Question

The University of Cincinnati Center for Business Analytics is an outreach center that collaborates with industry partners on applied research and continuing education in business analytics. One of the programs offered by the center is a quarterly Business Intelligence Symposium. Each symposium features three speakers on the real-world use of analytics. Each of the corporate members of the center (there are currently 10) receives five free seats to each symposium. Nonmembers wishing to attend must pay $75 per person. Each attendee receives breakfast, lunch, and free parking. The following are the costs incurred for putting on this event:

Rental cost for the auditorium:	$150
Registration Processing:	$8.50	per person
Speaker Costs: 3@$800	$2,400
Continental Breakfast:	$4.00	per person
Lunch:	$7.00	per person
Parking:	$5.00	per person

(a)

The Center for Business Analytics is considering a refund policy for no-shows. No refund would be given for members who do not attend, but for nonmembers who do not attend, 50% of the price will be refunded. Build a spreadsheet model in Excel that calculates a profit or loss based on the number of nonmember registrants. Extend the model you developed for the Business Intelligence Symposium to account for the fact that historically, 25% of members who registered do not show and 10% of registered nonmembers do not attend. The center pays the caterer for breakfast and lunch based on the number of registrants (not the number of attendees). However, the center only pays for parking for those who attend. What is the profit if each corporate member registers their full allotment of tickets and 127 nonmembers register?

If required, round your answers to two decimal places.

(b) Use a two-way data table to show how profit changes as a function of number of registered nonmembers and the no-show percentage of nonmembers. Vary number of nonmember registrants from 80 to 160 in increments of 5 and the percentage of nonmember no-shows from 10% to 30% in increments of 2%. In which interval of nonmember registrants does breakeven occur if the percentage of nonmember no-shows is 22%?

Answer 1

Answer a).