Business report and analysis in excel is required
School of Business
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Course Code: BUSM4741 Subject Name: Financial Analytics for Managerial Decisions
Assessment # 2: Business Report
Overview
This assessment takes the form of a Business Report.
This assessment focuses on your ability of reading, interpreting, and analysing financial statements. The task primarily requires creating and evaluating relevant financial ratios, identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the business and proposing strategies for future improvements.
To do well, you should be able to:
1. Assess the financial reports of the designated companies. You are expected to identify the ratios to be analysed, compare and evaluate the financial performance of the companies and draw correct conclusions based on the analysis.
2. Propose business strategies for designated companies and discuss the suitability of the current business strategies.
3. Present the assessment as a standard business report. The report must be of a standard commonly expected in the commercial world in relation to grammar, punctuation and spelling.
This assessment requires thorough understanding of the process of closely analysing the financial statements with a view of generating meaningful insights about the businesses and benchmarking their relative position. The purpose of the assessment is for you to engage deeply with the fundamental analysis of a business for informed decision-making purposes by the managers.
Learning Outcomes
This assessment is aligned with:
• CLO1: Analyse, interpret and critically evaluate global financial information from a variety of sources in order to develop sustainable business proposals.
• CLO2: Create effective business reports, advice and tables tailored to specific business needs
• CLO3: Show effective, appropriate and persuasive collaboration and communication skills through engagement with case interviewing and problem solving in a business simulation.
• CLO4: Select, communicate and advocate effective strategies using design thinking to address complex business problems and opportunities.
• CLO5: Apply ethical standards to the role and conduct of financial reporting.
Assessment details
You are required to compare the annual reports of the companies over the past three years and present your findings in a business report. Your business report should evaluate the relative financial performance of the companies based on the financial analysis results and propose strategies for future improvements. The two companies to be analysed are BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. Both of these companies are listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) - codes are BHP and RIO respectively. You have already conducted the analysis on BHP in Week 3 Activity 2 Case Study. You may use your findings there to incorporate here.
You are expected to draw upon written material and required readings. The financial analysis should be conducted using skills and techniques learned in this course.
You are required to:
o Calculate and analyse the five key categories of financial ratios o Conduct the DuPont analysis
o Evaluate major business segments’ profitability of the companies
o Use appropriate graphs to illustrate the relative performance of the companies, including the trend of the ratios
When interpreting the financial ratios, you are required to compare the ratios with various benchmarks such as prior years, the comparative company and the industry averages.
Please present your detailed calculations in an appendix. If you carry out your calculations using an Excel workbook (highly recommended) please copy and paste key excerpts in your appendix. Please also email your Excel workbook to the course facilitator.
While discussing your analysis, correct terminology and coherent expression should be interwoven throughout. Finally, it should be a synthesis of various relevant financial ratios and their interpretation, overlaid with your own view of the overall health of the business followed by your recommendations.
Task
Individual
Due Date:
Sunday of Week 5, 11:59 pm (AEST) Word limit:
2,000 words (+/- 10%)
Please be mindful of word limit, and communicating thoughts and ideas succinctly. A 10% allowance over the word limit is applicable; anything over 10% is liable for penalisation. Word limit applies to main section/body only. Please seek further clarification from an instructor if you are unsure about adherence to word/length limits.
Submission file type:
Word Document.
Some advice and general information
Analytical discussions must establish clear outcomes and follow sound reasoning based on the financial statistics generated in the process.
Assessment details (cont.)
How to succeed in this assessment:
• Financial analysis: It is essential that students are able to conduct calculations, interpretations, applications and communication of various financial ratios. Apart from the recommended readings, students must have done the activities and associated tasks on Canvas.
• Simplify the financial statements: It is necessary that past financial statements be analysed and appropriately simplified, including the business segment statements. It is required that these simplified statements be provided in an appendix to the main report.
• Benchmarking: When interpreting the financial ratios, you are required to compare the ratios with various benchmarks such as prior years, the comparative company and the industry averages. Industry average ratios can be accessed from the library resources such as: IBIS World, Market Line and Passport. Other sources of financial information may be useful for your analysis. Examples are ASX, Reuters Finance, Yahoo Finance, financial newspapers such as The Australian Financial Review.
• Strategic suggestions: To assist decision making, you are required to draw accurate conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the company based on the financial analysis and give persuasive suggestions.
• Business Report: The assessment is to be presented as a business report. Thus, it is vital that it covers the necessary elements of a professional report writing. It should be visually appealing and well summarised but also must contain sufficient details may be in appendix.
• Presentation: While recording your answers, attend to professionality, and parameters as set out in assessment guidelines (i.e. rubric criteria, word limits, design and structure of presented information).
Plagiarism Check
You must submit your work via Turnitin and need to ensure that you have not exceeded limits (20% similarity max) for the use of others work.
Referencing guidelines
You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.
Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.
Referencing style
RMIT College of Business Harvard referencing style or footnotes
Submission format
Upload as one single Word Document file via the Assignments submission page within Canvas.
Academic integrity and plagiarism
Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas.
You should take extreme care that you have:
Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e. directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods,
Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites.
If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.
RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:
Failure to properly document a source
Copyright material from the internet or databases Collusion between students.
For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website.
Assessment declaration
When you submit work electronically, you agree to the Assessment declaration.
Criteria Weightings 30 Pts
High Distinction 80-100% Distinction 70-79% Credit 60-69% Pass
50-59% Fail
0-49%
Criterion 1
Development of analysis ratios/tools
and graphs
15% The appropriate analysis ratios/tools and graphs are fully developed. The appropriate analysis ratios/tools and graphs are mostly correctly developed. The appropriate analysis ratios/tools and graphs are reasonably developed. The appropriate analysis ratios/tools and graphs are somewhat correctly developed. The analysis ratios/tools and graphs are not correctly developed.
4.5 pts 4.0 pts 3.5 pts 2.0 pts 1.5 pts 4.5
Criterion 2
Quality of financial
Analysis
40% Correct
interpretation of the financial performance of the company.
There is an excellent attempt to analyse the companies using benchmarks and various tools and offer in-depth insight The interpretation of the financial performance of the company is mostly correct.
There is a good attempt to analyse the companies using benchmarks and various tools and offer in-depth insight. Make several mistakes in the interpretation of the financial performance of the company. There is a reasonable attempt to analyse the companies using benchmarks and various tools and offer in-depth insight. Make some
mistakes in the interpretation of the financial performance of the company. There is a weak attempt to analyse the companies using benchmarks and various tools and offer insight. Make many
mistakes in the interpretation of the financial performance of the company.
The financial analysis is insufficient or superficial.
12.0 pts 10.0 pts 8.0 pts 6.0 pts 4.0 pts 12.0
Criterion 3
Conclusion and suggestions
15% Consistently draws accurate conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the company and give persuasive suggestions. There is a good attempt to draw accurate conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the company and give
possible suggestions. There is a reasonable attempt to draw accurate conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the company and give
possible suggestions. There is a weak attempt to draw accurate conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the company and give
possible suggestions. Does not draw an accurate conclusion on the strengths and weaknesses of the company and give
possible suggestions.
4.5 pts 4.0 pts 3.5 pts 2.0 pts 1.5 pts 4.5
Criterion 4
Quality of business
writing
20% The report is written in language appropriate for the audience and consistently adheres to conventions of grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and usage. A good attempt to
write the report in language appropriate for the audience. Makes minor mistakes in grammar, punctuation, or spelling, mechanics, and usage. A reasonable attempt to write the report in language appropriate for the audience. Makes several mistakes in
grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and usage. A weak attempt to
write the report in language appropriate for the audience. Makes some mistakes in grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and usage. The report is not written in language appropriate for the audience. Makes many mistakes in grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics, and usage.
6.0 pts 5.0 pts 4.0 pts 3.0 pts 2.0 pts 6.0
Criterion 5
Layout of report and
Referencing
10% Includes all required components and follows formatting guidelines. Tables and diagrams are formatted properly, and the layout Includes all required components and mostly follows formatting guidelines. Minor problems in the format of tables and Includes some required components and generally follows formatting guidelines. Several problems in the Includes some required components and generally follows formatting guidelines. Some problems in the Required components are mostly absent and do not follow formatting guidelines. Formatting
enhances readability.
Complete citations and reference list formatted correctly. diagrams, which do not affect readability. Minor mistakes in the citations and reference list formatting. format of tables and diagrams, affecting readability. Several mistakes in the citations and reference list formatting. format of tables and diagrams, affecting readability.
Some mistakes in the citations and reference list formatting. is repeatedly inconsistent in layout, reducing readability. Many mistakes in the citations and reference list formatting.
3.0 pts 2.5 pts 2.0 pts 1.5 pts 1.0 pts 3.0
Total points: 30 pts
Adapted from Accounting Financial Statement Analysis- communication rubrics. http://amazonanalysis.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/7/0/14703170/grading20rubric.pdf