Turning Variables Into Knowledge

Imagine that you are hired as a data analyst for a bank. The bank would like to learn more about its customers’ spending and banking habits to identify areas of improvement. You have been asked to review the bank’s income statements over the last 5 years and identify trends that will allow them to better understand their customers.

Download your chosen bank’s annual income statements from the last 5 years from the Mergent database in the Ashford University Library. Review the Getting Started with Mergent resource for tips on accessing and searching the Mergent database. Use the “Company Financials” tab in Mergent to access the income statements.

Identify three variables or categories that the bank may be interested in further researching, such as sales or revenue. Using these three variables or categories, build a frequency table, a bar chart, and a pie chart using Excel. Review the Microsoft Excel Help Research Guide for resources to help utilize Microsoft Excel. You will be using the same three variables in each table and chart, so the same data will be displayed in three different formats.

After creating the three tables, which of the tables and charts do you find most useful for communicating information about the bank’s customers? Write a brief case report summarizing your analysis and results.

In your paper,

• Identify three variables in the income statements that the bank may be interested further researching to learn more about its customers.


• Develop a frequency table, a bar chart, and a pie chart using variables in the income statements for your bank.


• Analyze the table and charts to find the most useful information for communicating information about the bank’s customers.


• Summarize your analysis and results, including how the charts were useful in your research.

The Turning Variables Into Knowledge paper

• Must be two to three double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages, charts or tables), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)resource.


• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  
  
  
  • Title of paper
  
  
  • Student’s name
  
  
  • Course name and number
  
  
  • Instructor’s name
  
  
  • Date submitted
  
  
  
  


• For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).


• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.


• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  
  
  
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
  
  
  
  


• Must cite the information found in the Mergent database.


• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.


• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.