Assignment Questions

1. A company is thinking of advertising its products on a popular TV music program. There is a

price for the first group of ads, but as one buys more ads, the price per ad drops as described

in the following table:

Number of Ads Price Per

Ad

1-5 Rs. 12,000

6-10 Rs. 11,000

11-20 Rs. 10,000

More than 20 Rs. 9,000

For example, if you buy 8 ads, you pay Rs. 12,000 per ad for the first 5 ads and Rs. 11,000

for each of the next 3 ads. If you buy 14 ads, you pay Rs. 12,000 for each of the first 5 ads,

Rs. 11,000 for each of the next 5 ads, and Rs. 10,000 for each of the last 4 ads. Write a

formula using VLOOKUP only that yields the total cost of purchasing any number of ads.

2. The annual rate your bank charges you to borrow money for 1, 5, 10, or 30 years is given in

the following table.

Duration of Loan Annual Loan Rate

(Years) (Percent)

1 6

5 7
 Duration of Loan Annual Loan Rate

(Years) (Percent)

10 9

30 10

If you borrow money from the bank for any duration between 1 and 30 years that's not listed

in the table, your rate is found by interpolating between the rates given in the table. For

example, let's say you borrow money for 15 years. Because 15 years is one quarter of the

way between 10 years and 30 years, the annual loan rate would be calculated as follows:

9 + 1/4*(10) = 9.25%

Write a formula using VLOOKUP that will return the annual interest rate on a loan for any

period between 1 and 30 years.

3. The time chart for the arrival of local buses at Bistupur bus stand is given below:

Bus No. Time

1 0

2 45.4

3 18.6

4 76.5

5 88.6

6 97.4

7 23.1

8 98
 9 33.7

10 2.8

11 37

12 24.7

13 6.9

14 63.9

15 84

16 4.1

17 81.4

18 81.2

19 1.2

20 73

The first bus (Bus No. 1) arrives at 10 am. The second bus arrives 45.4 minutes after 10 am,

the third bus arrives 18.6 minutes after the second bus, and so on. A user will input the

number of minutes after 10 am when he will reach the Bistupur bus stand. Write a formula

that will give the earliest bus no. that he can catch, and also the number of minutes for

which he will have to wait for that bus. So, if the user enters 20 minutes, the correct

response will be Bus No. 2 and the user will have to wait for (45.4 - 20) = 25.4 minutes.

4. The table below contains information about the size, color, and style for a variety of shirts.

For example, the first shirt is style 100 (indicated by digits between the colon and the
 hyphen). Its color is 65, and its size is L. Use text functions to extract the style, color, and

size of each shirt.

Sl. No. Item

1 100’s:100-65L

2 100’s:100-65XL

3 100’s:100-65XXL

4 100’s:100-06M

5 100’s:100-06L

6 100’s:100-06XL

7 100’s:100-06XXL

8 100’s:100-06M

9 100’s:100-06L

10 100’s:100-06XL

11 100’s:100-06XXL

12 100’s:100-65M

5. Determine the day that occurs 83 workdays after today’s date (including holidays).

6. The table below gives the dates (mm/dd/yy) on which several machines were bought and

sold. Determine how many months and years each machine was kept.
Bought Sold

4/27/12 8/22/13

12/1/12 9/4/14

7/30/13 5/13/15

7/10/13 3/15/15

11/17/19 7/22/22

1/2/20 7/3/23

1/18/17 2/3/21

10/6/18 1/7/22

9/10/17 9/23/19

4/11/16 2/10/20

11/7/22 10/8/23

1/14/14 12/21/16

11/19/13 7/16/16

8/26/20 5/9/24

12/30/15 11/7/16

12/25/22 1/8/27

6/29/16 8/17/19

9/7/14 10/31/16

2/18/11 12/26/11

8/11/18 8/17/21

4/4/22 7/14/24
 7. A footballer is to receive a Rs. 10, 00, 000 signing bonus today and Rs. 20, 00, 000 one

year, two years, and three years from now. Assuming the rate of interest to be 10%, and

ignoring tax considerations would he be better off receiving Rs. 6, 00, 000 today?

8. A project has the following cash flows:

Now 1 Year From Now 2 Years From Now 3 Years From Now

-$4 million $4 million $4 million -$3 million

If the company's cost of capital is 15 percent, should they do the project?

9. After completing her MBA from IIMC, Sohini will begin working at a Rs. 15, 00, 000

per year job on August 1, 2012. She expects to receive a 5% raise each year until she

retires on August 1, 2042. If the cost of capital is 8%, determine the total present value of

her before-tax earnings.

10. You have been assigned to analyze the profitability of Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography.

Given below are the assumptions made:

a) Sachin will receive a onetime royalty payment of Rs 75 lakhs

b) The fixed cost of producing the hard cover version of the book is Rs 25 lakhs

c) The variable cost of producing each hard cover book is Rs 200

d) The publisher's net from selling each copy of a hardcover is Rs 1000

e) The publisher expects to sell 10 lakh hard cover versions of the book

f) The fixed cost of producing the paperback version of the book is Rs 2 lakhs

g) The variable cost of producing each paperback version is Rs 50

h) The publisher's net from selling each copy of a paperback is Rs 500

i) Paperback sales will be double the hard cover sales

lakh to 50 lakhs

Also determine how the profits of the publisher will vary as the hard cover sales vary

from 1 lakh to 50 lakhs and the ratio of paper back sales to hard cover sales vary from 1

to 2.5

Draw a chart to graphically depict how the publisher's profits vary with the hard cover

sales and the ratio of paper back to hard cover sales

11. The Budhha Airline flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara has a capacity of 250 people. The

airline sold 270 tickets for the flight at a price of Rs. 3000 per ticket. Tickets are non-

refundable. The variable cost of flying a passenger (mostly food costs and fuel costs) is

Rs. 300 per passenger. If more than 250 people show up for the flight, the flight is over-

booked and Budhha Airline must pay overbooking compensation of Rs. 3500 per person

to each overbooked passenger. Develop a worksheet that computes Budhha Airline's

profit based on the number of customers who show up for the flight.

12. A drug company believes a new drug will sell 10,000 units during 2012. They expect two

competitors to enter the market. The year in which the first competitor enters, the

company expects to lose 30 percent of its market share. The year in which the second

competitor enters, the company expects to lose 15 percent of its market share. The size of

the market is growing at 10 percent per year. Given values of the years in which the two

competitors enter, develop a worksheet that computes the annual sales of the company for

the years 2012–2021.

a) How many songs were not sung by Britney Spears?

b) How many songs were played before June 15, 2004?

c) How many songs are longer than the average length of all songs on the list?

d) How many songs were played between June 1, 2004, and July 4, 2006?

e) How many songs were sung by singers whose names begin with M?

f) How many songs were sung by singers whose names contain an e?

g) How many songs sung by Barry Manilow were played in 2004?

h) How many songs at least four minutes long and sung by Mandy Moore were played

in 2007 or earlier?

i) How many songs exactly three minutes long and sung by Britney Spears were

played later than 2004?

j) How many songs were sung by Madonna and play for duration not less than 3

minutes and not more than 4 minutes?

14. The ADDRESS function yields the actual cell address associated with a row and column.

For example, the formula ADDRESS(3,4) yields $D$3. What result would be obtained if

you entered the formula =INDIRECT(ADDRESS(3,4))?

15. Write a formula that will total the entries in the cell range C2:M2 even if you insert one

or more columns between columns C and M.

16. Each row of the table below contains sales data for a product (P1, P2, or P3) from

January through July. Suppose we enter a month and a product into our worksheet. Write
 a formula using OFFSET that will give the total sales of that product during the given

month.

Fe Ma Ap Ma

Product Jan b r r y Jun Jul

P1 128 50 107 86 54 86 89

P3 75 90 139 90 146 88 133

P2 124 146 130 117 144 111 122

P1 135 84 127 61 102 109 127

P1 138 88 92 63 119 60 92

P3 95 60 113 87 138 119 134

P1 104 74 84 126 125 110 77

P2 111 115 146 116 106 71 91

P1 89 106 82 99 86 111 114

17. The Great Threads Company sells hand-knitted sweaters. The company is planning to

print catalog of its products and undertake a direct mail campaign. The cost of printing

the catalog is $20,000 plus $0.10 per catalog. The cost of mailing each catalog (including

postage, order forms, and buying names from a mail order database) is $0.15. In addition,

the company plans to include direct reply envelopes in its mailings and incurs $0.20 in

extra costs for each direct mail envelope used by a respondent. The average size of a

customer order is $40, and the company’s variable cost per order (due primarily to labor
 and material costs) averages about 80% of the order’s value – that is, $32. The company

plans to mail 100,000 catalogs.

18. Bumper is a recently developed specialty chemical with high market potential. It

currently costs Rs. 950 per barrel to produce and would sell for about Rs. 600 per barrel.

An R&D project has been proposed that will take two years, cost Rs. 40 lakhs, and has a

10% chance to reduce the production costs by 50%. If the R&D project succeeds, it will

take another year and Rs. 20 crores to build a manufacturing plant with a capacity of 30

million barrels per year.

You have to advise the company on whether they should go ahead with the project.

You should be concerned only with the direct financial results of the project and therefore

you must take NPV as the outcome measure of the model. Take the discount rate to be

10%. Base your analysis on a time period of 8 years. Ignore taxes and depreciation.

Assume that the company can sell the entire quantity that it produces. If the R&D project

fails the company loses Rs 40 lakhs (they would obviously not build the plant in that

case). If the R&D project succeeds, they may ultimately make an overall profit or loss; at

this point we do not know which one. You should calculate the expected value of the

investment to analyse the project. So, if there is a 10% chance of receiving Rs. 50 lakhs,

and a 90% chance of receiving nothing, we value that uncertain amount as if it were

worth Rs. 5 lakhs (0.1 * 50 + 0.9 * 0)

Draw a tornado chart to depict the influence of the parameters on the outcome measure of

your model. Vary the parameters by +/- 10% (approximately) to draw the tornado chart.
19. It is June and the IPL is down to the final 4 teams. Ravi is a t-shirt vendor who plans to

order t-shirts with the names of the final 4 teams from a manufacturer and then sell them

to the fans. The fixed cost of any order is Rs. 10000, the variable cost per t-shirt to Ravi

is Rs. 200, and Ravi’s selling price is Rs. 500. However, this price will be charged only

after a week of the tournament. After that time, Ravi’s guess is that the interest in t-shirts

will go down. So, he plans to sell all remaining t-shirts at Rs. 150. His best guess is that

the demand for the t-shirts during the full price period will be 1500. He is thinking about

ordering 1400 t-shirts.

Build a spreadsheet model for Ravi which will let him experiment with uncertain

demand and his order quantity.

20. The Zikon company sells a camera for Rs. 15,000. The model is very popular. The

company offers a warranty to the seller such that the camera is replaced free of cost if it

fails within 18 months of purchase. The warranty is not in effect after 18 months. Every

replacement camera carries exactly the same warranty as the original camera. The cost to

Zikon of supplying a new camera is always Rs. 10,000. Zikon wants to estimate the

number of replacements under warranty, and the NPV of profit from sale. Assume the

discount rate to be 10%.

21. Laloo and Pappu (L&P) Construction Company is trying to decide whether to make a bid

on a construction project in Mumbai. L&P believes that if it wins the contract, it will cost

Rs. 60,00,000 to complete the project, and it will cost Rs. 1,50,000 to prepare a bid. Upon

further reflection, L&P assesses that the cost of completion of the project is uncertain.

Although the most likely figure is Rs. 60,00,000, it can be a maximum of Rs 90,00,000,
 and can be a minimum of Rs. 54,00,000. Similarly, the cost of preparing a bid is also

uncertain – the minimum cost could be Rs. 1,00,000 and the maximum cost could be Rs.

2,50,000, the most likely being Rs. 1,50,000. Four competitors are going to bid against

L&P. The lowest bid wins the project and the winner is given the winning bid amount to

complete the project. L&P believes that each potential competitor will bid, independently

of others, with a probability of 0.5. It also believes that each competitor’s bid will be a

multiple of its (L&P’s) most likely cost to complete the project. The multiple is most

likely to be 1.3, with maximum 1.8 and minimum 0.9. If L&P decides to bid, its bid

amount will be a multiple of 5,00,000 in the range Rs. 65,00,000 and Rs. 90,00,000.

Help L&P to decide on the best bid amount.

22. Consider the following tables that contain information related to Sales and Customers. If

we apply Left Anti Join on the two tables, what will be the output? Assume any of the

tables as left table.

If we consider “Customers” table as the left table, what will be the output of right outer

join?

Sales Table

Salesman_id name city Commission

5001 James Hoog New York 0.15

5002 Nail Knite Paris 0.13

5005 Pit Alex London 0.11

5006 Mc Lyon Paris 0.14

5007 Paul Adam Rome 0.13

Customers Table

CustomerI CustName City Grade SalesmanID

3002 Nick New York 100 5001

3007 Brad Davis New York 200 5001

3005 Graham Zusi California 200 5002

3008 Julian Green London 300 5002

3004 Fabian Paris 300 5006

3009 Geoff Berlin 100 5003

3003 Jozy Altidor Moscow 200 5007

3001 Brad Guzan London 100 5005

23. Consider the following cross tab data:

Jan Feb Mar Apr ID

Name1 12 34 56 78 1

name2 14 1 23 12 2
 Name3 16 32 15 32 3

Name4 18 65 54 65 4

Name5 20 98 1 33 5

Convert this data representation into flatfile representation without using “Unpivot

Column” feature of power query. You can use other features of Power Query and excel

functions.

24. Assume we have a data with product code, item name, item size, price and other related

information. We have to search for the a product based on multiple criteria and return the

corresponding price of the item. Use excel functions to find the values of the following

items (Do not use Pivot Table):

Code Item Size Color Website Price

1 Shirt L Red Amazon 100

2 TShirt S Green Flipkart 135

Snapdea

3 Shoe M Blue l 5443

Walmar

4 Pant XL Black t 324

5 JeansShirt L White Amazon 250

6 JeansPant S Yellow Amazon 445

7 FormalShir M Grey Flipkart 223

FormalPan LightGree Snapdea

8 t XL n l 165

9 Shirt L White Flipkart 299

Snapdea

10 TShirt S LightRed l 435

Walmar

11 Shoe M Black t 4500

12 Pant XL Sky Amazon 543

Snapdea

13 JeansShirt L Red l 450

Walmar

14 JeansPant S Green t 599

FormalShir Snapdea

15 t M Blue l 499

FormalPan Walmar

16 t XL DeepBlue t 326

Find the cheapest two items in “Amazon”, “Snapdeal” and “Walmart” using excel

functions.