Analytics for Decision Making

Do you want to learn how to avoid making bad data decisions?

A competitive advantage in business can be achieved by making good data decisions. This course in statistics and data analysis will teach you the basics of statistical thinking. It can be used in many contexts, sometimes even before data is available. We will highlight key concepts such as understanding variation, perceiving relative risks of different decisions and pinpointing the sources of variation.

These big-picture ideas are what have driven the development of quantitative modeling. However, traditional statistics courses tend to hide these concepts behind many small techniques and computations. This course focuses on the important ideas and illustrates them with practical and accessible examples.

Questions such as: Are traditional statistical methods still applicable to modern analytics applications? What can we do to avoid common misunderstandings and fallacies in approaching quantitative problems? How can statistical methods be applied to predictive applications? Analytics can help us gain a better understanding about customer engagement.

Anyone who wants to be able to make good decisions will find this course useful. Students with a bachelor's degree in business will find this course useful preparation.

Analytics is a hot field. While certain software packages or techniques may help you land your first job, they may soon be obsolete and replaced with something more modern and trendy. It is difficult to understand how quantitative models work. However, it is something that managers will need to be able to do.

This course is part the Business Principles and Entrepreneurial Thought XSeries.