Scenario: You are consultant for the Excellent Consulting Group. Your client wants to be able to forecast sales on a monthly basis and believes that there is a valid relationship between sales and the number of hits on their website during the previous month. To test this theory, the client has collected data on sales of one of its products, a lottery app for smart phones and hits on its website.

Using Excel and linear regression analyze the data and determine how to do forecasting using website hits.

Then forecast the next three months using the monthly hits data. Compare the forecast to the actual sales and determine the forecasting error. Ask your Instructor for the data for the actual sales when you are ready.

Then write a report to your boss and the client that briefly describes the results that you obtained. Make a recommendation on how this might be used for forecasting purposes.

Data: Download the Word file Case 3 Data.docx with the data. Use this data in Excel for your analysis.

Analysis

Accurate and complete Linear Regression analysis in Excel.

Written Report

Length requirements = 45 pages minimum (not including Cover and Reference pages)

Provide a brief introduction/ background of the problem.

Complete and accurate Excel analysis.

Written analysis that supports Excel analysis, and provides thorough discussion of assumptions, rationale, and logic used.

Complete, meaningful, and accurate recommendation(s).

Case 3 Data

Following are the data for website hits and app sales (number of the Lottery apps.)

Month	Hits	Sales
Jan	1200	420
Feb	820	545
Mar	1151	301
Apr	1050	510
May	1180	485
Jun	1047	525
Jul	1102	460
Aug	1054	500
Sep	1254	402
Oct	1071	584
Nov	1120	422
Dec	1287	514
Jan	1164	441
Feb	1159	----
Mar	1298	----

April ---- ----

IMPORTANT: Be sure to shift the monthly sales up by one month because the theory is that the hits predict the next month sales (e.g., the 1,200 hits in January are paired with Februarys sales of 545). Therefore, your data will look like this:

Month	Hits	Sales
Jan	1200	545
Feb	820	301
Mar	1151	510
Apr	1050	485
May	1180	525
Jun	1047	460
Jul	1102	500
Aug	1054	402
Sep	1254	584
Oct	1071	422
Nov	1120	514
Dec	1287	441

Use the monthly hits for Jan through Mar to predict the sales for Feb through Apr.

When you have done so, ask your Instructor to provide the data for the actual sales for Jan through Apr.