Objective and Background: The purpose of this assignment is to make you experienced in using a range of software productivity tools to address a realistic business task. The task is to create a visual investor profile and pitch for a start-up company of your choice. You will use Microsoft Access to get investor information for a range of investors, Microsoft Excel to build your investor profile, Tableau to showcase your investor data and portfolio, and Microsoft Visio to create your business supply chain. Finally, you will use Microsoft Word to bring all the elements of your analysis together in an investment pitch in a coherent and professional memo.
Start-up businesses seek investors to fund their ideas to launch their products or services into the market. The art in developing effective investor profiles and analysis is in creating synergy using the different software to attract maximum funding. Start-up owners attempt to draw maximum attention to their business by targeting specific investors after evaluating certain interests of their targets.
Investors with large amounts of liquid capital may have the ability to invest a lot more into a brand even if they do not invest in a lot of companies. Conversely, investors with low amounts of liquid capital may be investing more of their resources if the start-up holds large potential. An effective start-up owner must target both types of investors by being creative in displaying what they have to offer as an investment opportunity.
Scenario: You are an entrepreneur ready to launch your very own start-up business. You have been tasked with the responsibility of finding suitable investors that will not only provide you the funding you need but also the support and experience for a new business owner. Once you have chosen the investors you would like investments from; you need to develop a pitch to get them on board with your idea. The nature of your start-up business is up to your discretion, and the industries will be assigned to you based on your student number entered into the Excel sheet. Some notes about the data are also provided in the excel sheet.
Directions: Access: To begin, you will want to create a query in Microsoft Access titled “InvestorProfileFall2019” to join together the tables in the file Investor2019.accdb. As you will be using this information later on in subsequent steps, it is important to include all the necessary information you think is relevant at this stage. Of course, you will need to know basic information such as the investor’s full name and their industry but be sure to include other important information that you can use to justify your decision in your selection of investors. As there is currently a large number of investors listed in the dataset, you must narrow your search down to find the best investors. On the IndustryData.xlsx, there is a section under “Definitions” which asks you to input in your student number in cell B28. Input your student number to get the three industries you will be creating a pitch for. In your query, filter out the data so you will only receive results from only these three industries generated from the Excel sheet.
BUS 237 – Assignment 2: Start Up Company Furthermore, because you are a start-up, you will have limited funds available for the operation of your company. For this reason, you will want to select an investor whose desired return of investment is not immensely high to be able to save to further invest in your company. You will want to filter out investors who have the desired return of investment of greater than 1000% so that investors who have a lower percentage than remain. (In Access, the desired return of investment is divided by 100, so you will want to use the number 10 to filter your query. Lastly, you will want to calculate the success percentage of each of the investors. The success percentage can be calculated as <# of Successful Companies / Total # of Companies >. Ensure that you set it so that the highest percentage shows up at the top of the list and that the percentages decrease as you go down the list.
Tableau: As an astute business student, you know that visualizing data is a great way to learn more about it. Before hopping into choosing an investor, you must analyze the whole dataset of investors to find some interesting information. Thus, it’s up to you to find some interesting relationships in the data by using Tableau. You will also want to add some analytics to the visualizations you create. Create three visualizations in Tableau, download them (export by going to Worksheet > Export> Image.), and copy-paste them into your word document. For a refresher on how to use Tableau, please look at the Canvas content from Week 5.
Excel: When you start up Excel, please type your student number into the yellow highlighted box. This will determine the industries you get to choose as well as sets up the VLOOKUP/INDEXMATCH and PivotTable questions.
Lookup Functions – your business partner gives you some information on investors who might be useful to contact. Using VLOOKUP and INDEX & MATCH functions find some of the associated information for each investor. Please note you will need to refer to ranges on a different worksheet (Refer to the image to see how to do this). For the first 5 questions, you will need to use VLOOKUP, and for the last 5 questions you will need to use INDEX&MATCH. Please make sure you type your student ID in first in the yellow box on the first sheet.
PivotTable – You also decide to get some information about your investors by using PivotTables. 1. For the first PivotTable, using the investor data, list the average of all numerical data broken down by the investment interest area (Make sure you only include the numerical data that it makes sense to average!). 2. For the second PivotTable, using the investor data, filter it to list the three industries you can go for (based on your student ID). For this table choose the top two fields that you will use in your decision for picking an investor, and show the Sum, Average, and Max of both fields (Make sure you choose the numerical data that it makes sense to
BUS 237 – Assignment 2: Start Up Company
sum/average/max!).
Visio: With any start-up business, one must establish a business portfolio to be presented to potential investors. As such, you will be required to create a flowchart of your start-up’s supply chain. Ensure that it includes at least five steps and indicates the start to end clearly. Consider whether your business will be focusing as a B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business). Make sure that your flow chart is clearly outlined and understandable with labels. Copy and paste the flow chart into your word document.
Word: Before making any large commitments, you will need to showcase your work to your business partners and current investors. As such, you will need to compile all the information you have worked on thus far into a proposal document. In a one-page memo, prepare your business pitch to the investors you have chosen for your company. Ensure that you refer to the research you have found and provide some numerical figures to entice the investors.
BUS 237 – Assignment 2: Start Up Company Submission Instructions: Submit via Canvas Assignments tool the following five files: 1. The Report (5 pages) Create a Word document (in a professional memo format) addressed to your boss (in this case, your TA) outlining your analysis and your pitch for your selected investors. Your document should contain the following sections properly labeled/formatted: a. Cover Page with assignment info, course info, TA name, your name, and student number (Insert > Cover Page). b. Memo – A brief introduction that outlines your start-up’s core product or service and a pitch to your target investors to invest in your company c. Table (copy/paste from Excel) – A list of the investors you have selected for your business. This list should show the critical elements of your calculations and include ONLY the investors you have selected. Your design of the spreadsheet is an important part of the assignment d. Dashboard (copy/paste from Tableau) – a dashboard of 3 charts showcasing your investor profiles and potentials for investment e. Display Diagram (copy/paste from Visio) – A flowchart showcasing a visual representation of the supply chain. The layout of each step should be identified clearly, and labels should be marked neatly. 2. Your Access Database Your database file should contain a single saved query named as “InvestorProfile2019” plus the original two tables provided. The query should join the necessary tables and apply criteria to limit the results to those required for subsequent contribution analysis. 3. Your Excel Spreadsheet The spreadsheets should be well formatted and documented so that your team can make sense of it. Your V-lookup and Index and Match calculations should be on one separate sheet, and you should have another sheet for your piviot table. Do not delete any of the pre-existing sheets. 4. Your Visio Diagram Your diagram file should contain a visual representation of the business process. The layout of the flowchart should be identified clearly and labeled. Ensure that it is understandable. 5. Your Tableau Dashboard Your dashboard should contain at least three charts showcasing the investment potential of your selected investors. The layout and design of your dashboard should be appropriate. Make sure to include labels for each chart and indexes as needed.
Marking Criteria: • See the assignment Grading Key on the last page for the evaluation criteria used to grade this assignment. • Plagiarism: Students are expected to work independently on this assignment; therefore, a maximum grade of zero (0) will be given to students whose submissions suggest that they collaborated with others on their assignments. This applies to the original author of the work, as well as to those whose submissions resemble it! • NO late submissions will be accepted for this assignment! Contact your TA immediately if you are having any problems with the Canvas submission process! o NO late submissions will be accepted through email FOR WHATEVER REASON. Only file submissions on canvas will be graded.
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