DATA $2100$ Homework Major

Data Analysis and Business Case

Purpose

Learn to build a basic business case by using data analysis techniques and

interpreting and presenting their results. Techniques include weighted values,

NPV calculation and comparison, sensitivity analysis, and balanced scorecard

analysis.

Submission Requirements

Respond to the items specified in the Assignment section of this document.

$1.$ Include your responses in a new document $$ do not use this document

to respond. Including the text of this document in your submission will

result in a three$-$point deduction on your grade.

$2.$ Your submitted document must include your name at the top. Failure to

include your name at the top of your document will result in a three$-$point

deduction on your grade.

$3.$ Use section headings to organize your document.

$4.$ Complete this assignment on your own; doing otherwise represents a

breach of academic integrity. What you submit must represent your own

thinking and your own work. Do not look at answers from other students,

and do not share your answers with others. Students found submitting

something other than their own work will receive a $0$ on this assignment

and be reported to the university for the academic integrity violation.

$5.$ Submit your completed business case via Canvas as a Word document or

PDF along with your working excel file used for data analysis.

$6.$ After submitting your documents, check on Canvas that you submitted

the correct documents $$ if you submit an incorrect document, we$$ll

assume that the homework assignment was not actually completed.

Background

DBVac is considering adding an additional product to their lineup. The

company$$s Research and Development $($R&D$)$ team has come up with three

different concepts for new vacuum cleaners and assigned them the codenames

Fin, Snorkel, and Facemask. Each of the three proposed products has a number

of different characteristics $($described below$)$ that distinguish them from one

another. However, the company can only bring one of these three products to

market in the near future.

As such, DBVac would like you to evaluate the three products using a few

different analyses, then write a business case recommending which of the three

new products to bring to market, detailing the reasons behind your

recommendation, and providing expectations the company should have for the

new product $($e$.$g$.,$ how much they should expect to profit from its release$).$

Further, they would appreciate your help in providing a data$-$centric

recommendation as to which of the company$$s four available product managers

would be best equipped to lead the project.

In assessing DBVac$$s situation, please carefully read the content in this

background section as your response is very dependent on the content herein.

You$$ll need to come back to this background section to find the data needed to

perform the analyses required in the assignment.

Candidate Products

DBVac is considering developing and bringing to market one of three possible

products, code$-$named Fin, Snorkel, and Facemask. Fin would be a very low$-$cost

model, Snorkel would be a mid$-$range model with some innovative features, and

Facemask would be a top$-$of$-$the$-$line model built on a drone platform.

To understand what the initial $($pre$-$launch$)$ development cost would be for these

potential new products, the company thinks it would be worthwhile to consider

the pre$-$launch development cost for its four most recent new product

development projects: the FarmBunny, RapidBunny, BunnyKing, and the

disastrous CozyCony. The company has analyzed facets of each of the three

potential new models $($Fin$,$ Snorkel, Facemask$)$ to get a sense for how similar

each of the three is to the four previous new product development projects. This

was done under the assumption that, if the development process for the new

product is exactly like, for instance, the FarmBunny development process, then

the initial cost of development should be the same.

The initial cost of development for these previous new product development

projects were as follows:

$$ FarmBunny: $$2\mathrm{.}3$ million

$$ RapidBunny: $$4\mathrm{.}2$ million

$$ BunnyKing: $$4\mathrm{.}6$ million

$$ CozyCony: $$13\mathrm{.}7$ million

Fin

Fin would be DBVac$$s lowest price entry into the vacuum cleaner market,

providing no advanced features but still being a vacuum cleaner, technically

speaking. R&D would consist of aggressive down$-$costing measures to ensure the

affordability of product manufacturing.

In considering Fin$$s initial R&D cost$,$ DBVac has provided the following

estimates of the project$$s similarity to past new product development projects.

$35\%$ probability of being similar to the FarmBunny initial R&D cost$.$

$28\%$ probability of being similar to the RapidBunny initial R&D cost$.$

$15\%$ probability of being similar to the BunnyKing initial R&D cost$.$

$22\%$ probability of being similar to the CozyCony initial R&D cost$.$

No additional revenue or cost is expected to be accrued during the initial year

$($i$.$e$.,$ the R&D year$)$ beyond the initial R&D cost$.$ Aft