Baldwin – glad to hear the team is working well together! The strategic overview slide was fine. The forecast versus actual slide actually had a few issues. First, you misinterpreted the variance — your sales variance was unfavorable since your forecasted (planned) sales was higher than your actuals. In other words, your actuals didn’t achieve your planned values, therefore the variance was unfavorable. Contribution margin and net profit were also unfavorable as your actuals were lower than forecasted. For the cost-focused metrics on this page, you should be using the percent of sales figures to assess how you did on these items as they are heavily influenced by the actual sales figure. Your percent of sales figures were missing from the slide, and they were given in the sample presentation. Also, pronunciation was incorrect for most of the sales figures you provided. The correct pronunciation of $132,569.00 is “One Hundred Thirty Two Point 6 million”, not the way you said it. The comparative industry analysis slide was also problematic as it didn’t follow the format I provided in the video in the Week 4 Modules section. Please follow the format given in the Week 4 Module video. Plus the audio was so quiet I couldn’t hear it. The audio should be checked by the person delivering the slide, and then again by the team leader to ensure it’s audible. If not audible, you need to record it a second time until the audio is loud and clear. Your cash from operating activities slide had operating spelled wrong in the slide title. Also, you said your costs went up when the cash from operating activities increased in 2024. If the numbers increased in 2024, this means you had high sales to cover expenses, not high expenses — the operating income slide is an indication of overall cash generated from operating activities, not an expense measure all by itself. Cash from operating activities was still positive in the last year, but lower than 2024 — you should say “why”. Below is an analysis presentation helper that describes which elements affect the various cash flow statements. This is simply a different perspective on the document I gave you in Week 3 for the analysis presentation quiz. Please review it for the next week’s analysis presentation so you can get the causes of spikes and valleys in your cash flow statements correct. https://devryu.instructure.com/courses/79297/files?preview=12058190 The cashflow from investing activities was well constructed and free of spelling errors. You also correctly identified plant improvements as the reason you had a cash outflow in 2024. But you mistakenly said the cash out flow in 2025 was due to no activity. This is incorrect as no activity would mean cash from investing activities would be zero. Also, please be specific in future deliveries of this presentation about the specific products in which you invested in capacity and automation. The cash flow from financing slide was properly constructed, but when I pressed the audio play button the audio ran with no talking — it was if someone didn’t have their microphone on. Again, this should be checked by both the presenter and the team captain to make sure all slides are audible. For the ending cash balance slide, you pronounced the 2024 ending cash balance incorrectly — it should be pronounced 21.8 million, not 21815 as you said it. When working with big numbers you should indicate the millions as they appear and the thousands as a point “x” number. You should have also indicated your closing cash position in 2025 was due to an emergency loan (the most common cause of a zero ending cash balance). The stock performance slide was well explained, but I would like to see you use the stock price percent change as your data in Weeks 5 and beyond. No points were lost for this, but the percentage change from year tells a better story than the absolute dollar value of the stock price. Your future plans slide was good except for the financing section, you looked back at how you replaced long term debt with short term debt to get a lower interest rate — that was not forward looking as the content on this slide should be. Please touch up the areas that need attention for your Week 5 presentation so you can keep progressing. The presentations are repetitive in Weeks, 4, 5, 6, and 8, so taking this feedback to heart for subsequent weeks when the points values get higher and higher will assist you in creating a truly excellent presentation. As always, I’m available for help or to answer questions…. Professor Ward
Brent Ward , Mar 28 at 5:14pm
