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IST 461 - Business Analysis Assignment 3 Due by midnight on Sunday of the week it has been assigned.

Consider the following scenario: "Take Me Away", a nation-wide Vacation Rental Company, is in trouble. Their reservation system crashes much too often. The employees can't see what properties are requested and clients may encounter significant errors when checking prices and scheduling their reservations online. The IT director asked you to create a business case that will address this problem. You, as the business analyst, start to work on the business case and decide the primary solution is to deploy a new reservation system in your ERP system and the website where customers make their reservations.

A list of some of the stakeholders follows: 1. IT Director (Sponsor) 2. Steering Committee (composed of other property managment managers) 3. IT Department 4. Sales Department 5. Marketing Department 6. Maintenance/Repair Department 7. Interior Design Department 8. Branches all across the US (Managers and employees) 9. Individual Customers 10. Organizational Customers (Corporations that rent out properties regularly based on a contract) 11. Contractors building new properties

You and your team will start the elicitation process on January 31, 2022. While preparing for elicitation, you decide to start with organizational customers and branches. Your organization is headquartered in Cleveland, OH. Your two major organizational customers are in Boston, MA and Philadelphia, PA. You have decided to interview 10 people from each organization; two members of your team will travel to Boston for the interviews and two members will stay in Cleveland and conduct the interviews on Zoom. There are 200 branches across the United States. You have decided to visit the two busiest branches, Washington DC and Miami, FL. You plan to interview the managers, supervisors, and booking agents. Team members will conduct observations during their visits. Make an "Elicitation Activity Plan" for both stakeholder groups separately.

They should include the following components: Elicitation Activity Plan (You will need two separate plans.)

1. Objective of the elicitation activities (based on the business need)

2. Constraints: issues that would affect scheduling such as vacations, company-wide shut down, etc.

3. Stakeholder locations: virtual, in-person, which office, etc.

4. Interviewees and their roles: who will you be interviewing, their job description and their role in the project

5. List of supporting materials (e.g., People, systems, historical data, materials and documents, relevant business rules, organizational polices, regulations, and contracts)

6. Observation details (only for branch visits) (Refer to BABOK 10.31)

7. Interview Guide (refer to BABOK 10.25)

a. Interview location

b. Anticipated duration of each interview

c. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) used

d. Brief information about the interview

e. At least five open-ended and five closed questions you plan to ask (Questions must be directly relevant to these stakeholders and aligned with the business requirements.)

f. Interview flow (e.g., introduction, questions, probing questions, closing, thanking)

g. Interview follow-up (If necessary for additional requirements)

Question: People from other nations, such as Canada and South Korea, come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, therefore cultural background plays an important part in the discussions that take place at the negotiating table. When two people are conversing or negotiating, they must keep in mind that their cultures may cause conflict. The degree to which cultural groups differed from one another was referred to as the culture dimensions. It includes Values, beliefs, personality and actions.

Although the dimensions are prone to vary over time, the team should be aware of and address the following basic considerations:

Religious views or principles: Both Canadians and South Koreans have different ideologies, which the team must be mindful of. Faith, for example, is made up of confidence in how things should be done. The people of South Korea are adamant about their ideas and are unwilling to let them go. They cherish their convictions so strongly that rebuking them would cause discord [1]. Members of the team should be concerned about religious issues. The Canadian should be prepared or learn the faith of the person they will encounter. If the Canadians are Muslims and will meet a Christian South Korean, it is best not to use Islamic terminology, concepts, or even greetings.

Attributes or values: Values are usually instilled in children by their parents or learnt on one's own, and they govern one's behaviour in public. It's a good idea to look into values that are important to you since interfering with them will cause a dispute between you. Take the fact that South Koreans do not write their names in red as an example. Someone may cause a quarrel if they do so inadvertently or unintentionally [2]. Personality: The team should be aware of the individual's personality. One may get a sense of a South Korean tourist personality from the phone's tone. If the person's personality is average, then negotiating with them should not be difficult. If a person's personality is self-centred, you will have a difficult time negotiating as a tour operator from Canada. The squad should keep in mind that, in comparison to Canadians, the bulk of people in South Korea are extremely emotional. If one is not prepared to cope with emotions, it is simple and normal for a South Korean to become upset at a bargaining table [3]. I would undertake the following to assist in the development of intercultural competence:

Gather the team and ask them to consider their own unique identities and cultures. I would advise the team to consider core Canadian values such as gender equality. I would advise them to consider how they would feel if their values were violated. It is expected that team members would be enraged if their ideals are violated. I would not advise them to research south Korean culture and values. They should now put themselves in the scenario of "interruption of someone's culture and values." I am confident that they would not be willing to disrupt someone's values since they already know how they would feel if their values were disrupted. I'd now remind them how important it is to respect various cultures. Values from individuals of many cultures would not be detrimental in any way. Some ideals are worth learning and adopting as your own. I'd advise the staff to be open to learning about, tolerating, and accommodating South Korean culture. They would have an easier time negotiating if they had an understanding of intercultural competency. They would be ready to be aroused and remain cool, as well as learn about other cultures' beneficial ideals.

Reference:

LeBaron, M. (2003). Culture-based negotiation styles. Guy & Heidi Burgess (eds.). Beyond Intractability. Conflict Research Consortium. U. of Colorado. Wang, N., Jiang, D., & Pretorius, L. (2016). Conflict-resolving behaviour of project managers in international projects: A culture-based comparative study. Technology in Society, 47, 140-147. Lin, W. J., Lai, H. C., & Lin, J. Y. (2009). The Impact of Cultural Difference on Online Text-based Negotiation Behaviour: Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods. MIS REVIEW: An International Journal, 15(1), 1-27.

This was my initial post that my professor said was not an adequate response: Economic variables that lead to monopolies include product differentiation, advertising and marketing costs, economies of scale and size, and network effects. There are several ways to create a monopoly through using externalities. An externality occurs when a firm's good or service affects or impacts other individuals and situations in the economy. Externalities are social and economic costs and can levy negative consequences on society by reducing benefits from financithe political process. There is no practical way for smaller firms to counteract such bargaining power.al transactions. Exchange economics is also referred to as the study of externalities. This type of market structure is scarce in practice because it implies that large firms have bargaining power over Price discrimination is one of the fundamental ways monopolies form in an oligopolistic market. The three types of relative monopolistic markets are resource ownership, government control, and economies of scale. Since the infrastructure that gathers and delivers a product like electricity or water is expensive to create and maintain, public utilities have lasted the longest as a natural exception. Competition is a hybrid of monopoly and perfect competition that incorporates elements of both. Under monopolistic competition, all firms have the same, if not equal, low market power and are all price makers. Others will dangle offers and free items in our faces, while others will cut their pricing. Another may market itself as more friendly by utilizing green symbols and displaying a stamp of environmental entities. Monopolistic rivalry, such as that found in utility companies, necessitates extensive marketing because different organizations must examine the same data. Each of the brands has the potential to be effective. In Ohio, for example, we have an AEP or Ohio Power. Determination of the type of service depends on the area you live. Under monopolistic competition, firms have some level of economies of scale. As the marginal cost goes down, so does output. Excess capacity exists, and higher markups are possible. A supplier can recommend a specific model, and a consumer is more likely to accept it. For example, Chevrolet must respond to Ford or Toyota's strategies for advertising and other promotion programs. Demand is even affected by the number of competitors. The bigger the number of competitors for a product, such as cars, the smaller the quantity demanded on average. Thus, monopolistic competition faces more challenges when faced with large numbers of competing goods. Can you help me understand what I am not comprehending?

[9:20 AM, 2/11/2022] flo: ACCT 308 - Accounting Information Systems Excel Project Feral Wetsuits Company Year-End Worksheet

Introduction:

Accountants use Excel to analyze transactions and accounts, prepare financial statements, calculate budgets, create invoices, and many more tasks. Mastering the basics of Excel is critical to your success. You should already know how to create spreadsheets using common mathematical formulas and Excel Functions. In AIS, you will develop or improve your skills linking multiple spreadsheets; creating formulas using Excel functions IF, VLOOKUP, ROUND.

Feral Wetsuits Excel Assignment:

For this Excel assignment you will create a year-end workbook with multiple spreadsheets to convert the unadjusted trial balance of Feral Wetsuits to a set of complete financial statements and account analysis. You should recall the steps in the accounting cycle to 1) prepare an unadjusted trial balance, 2) determine and record adjustments, 3) create an adjusted trial balance, and 4) create financial statements: Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows (Indirect method).

You will begin with the Year-end Worksheet template found on Cougar Courses that includes all the accounts and unadjusted trial balance figures. The instructions below give you the information needed to calculate and record adjustments in Excel, and to add these adjustments to the Year-end Worksheet to create the adjusted trial balance. You will use the adjusted trial balance data to create financial statements in Excel.

Your Excel workbook should be fully integrated. For example, a change in the tax rate from 15% to 17% should automatically update your tax expense/accrual adjustment, the adjusted trial balance, and the financial statements. Therefore, all calculations must be in Excel and all data should be referenced from one cell to another.

Instructions:

Download the Feral Year-end Workbook from Cougar Courses. Save the file as: lastname_firstname_FW2022SPRING.

You will note that the December 31, 2020 Post Closing Trial Balance and December 31, 2021 Unadjusted Trial Balance are populated with numbers.

a. Do debits equal credits? (These are just questions to make you think. No submission is necessary)

i. Use the SUM function to total each column of the spreadsheet. b. Should the 2021 allowance for doubtful accounts be a debit or credit

balance? i. How could this happen? You will make an adjustment later.

c. We will not close out the temporary accounts at this time.

3. ADJUSTMENT SHEET: Adjustments will be recorded on the Adjustment worksheet in the Excel Workbook.

Use the VLOOKUP function to populate account name after you input the account number. (Click on the hyperlink for support from Microsoft.com.) You might find using Labels/Range Names is helpful to define the account numbers and titles.

After each adjustment, write an explanation for the adjustment. Include any assumptions or calculation figures, such as bad debt expense rate or interest rate. This explanation is important documentation to support and justify the adjustment.

2021 Depreciation Expense is $35,109.50. Input this figure in the adjustments worksheet. Use the = to link the credit and debit cells.

Interest Expense: An $80,000, two-year note was signed and funded on December 16, 2020 with annual stated interest of 6% (that means interest starts accruing on December 17, 2021). Create a formula to calculate the adjustment amount based on a 365-day year. Use ROUND function to round to nearest penny. DO NOT TYPE IN A CALCULATED AMOUNT. Use the = to link the credit and debit cells.

Bad debt expense: Bad debt expense is 0.2% of net sales. Create a formula to calculate the adjustment amount. Use ROUND function to round to nearest penny. DO NOT TYPE IN A CALCULATED AMOUNT. Use the = to link the credit and debit cells.

Inventory and cost of sales adjustment: Feral Wetsuits Company uses the periodic inventory method. A physical inventory was taken at midnight on 12/31/21. The cost basis of the inventory on hand is $198,246.00. Adjust the inventory balance and close out the purchase and related accounts to cost of sales.

Income tax expense: Income tax expense cannot be calculated until all other adjustments are posted and the income before income taxes

reflects all adjustments. This will be calculated later in the

assignment. Use the = to link the credit and debit cells. h. Link the adjustments to the Year-end Worksheet in the Adjustments

columns. Since there is only one adjustment per account, you can do this by using the = or + functions. (In a more complex company with multiple adjustments for each account, you might use the SUMIF function to bring adjustments forward to the Year-end Worksheet.)

Use formulas to combine the Unadjusted Trial Balance and Adjustments to create the Adjusted Trial Balance. Many accounts can be either a net debit or a net credit in the Adjusted Trial Balance. Consequently, IF statements must be used to determine if the balance is a debit or credit. The IF statement should place a blank if the criteria are not met, for example, =IF (debits- credits>0, debits-credits, "")replace debits and credits with cell references for the unadjusted trial balance and the adjustment columns. Copy the formulas to all cells in the total columns.

After completing steps 3 and 4, you are ready to calculate income tax expense. A table is included on the Year-end Worksheet to help you calculate income tax expense.

Calculate income before income taxes using the Adjusted Trial Balance data. Income is equal to revenues minus expenses. In the accounting system, income is equal to credits minus debits. Create a formula in cell F59 on the Year-end Worksheet to calculate income before taxes, e.g., SUM(credits)-SUM(debits). (Do not bring income before tax from the income statement because you haven't created the income statement yet.)

The marginal income tax rates are as follows: Income before Tax Rate < $50,000 15% $50,000 to $75,000 25% >$75,000 36%

Use an IF statement to calculate income tax expense. The IF statement must consider income at 3 different levels. This requires an embedded or nested IF statement, i.e., 2 IF statements in one formula. (Be sure to test your IF statement at different levels of income before taxyour formula needs to work at all levels.)

After calculating tax expense, you can determine Net Income. The Net Income check figure is provided.

Create an adjustment for income tax expense on the Adjustment worksheet. The amount on the adjustment worksheet will be reference from cell F61 on the Year-end Worksheet. Bring the adjustment to the Year-end Worksheet in the adjustment columns.

All adjustments are now complete.

Populate the Balance Sheet and Income Statement debit and credit columns on the Year-end Worksheet using IF statements similar to step 4 above. Total Balance Sheet debits will not equal total creditswhy? The same conditions apply to the Income Statement. Calculate the difference below to compare to Net Income.

Complete the Financial Statements on the appropriate worksheets. The Statement of Cash Flows uses the indirect method.

a. Use formulas to insert the correct figures into the Financial Statements worksheets from the Year-end Worksheet balance sheet or income statement columns.

i. December 31, 2021 retained earnings in the Balance Sheet will pull from the Income Statement because the temporary accounts haven't been closed.

Calculations in the financial statements should be limited to sum, plus, and minus to aggregate or subtract accounts.

All amounts in the financial statements should be rounded to the nearest whole number (I.e., NO DECIMALS SHOWN)

On the Statement of Cash Flows, you can bring the balances from the Year-end Worksheet or the Balance Sheet and Income Statement, whichever you prefer.

Compare the ending cash balance on the Statement of Cash Flows to the Balance Sheet cash. The amounts should equal.

Remove the gridlines from the financial statements.

8. The assignment is due by the start of your class time on FEBRUARY 14, 2022. Your electronic submission MUST BE in EXCEL format. Google Docs, Open Office, Numbers, etc. are not acceptable formats.

a. Upload using the Turnitin submission link in the Excel Project section of the Cougar Courses website. Turnitin will separate the pages, but I will be able to see and download your work. [2:09 PM, 2/11/2022] flo: This was my initial post that my professor said was not an adequate response: Economic variables that lead to monopolies include product differentiation, advertising and marketing costs, economies of scale and size, and network effects. There are several ways to create a monopoly through using externalities. An externality occurs when a firm's good or service affects or impacts other individuals and situations in the economy. Externalities are social and economic costs and can levy negative consequences on society by reducing benefits from financial transactions. Exchange economics is also referred to as the study of externalities. This type of market structure is scarce in practice because it implies that large firms have bargaining power over the political process. There is no practical way for smaller firms to counteract such bargaining power. Price discrimination is one of the fundamental ways monopolies form in an oligopolistic market. The three types of relative monopolistic markets are resource ownership, government control, and economies of scale. Since the infrastructure that gathers and delivers a product like electricity or water is expensive to create and maintain, public utilities have lasted the longest as a natural exception. Competition is a hybrid of monopoly and perfect competition that incorporates elements of both. Under monopolistic competition, all firms have the same, if not equal, low market power and are all price makers. Others will dangle offers and free items in our faces, while others will cut their pricing. Another may market itself as more friendly by utilizing green symbols and displaying a stamp of environmental entities. Monopolistic rivalry, such as that found in utility companies, necessitates extensive marketing because different organizations must examine the same data. Each of the brands has the potential to be effective. In Ohio, for example, we have an AEP or Ohio Power. Determination of the type of service depends on the area you live. Under monopolistic competition, firms have some level of economies of scale. As the marginal cost goes down, so does output. Excess capacity exists, and higher markups are possible. A supplier can recommend a specific model, and a consumer is more likely to accept it. For example, Chevrolet must respond to Ford or Toyota's strategies for advertising and other promotion programs. Demand is even affected by the number of competitors. The bigger the number of competitors for a product, such as cars, the smaller the quantity demanded on average. Thus, monopolistic competition faces more challenges when faced with large numbers of competing goods. Can you help me understand what I am not comprehending?

1. (10p.) This question concerns experiments/randomization and OLS regression. An old question in medicine concerns the effect of smoking on mortality (the probability of dying). The causal effect is difficult to estimate in this case, since smoking status is not random.

a) Using potential outcomes notation, define the treatment effect of smoking (binary 0/1 variable) on mortality at the individual level.

b) Let potential outcomes as treated and untreated with smoking be written as Y1 and Y0 and let actual treatment status D be D=0 if not smoking and D=1 if smoking. Using counterfactual reasoning, define the ATET (Average Treatment Effect on the Treated) and the ATE (Average Treatment Effect). Also explain each part of the equations in your own words.

c) Lets say that you in the absence of randomization, try to estimate the effect of smoking by comparing average mortality rates between smokers and non-smokers (neglect any controls for now). Derive an expression for the potential omitted variable bias that could arise from such a comparison. Explain each part of the resulting equation in your own words.

d) Give examples that would give rise to both an upward and downward bias and explain what direction of the bias you find most likely in this empirical case.

e) Assume now that you could randomize your population into smokers and nonsmokers and follow up mortality rates later in life. Explain why and how this would remove the types of bias that you addressed/mentioned in the previous question.

f) More realistically, it may be possible to randomize policies that affect smoking, such as free smoking cessation help or counselling to stop smoking. Assume that you are able to randomize the access to smoking cessation products. Assume also that you have data on the actual uptake of the smoking cessation products in both groups. Set up the ideal experiment to answer whether stop smoking decreases mortality, given the above information? Discuss pitfalls/drawbacks to your design. Is it possible to get the actual treatment effect of smoking from the design above and, if so, how do you get it and how should the estimate be interpreted? Is it a problem for the latter design if people in the control group also buy smoking cessation products?

2. This question concerns OLS regressions and the inclusion of covariates. Economic theory, such as the schooling model first analysed by Mincer (1958), postulates that there should be a positive return to schooling, such that investment in education results in higher earnings. The intuition is that schooling increases human capital, which in turn raises the productivity of a worker. Profit maximizing employers then pay a higher salary to more productive workers. In other words, more educated workers will earn a higher salary. Assume that you have conducted a randomized trial to investigate the effect of schooling on earnings, i.e. the hypothesis derived from theory. Thus, you have been able to randomize the number of years in school across individuals. Also, assume that the following additional covariates are available for each individual in the experiment: age, gender, municipality of residence, and occupation, as well as the parent's level of education.

1. You are selling a product in an area where 30 % of the people live in the city and the rest live in the suburbs. Currently 20 % of the city dwellers user your product and 10 % of the suburbanites use your product. Given that someone uses your product, what is the probability that the person lives in the city?

What do I know?

What do I want to find out?

What do I expect the answer to be?

How do I go from what I know to what I want to find?

Is the answer consistent with what I expected?

Additional instructions from the student: need to prepate ppt from above given material only