Despite the political changes last year, the US remained the most popular country for investors. The A.T. Kearney 2017 Foreign Direct Investor Confidence Index listed the top 25 countries for FDI. Germany moved from fourth to second position in the index and China fell from second to third. The UK moved up to fourth position even after the Brexit referendum was factored in. The chart below shows the score (on a three point scale) of the top 25 countries and the table next to the chart shows the ranking of the top 25 over the last three years.
I chose this chart to show the power and versatility of Mekko Graphics. There is a similar chart in the Kearney report. To create it, I input the data from the report into a spreadsheet with each country as a separate row. In the row, I entered the 2017 index and the rankings for 2015-17. I then created additional columns called moved up, moved down and maintained ranking. I copied my data from the index column into one of the three new columns for each country. As an alternative, I could have used Excel IF formulas to place the data into the correct column.
I then used the switch bars/series button in the Mekko Graphics datasheet to make each row a bar and each column a series. I also indicated that the three ranking columns should be data columns. I switched the orientation of the chart so that the bars would appear from top to bottom and not from left to right. I now had three data columns to the right of my chart.
I hid the Y axis line and tick marks and set its maximum to 2.5 and its tick interval to .5. I showed grid lines and added a legend, which I moved into the bottom right of the chart.
I then adjusted my left margin to make room for my data columns on the left of the chart, selected all my data column labels and moved them all to the left. I then adjusted my right margin to make the chart stretch to the right border of its container.
I added an X and a Y axis title to get the words Ranking and Score onto the chart. I positioned the labels and bolded them along with the 2017 rankings.
Overall, the chart required some manipulation to get it into its current shape. The effort took just a few minutes and produced a high quality deliverable.
Here is the chart in SlideShare to download and edit using Mekko Graphics: