Business Analytics

Catalog description

Advances in computational technologies, coupled with the massive amounts of data available through business activities as well as the surrounding ecosystems, have created an amazing potential for managers to leverage analytics in order to gain organizational and competitive advantages. This course takes a two-fold approach to address Analytics Methodologies. The first section of the course provides a broad understanding of business analytics and the second section demonstrates the managerial best practices for leveraging the analytics. The course covers concepts such as analytics problem framing, data understanding & preparation, as well as descriptive & predictive modeling. The course incorporates applications and real-world datasets from marketing and other business disciplines for a hands-on learning experience. Best practices derived from cases are also incorporated into the course structure in order to learn the strategies required to implement and manage analytics initiatives in businesses. Students are initially introduced to business analytics through a series of examples, use cases, and applications. Next, descriptive analytics through the use of dashboard and business reporting techniques is presented as a means for business performance management. Following this, the overall predictive analytics process is explained with emphasis on framing the analytics problem from an understanding business context. Additionally, fundamental predictive modeling concepts are covered concurrently with the introduction of exemplary modeling techniques. Students then receive an opportunity to apply these techniques through the use of different problem scenarios and real-world datasets. Related topics including overfitting, and visualizing model performance are covered as well. Students are presented an expected value framework to assist approaching business problems with a decision-analytic perspective. The course also covers managerial aspects of integrating business analytics within the enterprise by linking business strategy to business analytics initiatives. Approaches to initiate, manage, and sustain analytics initiatives to gain a competitive advantage are discussed with cases. At the end of the course, students are expected to have the competencies required to analyze possible opportunities for leveraging analytics across the boundaries of functional business domains as well as applying key analytic techniques and interpreting results for decision-making.