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Unit Title: Business Data Analysis
Unit Code: BSS006-2
Referral Assessment: An individual assignment
Assignment Title: “Fortune names RIM fastest growing company… in the world”
Issued date: Thursday 13th September 2012
Submission due date: Monday 24th September 2012 – A paper copy should be directly e-mailed to me.
Unit coordinator’s name: Chris Shoostarian
Learning outcomes:
Core Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this unit you should be able to: Assessment Criteria
To achieve the learning outcome you must demonstrate the ability to:
1 Conduct an Exploratory Data Analysis to critically appraise the data • Construct appropriate charts and statistical summary measures according to the
nature of the data
• Assess the hidden features of the data and its distribution
• Critically appraise the discrepancy between the empirical distributions of model and data
2 Research, synthesise and produce a technical report Communicate clearly your findings and recommend solutions justifying your choice in a technical which
has:
• clear structure;
• tables, diagrams and figures are clearly labelled and interpreted;
• accuracy;
• objectivity;
• clarity;
• conciseness;
• continuity;
A relatively formal writing style should be used when composing technical reports.
Assessment Criteria: Learning Outcomes with the corresponding Assessment Criteria
Grading/
Criteria A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- E
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
LO1:
Conduct an Exploratory Data Analysis to critically appraise the data Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4: have been accurately calculated and comprehensively discussed.
Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4: have been accurately calculated and discussed. Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4: have been calculated and discussed. Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4: have
been calculated. Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4: have been attempted.
Grading/
Criteria A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- E
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
LO2:
Research, synthesise and produce a technical report Question 5: has been comprehensively discussed and a professional report compiled. Question 5: has been
fully discussed and a good report compiled. Question 5: has been discussed fully and a report compiled. Question 5: has been discussed and a report compiled.
Question 5: has been attempted and report compiled.
A simple guide for providing a clear structure to your report
Front Cover
You need to have a front cover to tell the reader about the title of your assignment, your course, the unit, full details of group members and percentage contribution
of each member
Executive Summary
This is a brief summary of your whole report and you should write it when you have finished the project, you may want to write it using these headings:
a) Background
b) Purpose/Objective
c) Methodology
d) Key Findings and Conclusions
e) Lessons Learned
f) Recommendations
This should about 200 words.
Table of Contents
This should be a list of main headings and sub-headings that you have used in your report such as:
1.0 Introduction Page 2
2.0 Methodology Page 3
Etc.
This should not be so detailed that the reader gets lost or so short that says very little.
This should provide a clear structure with correct paging on one page.
Introduction
In the introduction you are telling the reader
(a) What is going to be considered in the report?
(b) Why is the report written – the importance of the report to the reader
(c) How is the report organised
This should about one full page.
Methodology
This should be where you answer each question raised in the assignment as fully as you can with the aid of charts, diagrams, graphs, summary tables and all you
calculation nicely put together and clearly presented and interpreted. This should be about one page for each question in the assignment.
Conclusions
What are your key findings? How does your finding help managers to make a more informed decision? How does your finding may help in improving processes or products or
services?
This should look back at the methodology and your findings and should about ¾ of a page.
Recommendations
From your findings and conclusions can you recommend 5 or 6 points that would really help to improve the Company?
References
This is where you put down any resources you have used to compile your report, such as: books, websites, etc.
Fortune names RIM fastest growing company… in the world
by Donald Melanson posted Aug 18th 2009 at 12:22PM
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that RIM is doing pretty well even in the face of an economic downturn, but it looks like it’s been doing really well — at
least according to Fortune, which has just named the Canadian company the fastest growing firm in the world. That’s apparently based on a combination of profits,
turnover, and investment return over three years which, in RIM’s case, translates an 84% growth in profits in the past three years, a 77% growth in revenue, and a
total return of 45%. It’s also actually the first time RIM has made the list, although that’s at least partly due to the fact that Fortune didn’t include non-US firms
last time around.
In September of every year Fortune Magazine publishes its Fastest Growing Companies list. The companies are ranked on revenue, earnings growth, and their stock returns
over the past three years. This is a list dominated by traditional business areas, even though it is a list of fastest growing rather than biggest or most profitable.
eBay is an online business, and a couple of the others do some significant online business, but overwhelmingly this is a list of pre-internet areas of business: steel,
food, energy, medicine and so on.
What makes these companies performance to be considered as fast growing companies, how do they perform in the long run and what advantages and disadvantages do fast
growing companies face? These are all interesting questions to be considered. The table below gives data concerning the 30 fastest –growing companies as listed on
March 16, 2005, on the Fortune magazine website.
Rank Company EPS Growth Revenue Growth Total Return
1 InVision Technologies 222% 93% 135%
2 eResearch Technology 256% 43% 218%
3 New Century Financial 85% 91% 89%
4 Central European Distribution 98% 49% 135%
5 eBay 92% 70% 39%
6 National Medical Health Card Sys 85% 44% 107%
7 Countrywide Financial 78% 71% 46%
8 Neoware Systems 76% 70% 47%
9 Friedman Billing Ramsey Group 93% 52% 44%
10 Bradley Pharmaceuticals 59% 59% 76%
11 Middleby 91% 33% 109%
12 Hovnanian Enterprises 71% 40% 69%
13 Websense 162% 60% 23%
14 Sanders Morris Harris Group 185% 35% 36%
15 Career Education 66% 51% 45%
16 American Healthways 167% 48% 28%
17 United PanAm Financial 65% 39% 62%
18 FTI Consulting 105% 61% 19%
19 Jarden 99% 25% 109%
20 Par Pharmaceutical 143% 87% 5%
21 Capital Title Group 84% 87% 21%
22 Advanced Neuromodulation 128% 46% 24%
23 Possis Medical 76% 38% 42%
24 Symantec 85% 30% 59%
25 ASV 128% 33% 32%
26 Chico’s FAS 47% 43% 66%
27 Rewards Network 152% 29% 38%
28 Fidelity National Financial 64% 38% 38%
29 NetBank 107% 60% -1%
30 Electronic Arts 254% 32% 24%
Required:
1. Calculate and provide a clear interpretation of the price/earnings ratio for each of the companies, provide a dot plot by hand and describe the distribution of
the P/E ratios.
2. Develop a frequency distribution and a histogram of the EPS (earnings per share) growth percentage. How would you describe the shape of the distribution from
your histogram?
3. Calculate statistical summary measures of the total return percentages. How would you use these as key performance indicators and interpret them.
4. Construct cumulative frequency and cumulative frequency distributions of the EPS (earnings per share) growth percentages. Use this graph to provide estimate of
Quartiles and interpret.
5. How would you summaries your findings about the fastest-growing companies, pay particular attention to the questions posed earlier and the result of your data
analysis.
