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An investor has purchased a share of Cisco stock and wants to protect himself from some downside risk using the stop-loss trading strategy. However, he doesn't want to sell the stock prematurely based on short-term price fluctuations. What is the best threshold for the stop-loss strategy? How does it compare to the holding strategy?

Excel spreadsheet for instructors.

The newly appointed director of Surgical Business Analytics has been charged with the task of improving predictions of surgical case volume at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He is provided with 48 weeks of elective surgery schedule data that give the number of surgeries booked on specific dates prior to the surgery day and the actual number performed. Variation in daily operating room volumes is a major problem because of the mismatch in timing between when the staff schedules are made and when the final demand is known (usually the day before). This uncertainty creates staffing challenges for all support and ancillary services, including nurses, orderlies, anesthesiologists, the recovery room, pathology, radiology and the sterile cart centre. Can he develop a method to improve surgical case volume prediction that is actionable in a managerially useful time frame? How can he engage and approach stakeholders who may often consider "analytics," "data analysis" and "computations" as a black hole?

Excel spreadsheet for instructors.

Spreadsheet for product 9B15C017.

The head of Performance and Rewards at Tata Motors Limited (TML) was reviewing the reports before him and deliberating their implications. The company had just embarked on a major initiative to identify employees' concerns and the results were not good. Employees across all levels, including senior leadership, were unclear about their compensation. The employees were not the only ones who were puzzled; even the recruitment team at TML had no clear basis for determining and comparing the salaries of new recruits. It was obvious that something needed to be done. Should it be a major restructuring of the compensation or could the matter be solved by simply educating the employees? Should the company remove some of the components from its compensation structure and make it simpler? If so, which components could be dropped and which should be retained?

Instructor spreadsheet for product 8B14M127.

Spreadsheet for product 8B15D004.

Spreadsheet for product 9B15D004.

In June 2014, Chartered Speed Private Limited, the contract provider for the much acclaimed Bus Rapid Transit System of Ahmedabad, India, would like to improve customer service in order to position itself strongly during upcoming contract renewal talks with Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited, the municipal body responsible for the system. Buses arrive at the company's workshops during the night for daily repairs and leave the next morning for their scheduled runs. However, given time and resource constraints, bus departures may either be delayed or buses may have to leave the workshop without the scheduled repair operations. Moreover, there is a long list of deficiencies with the buses or drivers and of incidents, such as accidents or breakdowns, that can result in financial penalties to the company. How should maintenance activities be designed to minimize the penalty losses and guarantee high customer service levels?

Two recently graduated MBA students are tasked with developing an ad-serving learning algorithm for a mobile ad-serving company. The case illustrates the way in which hypotheses can be tested in an A/B format or "horse race" in order to establish customer preferences and superior profitability. The case was written for a course elective covering hypothesis testing.

Student spreadsheet for W15085.

Student spreadsheet for case W15079.

Excel spreadsheet for instructors.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

Instructor spreadsheet for product 8B14N038.

Student spreadsheet for product 9B14N038.

Joe Smith, senior director of merchandise management at Beautiful Bags (BB), was about to place a large order for the upcoming winter season. He had to decide how many pieces he should order of each product. But another big question whether BB should source the product from its domestic manufacturing facility, its Chinese suppliers, or some combination of the two given the timing needs, labor costs, minimum order requirements, and BB's expanding product assortment?

Student spreadsheet for W14730.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 214048.