no one right answer.
Project Details
Planning ahead
These files listed here are what you will be working on in the project:
- The presentation with the visuals and summary
- A copy of the spreadsheet workbook you will use to do the analysis for your report contains the following tabs:
- Data file
- Summary statistics
- P&L Statement Dashboard
- Forecast scenarios
Here are the three tasks that you will complete in the final project.
Task 1:
a. Identify the question about the data that you will answer based on your data analysis and include this in your slide presentation.
- Your question should include at least one categorical variable (GICS Sector or GICS Sub Industry) and one quantitative variable (one of the financial metrics) and require the use of at least one of the summary statistics.
- A tab within the Excel spreadsheet that you submit should include the summary statistics [measures of central tendency (e.g., mean, median) and measures of spread (standard deviation and range)] you used to answer your question.
- Deliverable:
- Slide presentation
- Spreadsheet with tab for Summary statistics
b. Your slide presentation should provide at least one visualization to help support your answer.
- Make a copy of the submission template to complete your project. We suggest you use the layout provided, though it is not a requirement. You can find the MS Powerpoint version of the Project Submission template under the Resources.
- Once you have finished analyzing the data, in the submission template provided, create your presentation that shares the visual and summary information.
- The summary information paragraph clearly communicates your findings based on your analysis and provides visual or numeric values associated with your summary.
- The visualization(s) might be a bar chart, histogram, scatterplot, box-plot, or other visual that you learned to make. Include your insights from the measures of center and spread and at least one numeric summary statistic in the summary description.
- Deliverable: Slide presentation (includes visualization)
Task 2:
- Create a dashboard for a Profit and Loss Statement that calculates the Gross Profit, Operating Profit, or EBIT for a company selected from a drop-down list. Include all companies from the raw data.
- Your drop-down list should pull historical fundamentals data to create the P&L Statement.
- The P&L statement should include the Gross Profit, Operating Profit, or EBIT values for all the years there is historical data available for that company in the dataset.
- Deliverable: Spreadsheet with tab for Dynamic P&L statement
Task 3:
- Create a financial model for a company (different from Task 2) of your choice that forecasts out the Gross Profit, Operating Profit, or EBIT for two more years using three scenarios (Best case, Weak case, and Base case).
- Your assumptions for revenue growth, gross margin, and operating margin should change for each scenario.
- The forecasting model should be dynamic for the selection of the case (Weak, Base, Strong). However, the forecasting model can be static for the chosen company sticker symbol.
- Deliverable: Spreadsheet with tab for Forecasting Model
Check the Rubric
Use the Project Rubric located. If you see room for improvement, keep working to improve your project.
Assemble your folder ready for submission
If you are checked the rubric and are satisfied with your submission, then you’re ready to submit your project. Include your presentation and all spreadsheet workbooks in a folder and zip it. Then submit the zipped folder for your project.
