🧠 Lab Insight
There are many reasons why businesses forecast future performance. For example:
- A company might forecast sales to estimate production needs
- It might forecast cash flows to determine whether a loan is necessary
- Investors may forecast earnings to evaluate a company’s investment potential
In this lab, your goal is to:
- Use Excel’s Forecast Sheet to project IBM’s future sales
- Use Excel’s Forecast Sheet to project future income before extraordinary items
We will work with quarterly data from 2010 to 2021, and generate forecasts for 2022, 2023, and 2024.
⚙️ What You Need to Do
Use Excel’s Forecast Sheet to:
- Forecast IBM's quarterly sales for 2022–2024
- Forecast IBM's quarterly income before extraordinary items for 2022–2024
- Take screenshots of both forecast charts
- Paste the screenshots into a Word document
📎 Submission Instructions
- 📂 Download the data file from Canvas
- 🧮 Complete the analysis in Excel
- 📷 Take screenshots of:
- IBM quarterly sales forecast charts and forecast statistics table
- IBM quarterly income before extraordinary items forecast charts and forecast statistics table
- 📄 Paste your screenshots and write-up into a Word document (see next section)
📝 Short Write-Up Requirement
At the end of your Word document, include a brief write-up answering the following:What will IBM’s 2022, 2023, and 2024 quarterly sales and earnings be, based on the time series data from 2010 to 2021? Then, briefly share the story behind your forecast.
Your write-up should explain how this forecast might help:- Management (e.g., in budgeting or strategic planning)
- Investors
- Lenders