Applied Business Analytics and Decisions

Applied Business Analytics and Decisions --- Objective: Strategic and tactical decisions problems that firms face became too complex to solve by naive intuition and heuristics. Increasingly, making business decisions requires "intelligent" and "data oriented" decisions, aided by decision support tools and analytics. The ability to make such decisions and use available tools is critical for both managers and firms. In recent years, the toolbox of business analytics has grown. These tools provide the ability to make decisions supported by data and models. This course prepares students to model and manage business decisions with data analytics and decision models. Specifically, the course aims to achieve the following goals: A. To develop the ability to identify key drivers in business decisions and develop analytical models for prediction and prescription. B. To learn a variety of tools and techniques for a range of tactical, operational, and strategic business decision problems that apply in a broad range of problems. C. To develop the ability to communicate the results and findings of analytical solutions to different. Specifically, the course will cover descriptive analytics (e.g., data visualization, query, data slicing), predictive analytics (e.g., forecasting, classification, simulation), and prescriptive analytics (e.g., optimization). Examples include decision problems in supply chain and logistics, retail revenue management, finance, and risk management.