Scenario

You have been invited to present at a departmental meeting with employees from all levels within the organization. You have been allotted 6-10 minutes to speak.

Your Role

The purpose of your speech is to explain the business context as well as two charts or tables that you have evaluated as a business analyst of the organization.

Your business report to the group will be a slide presentation with speaker notes and appropriate citations and references.

Instructions

Complete the following:

1. Article Identification. Use one of the articles listed under Article Options subheading below or find an article in Forbes or other business journal or an annual report from a publicly traded company that includes at least two data graphs or tables.
   • The graphs should depict or represent data using pie charts, bar charts, tables, scatter plots, trend lines, et cetera.
2. Read the article and identify the business context. Business context includes organizational history, mission, product and services, environment, competitive advantage, competition, et cetera. You can also determine business context from additional sources (and you should).
   • The company or organizational background information should help explain why the data are relevant. This will be the introductory information for your business report, presentation, or assessment.
3. Interpret your chosen data representations in the context of the business situation. The following are typical questions an analyst would use to interpret the data:
   • What is being measured (the variables)?
   • What are the relationships among the variables?
   • What are the trends in the data?
   • How can the data be applied in the business context?