Edmentum Algebra2 Unit9 Activity

Every year, a pet food company sells its food to stores across the nation. Some of these stores are new customers, and some are returning customers. For the coming year, the company has set a strategic initiative to increase the proportion of its sales to new stores.

The sales director is conducting research to determine whether the company’s sales representatives need additional training to accomplish the company’s goals. Based on experience from the previous year, the sales director has constructed the statistical model shown in the table. This model reflects projections of sales orders from new and current stores for the coming year, broken down by the company’s sales regions.

Sales Goals
Current Stores (%)​ New Stores (%)
Midwest 85 15
South 74 26
Northeast 83 17
During the first month of the new year, the sales director collected data on the sales orders for a random sample of sales representatives within each region. Assume that sales representatives work in only one region.

Suppose the pet food company’s strategy is to increase the proportion of sales orders from new stores in each region to 25% during the coming year.

Consider the data and proportions of sales from new stores for each region in the first month. Do you think additional training is necessary for all of the sales representatives? Why or why not?

The purpose of the sales director’s study is to determine whether attending the training program caused an increase in sales for representatives from the two regions. So the sales director collected sales data from both groups (those receiving training and those receiving no training) for three months after the one-month program and compared the number of orders secured by those who attended the training program with the number of orders secured by those who didn’t attend.

Suppose there are 1,000 total sales representatives in the Midwest and Northeast regions, with 500 sales reps in each region. Describe the best way for the sales director to include 200 sales representatives, with an equal number from each region and an equal number in each group, while yielding valid conclusions in the study.

For three months after the training program, the sales director collected the sales data for the 200 sales representatives from the Midwest and Northeast regions. The director then broke down the number of sales orders for the representatives according to whether they received training or not. This data is shown in the table.

Three Months’ Sales Orders​
Training​​ No Training​
Midwest 234 196
Northeast 252 178