IS 101 Spring 2017

Final Project Instructions

152 points total; 15% of overall course grade

Overview
You are a business analyst at E Corp, an e-commerce company headquartered in the United States with offices and
operations in both the U.S. and Canada. To meet strategic growth objectives the company wishes to expand globally
beyond North America. The CEO, John Anderson, has tasked your boss, Chief Technology Officer Bill Schmitt, with
overseeing the research into which country the firm should expand into next. He has assigned you to lead the project
and be responsible for reporting the analysis and findings to the company executives and board. As part of last years
annual strategic analysis, youve explored this topic before. Therefore, you can add the most current years data (2016)
to your previous work and conduct an analysis on which country is the best candidate for expansion. Any country to
consider expanding into must meet the following criteria:

Number of current internet users must be greater than 10 million

Penetration (Internet Users as a percent of Population) for the current year must be greater than 50%
The selected country should be ranked within the top 10 tech ready countries
You cannot choose a country where you already do business

After conducting your research and analysis, you will prepare several reports for your company to summarize your
findings.

1. You will conduct analysis in Excel;

2. Write a memo (Word document) addressed to your CEO detailing your recommendation for which country
should be expanded into and why;
3. Prepare a PowerPoint to present your findings to the board of directors.

Your documents should have a cohesive and professional look and feel, but the information contained within should be
tailored to the audience you have created them for.

Grading
Points per step are outlined in the following pages. To receive the highest grade, you are encouraged to use the skills
you have learned over the course of the semester to create cohesive and professional documents use your good
judgement to determine where doing this will help communicate to your audience (your boss, your company CEO and
the board of directors). Not everything needs to be enhanced to be meaningful.

Excel: graded on following directions and using formulas to extract the data to determine correct options.

Word: graded on following directions, providing a clear outline of your conclusion, and using correct spelling and
grammar.

PowerPoint: graded on clarity of communication including the use of graphics and text appropriately
Excel
Step # Question Points

Download the Excel template and open it. Do a Save As and name the file using the following
1 convention: LastnameFirstname-internet-usage-analysis.xlsx (use your name!). 2

In the Excel document, create a new worksheet and name it 2016. Place the worksheet to the
right of the worksheet named 2015. Import the table from the following website to the 2016
worksheet.

2 8
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users-by-country/

** If a popup occurs that asks about running scripts, be sure to select the option that allows the
import to take place. **

Switch to the worksheet Internet user and pop. Table. Use a VLOOKUP function in cell F2 so
that it searches for the country in A2 (of current worksheet) that also appears within the 2016
3 12
worksheet and display its number of internet users. Expand the formula down to find the
number of internet users for each country.

In the cell G2, use a similar VLOOKUP function to display the population for that country. Expand
4 12
the formula down to find the population for each country.

In cell J2, use a formula to calculate the % of the population that uses the internet. Use the same
5 10
calculation for each country.

Select all the data and convert it to a table. Choose any of the table format styles. Filter the data
using the following information:

6 8
1. Number of current internet users must be greater than 10 million
2. Penetration (Internet Users as a percent of Population) for the current year must be
greater than 50%

At this point, a smaller list of countries should be visible in the worksheet Internet user and pop.
Table. Cross reference these countries with the list of tech ready countries in the Tech
Readiness 2016 and highlight in the Internet user and pop. Table worksheet the country or
countries that are in both lists. You may choose any shade of orange as the highlighting color.
7 8
BONUS: Step 7 can be done using conditional formatting. The cross-referencing can be
done automatically so that only countries that appear in both tables are highlighted in the
Internet user and pop. table worksheet. If you correctly complete this step using
conditional formatting an additional 10 points will be awarded to your exam score.
 The resulting highlighted countries should meet all the criteria. Choose which country you think
8 is best and use that country as your recommendation for the remainder of the project. 0

Total Points - EXCEL 60

Word
Youve done the research and now have your recommendation. Now its time to send a memo outlining your conclusion
to your CEO. Follow the instructions below and using proper memo structure to state your findings and list your
recommendation.

Step # Question Points

Open Word and search for a template using the term company memo and select the template
1 4
Company memo. It should come up first.
2 Save the document using the convention LastnameFirstname-memo.docx (using your name!). 2
Replace the company name with the E Corp. logo located at the following URL:
3 https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.116583655.3559/sticker,220x200-pad,220x200,ffffff.jpg 5

Replace the recipients name with that of the CEOs name, the senders name with your own name,
4 8
and CC section with the CTOs name.
5 Delete the larger text directly beneath the CC field. 4
Replace the remaining body paragraphs with your memo. Keep the same text formatting as the
text provided. Write a total of at least 200 words between all body paragraphs of the memo.
Include an initial paragraph providing an overview of what the memo is about, a second paragraph
containing the problem (what you are trying to solve, how you are going about solving it, and which
6 15
criteria you used to pick a country). A third paragraph should state your recommendation country
(which country you picked) and any supporting details on how and why you came to your decision.
Wrap up with one to two sentences for closing remarks.
**REMEMBER: This is a memo, not a letter. If youre not sure how these differ consider researching.
7 Delete the text in the footer. 3
Total Points - WORD 41

PowerPoint
The CEO likes your work and has asked you to present your findings to the board of directors, in person. Given that the
board of directors is not familiar with this project, you will need to prepare your presentation under the assumption that
they dont have any background information on your project. Therefore, you will need to briefly discuss the task
assigned to you by the CEO and how you went about determining your recommendation among, other things.

**Remember that PowerPoint slides should not contain long paragraphs of text they should be a supplement to your
verbal presentation, and not something for the audience to read.
Instead, try including only pertinent information and using a bullet point formatting. **
 Points
Question # Question
Available
Open PowerPoint and search for a template using the search terms digital.
1 4
Choose the one called Business digital blue tunnel presentation (widescreen).
2 Save the document using the convention of LastnameFirstname-pres.pptx 2
In the title slide, put the title as E Corp. Expansion Analysis and place your name
3 5
in the subtitle text box.
Slide 2 Overview: create an overview of what will be covered in the upcoming
slides in bullet point format.

** Be consistent with the naming of these bullets. They should be very

4 similar, if not identical to the titles in the subsequent steps. The following 6
topics will be covered in the following slides: the purpose of the
presentation/problem the company is facing, the criteria used to make your
decision, analysis, and your recommendation for the company. **
5 Slide 3 Problem: state what problem is being addressed and its importance. 8
Slide 4 Criteria: Using bullets, list the criteria used for picking which country to
6 8
expand into.
Slide 5 Analysis: Import the worksheet with the filtered table that containing the
7 10
highlighted countries from your Excel workbook.
8 Slide 6 Recommendation: discuss your recommendation and why you chose it. 8
Total Points - POWERPOINT 51

Submission
To submit your Final Project, follow these instructions:

1. Go to the Assignments and Exams page on WebCampus and navigate back to the Final Project assignment
(where you downloaded these instructions and the Excel template).
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page to submit the assignment click the Browse my Computer link to select your
files. You will need to repeat this process for EACH file. Upload all three finished documents (Excel analysis,
Word memo, and PowerPoint presentation) before clicking on submit.
a. DO NOT UPLOAD THEM AS A .ZIP FILE or they will not be graded. Make sure you see that all three
documents show that they have been attached.
b. You will have ONE submission opportunity if you are not 100% sure of your files, use the Save a Draft
feature to verify you have uploaded the correct files.
c. Do not use the Write Submission button.
3. When you are ready to finish, click on the Submit button. If you receive an error that there is an unsupported file
type, continue your submission and then verify that the three documents have uploaded by reviewing your
submission. To double check, just return to the assignment and you will see what files uploaded. (The error is
triggered on the .xlsx file as it is unable to correctly process through the plagiarism software.)