1. Computer Applications for Business
Last Week – Spreadsheets
“What if” models
Useful Excel functions – IF.
Checkpoint – review of the module so far
This week:
LOOKUP
The module assignment
Business Graphics – Representing numerical data graphically

2. Review of the Module So far we have covered:
Operational, Production and Management use of IT
Communications and Decision Support
Finding and using information
Business Comms – documents, letters, faxes, reports
Psychology of business comms – getting your point across
Word-processing
fonts, styles, spelling checkers, grammar checkers
Using Styles in MS Word
Layouts and Tables; Inserting things into your document
Templates; Newsletters, Brochures
Digital Imaging
Electronic Mail considerations
Excel: “What if” models; IF and LOOKUP functions

3. The Rest of the Module Still to Come
Business Graphics – showing numerical data graphically
Introduction to Databases:
Goals of a database; Simple “Works” and cardfile DBs.
Single-table Access Practical
The Relational model; Relating multiple tables in Access
Mail-merge – using the data with a word-processor
Mail-merging with a spreadsheet or word-processor table
Publishing on the Internet
Identifying areas missed
Questionnaire design
Anything Else we should be covering?
What changes are needed?

4. Module Assignment You should now be competent with:
Microsoft Word and Excel
Laying out logical letters and reports
Goal of assignment is to apply your skills to a business problem
Use Excel to explore a business case
Build a report to “sell” your conclusions to management
The report will be a composite document including a spread-sheet to show appropriate figures
Don’t worry if there are parts of this you can’t yet do
We will address any problems over the next few weeks

5. Suggested Approach First make up your own mind
Analyse the proposal
Cost it out month-by-month on a spread-sheet
Compare cash-flow for “do proposal” & “do nothing” cases
Estimate the risk – how sensitive is cash-flow to minor errors in your assumptions?
Then write a report that convinces the reader
Management summary
Body of Report
No need to produce an appendix this time

6. Report Structure Management summary (write this last) Body of Report
Your recommendation and what it does for the business
Body of Report
Current situation
Proposed changes
Effect of changes on the business (backed up with your spreadsheet)
Assumptions you've made and why
Impact of changed assumptions
Risk to business from delay or cost overrun
Possible beneficial changes and their value
“What if” spreadsheets can help here

7. Potential Added Goodies
Graphical representations
Instead of just showing list of figures ..
produce bar-chart of monthly revenue/expense ..
with line showing cumulative cash-flow
Any other ideas?
See Edward Tufte’s book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information in the Library

8. We’ll consider two main areas:
Business Graphics
Sometimes used to mean “making presentations”
For example, PowerPoint or Freelance Graphics
We’ll consider two main areas:
Representing numerical data graphically
For example, with Excel charting tools
This week’s focus
Visualizing concepts
Done with any drawing tools, including Microsoft Draw (included in Word, Excel and PowerPoint)
For example flowcharts, data relationships

9. Forms of chart Bar chart Line graph Pie chart
Rectangular block with height proportional to value
Excellent for presenting observations
Can present multiple series of data by having several bars for each (x-axis) point
Bars can be stacked, side-by-side or proportional
Horizontal or vertical bars
Line graph
Traditional x-y plot
Also supports multiple data series
“Scatter diagram” used for irregular x-axis values
Pie chart
Visually clear, if rather space-consuming

11. Some Choices Vertical or horizontal bars Axis ranges
Vertical implies “good” (up) and “bad” (down)
Excellent for financial data
Stick to horizontal when you want to avoid value-judgement
Axis ranges
Start y-axis at zero to show proportions
“Brand X is only half as good as we are”
Start higher to focus on absolute differences
You could make Brand X look even worse by concealing the bottom third of the axis!
Need to do this when tracking small changes in big values

13. Choosing Chart Variants
Lines and data-points can be:
Shown or omitted
Points can show error-lines to indicate accuracy
Three-dimensional bars
Improves appearance at expense of clarity
Useful when you want to avoid clear comparisons
Exploded Pie
Useful to put focus on a particular component
(or to obscure)

15. Questions ?