BUSOBA 2321 – Group Exercise

2025 Spring Semester

Due Monday, April 21st at 11:59pm

· File Name (1%) – Save your solution as “BusOBA 2321 – Group XXX” – inserting your 3-digit group number for the “XXX”

· Cover Page (4%) – add all team members names and dot numbers as indicated.

o List names in alphabetical order by last name

o No more than 4 members to a group; your assigned group is available on Carmen.

o If a member does not contribute, do not include their name on the cover sheet.

o If a team member is unresponsive or inaccessible through Monday, April 14^th, let your instructor know and that person will be dropped from your group.

o Individual submissions will be accepted but will incur a 20% deduction from the grade earned, unless otherwise discussed with your professor.

· There are 4 problems: a decision-making problem, a decision tree, an optimization and sensitivity analysis, and a network model.

· Submit the worksheet via Carmen.

o 1 submission per group using the provided template.

· Your submission includes 9 total worksheets:

o Cover sheet – 1 sheet

o Decision making - 1 sheet

o Decision tree – 2 sheets

o Optimization/Sensitivity – 4 sheets

§ “Problem 3 Table” requires no work but must be included.

o Transshipment – 1 sheet

· Up to 20% will be deducted for “non-professional” reports – neatness and formatting count.

· Incomplete assignments will receive a grade of zero.

· Should the grader feel a poor effort was made the entire assignment will receive a zero.

· If the assignment is submitted late all members will receive a reduction of 33% per day.

· Solver MUST be complete (i.e., executable) for problem 3 and 4 in your final submission or you will receive a ZERO for each problem that is missing the solver details!
If group members used Excel Online to share the excel workbook with group members or if a problem was copied from another workbook, the solver program may not transfer with the copied/shared files.  Each group is responsible for checking its final submission to ensure that solver is properly filled out for each problem.  Should solver be missing or not run for a problem the group will receive a zero for the problem.  It is advised to complete the group exercise in Teams rather than trying to combine various files.

· Some advice for completing the Group Exercise

o The Group Exercise is designed to be COMPREHENSIVE – to include almost everything covered in the course.

o The Group Exercise is designed to IMPROVE YOUR ABILITY TO USE THE COURSE MATERIAL, to solve problems, to apply simple logic and algebraic principles in the solution of business issues.

o The Group Exercise provides all the information you require to solve the problem, but not always in a straightforward array of data – you may have to THINK THROUGH THE PROBLEM.

o The Group Exercise includes somewhat complex problems which are designed to be completed through DISCUSSION AND COLLABORATION.

o The Group Exercise is designed to PREPARE YOU FOR THE FINAL EXAM.

o The Group Exercise is not designed as a DIVIDE AND CONQUER assignment – assigning individual group members to an individual problem, then assembling these individual efforts into a finished project will not be in any group member’s best interest.

· Work together, work early.  You will be given chances to work with your group during lecture and recitation, where instructors and TAs are available to help you.  During these sessions, and during office hours, we will easily recognize those who have not put any work or thought into the assignment and we will defer helping you until we feel you have put work and thought into the project.

· And, in case you missed our earlier subtle hints:

Question 1 Decision Analysis

The OSU Athletic Department is trying to sell tickets to their fanbase for the National Championship. The CFP committee has given OSU Athletic Department a ticket inventory of 45,000 tickets to sell on a variety of ticket platforms including StubHub, Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats, Seat Geek, OSU Facebook Groups, and GroupMe. The OSU Athletic Director, Owen, must create a payoff table to decide which ticket platforms to allocate the ticket inventory to maximize profitability. The ticket demand is affected by four different scenarios:

· The first scenario involves quarterbacks for Ohio State and Notre Dame both suffering season ending injuries in the week leading up to the championship game. Since both starting QBs are injured, demand is low for the game on established platforms.

· The second scenario includes Lou Holtz tweeting, “If Notre Dame doesn't win, it's because we want to preserve Ryan Day's job. I was originally going to be at the game in spirit, but now I'll be dragging my body along as well”.  Some fans think Lou Holz was being rude and therefore do want to attend the game.

· The third scenario involves the OSU Dance Team winning the UDA National Championship just days before the football national championship. This has boosted morale for Ohio State fans who want to see multiple national championships, so the game has moderately high demand.

· Lastly, Notre Dame cornerbacks decided to verbally state they will be playing man coverage against OSU’s receiving core (Jeremiah Smith reposted). Both groups of fans are excited about the matchup, especially with the players talking smack before. Demand is high for the game.

Conditions and Constraints:

The OSU Athletic Department has provided four potential market scenarios, each influenced by factors such as consumer behavior, platform. costs, and OSU policy.

· Processing Fee:

o The website traffic will determine the processing fees implemented on each website.

o IF the website traffic is moderate, there will be no fee.

o IF the website traffic is high, the processing fee will be added as a percentage of sales price.

· OSU Discount Policy:

o OSU made a deal with Ticketmaster & StubHub to provide a $50 discount per ticket to encourage fans to go and support the team in certain scenarios. (Hint: Refer to Market Scenario Table)

PLEASE FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS ON THE EXCEL TEMPLATE FOR EACH PART!!!

**Note** Many of these scenarios did occur in real life, for the context of the problem treat each scenario independent from one another.

Ticket Demand per Market Scenario: