Introduction to Business

Analytics
Chapter 1

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Introduction
• Three developments spurred recent explosive growth in the use of
analytical methods in business applications:
• First development:
• Technological advances—scanner technology, data collection through e-
commerce, Internet social networks, and data generated from personal
electronic devices—produce incredible amounts of data for businesses
• Businesses want to use these data to improve the efficiency and profitability
of their operations, better understand their customers, price their products
more effectively, and gain a competitive advantage

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Introduction
• Three developments spurred recent explosive growth in the use of
analytical methods in business applications: (contd.)
• Second development:
• Ongoing research has resulted in numerous methodological developments,
including:
• Advances in computational approaches to effectively handle and explore massive amounts
of data
• Faster algorithms for optimization and simulation
• More effective approaches for visualizing data

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Introduction
• Three developments spurred recent explosive growth in the use of
analytical methods in business applications: (contd.)
• Third development:
• The methodological developments were paired with an explosion in
computing power and storage capability
• Better computing hardware, parallel computing, and cloud computing have
enabled businesses to solve big problems faster and more accurately than
ever before

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Figure 1.1:
Analytics Job Trend According to Indeed.com

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Decision Making

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Decision Making
• Managers’ responsibility:
To make strategic, tactical, or operational decisions
• Strategic decisions:
• Involve higher-level issues concerned with the overall direction of the
organization
• Define the organization’s overall goals and aspirations for the future

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Decision Making
• Tactical decisions:
• Concern how the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by
its strategy
• Are usually the responsibility of midlevel management
• Operational decisions:
• Affect how the firm is run from day to day
• Are the domain of operations managers, who are the closest to the customer

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Decision Making
Decision making can be defined as the following process:
1. Identify and define the problem
2. Determine the criteria that will be used to evaluate alternative solutions
3. Determine the set of alternative solutions
4. Evaluate the alternatives
5. Choose an alternative

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Decision Making
Common approaches to making decisions
• Tradition
• Intuition
• Rules of thumb
• Using the relevant data available

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Business Analytics Defined

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Business Analytics Defined
Business analytics:
• Scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions
• Used for data-driven or fact-based decision making, which is often seen as
more objective than other alternatives for decision making

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Business Analytics Defined
Tools of business analytics can aid decision making by:
• Creating insights from data
• Improving our ability to more accurately forecast for planning
• Helping us quantify risk
• Yielding better alternatives through analysis and optimization

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A Categorization on Analytical
Methods and Models
Descriptive Analytics
Predictive Analytics
Prescriptive Analytics

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
• Descriptive analytics: Encompasses the set of techniques that
describes what has happened in the past; examples:
• Data queries
• Reports
• Descriptive statistics
• Data visualization (including data dashboards)
• Data-mining techniques
• Basic what-if spreadsheet models
• Data query: A request for information with certain characteristics
from a database

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
• Data dashboards: Collections of tables, charts, maps, and summary
statistics that are updated as new data become available
• Uses of dashboards
• To help management monitor specific aspects of the company’s performance
related to their decision-making responsibilities
• For corporate-level managers, daily data dashboards might summarize sales by
region, current inventory levels, and other company-wide metrics
• Front-line managers may view dashboards that contain metrics related to
staffing levels, local inventory levels, and short-term sales forecasts

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
• Predictive analytics: Consists of techniques that use models
constructed from past data to predict the future or ascertain the
impact of one variable on another
• Survey data and past purchase behavior may be used to help predict
the market share of a new product

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
Techniques used in Predictive Analytics:
• Linear regression
• Time series analysis
• Data mining is used to find patterns or relationships among elements of the
data in a large database; often used in predictive analytics
• Simulation involves the use of probability and statistics to construct a
computer model to study the impact of uncertainty on a decision

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
Prescriptive Analytics: Indicates a best course of action to take
• Optimization models: Models that give the best decision subject to
constraints of the situation
Model Field Purpose
Portfolio models Finance Use historical investment return data to determine
the mix of investments that yield the highest
expected return while controlling or limiting
exposure to risk

Supply network Operations Provide the cost-minimizing plant and distribution

design models center locations subject to meeting the customer
service requirements

Price markdown Retailing Uses historical data to yield revenue-maximizing

models discount levels and the timing of discount offers
when goods have not sold as planned

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A Categorization of Analytical Methods and
Models
Prescriptive Analytics (contd.)
• Simulation optimization: Combines the use of probability and statistics to
model uncertainty with optimization techniques to find good decisions in
highly complex and highly uncertain
• Decision analysis
• Used to develop an optimal strategy when a decision maker is faced with several
decision alternatives and an uncertain set of future events
• Employs utility theory, which assigns values to outcomes based on the decision maker’s
attitude toward risk, loss, and other factors

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Big Data
Volume Variety
Velocity Veracity

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Big Data
Big data: A set of data that cannot be managed, processed, or analyzed
with commonly available software in a reasonable amount of time
• Represents opportunities
• Presents challenges in terms of data storage and processing, security, and
available analytical talent
• More companies are hiring data scientists who know how to process and
analyze massive amounts of data

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Figure 1.2: The 4 Vs of Big Data

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Big Data
• The four Vs have led to new technologies
• Hadoop: An open-source programming environment that supports big data
processing through distributed storage and processing over multiple
computers
• MapReduce: A programming model used within Hadoop that performs two
major steps: the map step and the reduce step
• Data security: The protection of stored data from destructive forces
or unauthorized users

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Business Analytics in Practice
Financial Analytics Supply-Chain Analytics
Human Resource (HR) Analytics Analytics for Government and
Marketing Analytics Nonprofits
Health Care Analytics Sports Analytics
Web Analytics

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Figure 1.3:
The Spectrum of Business Analytics

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Predictive and prescriptive analytics are sometimes referred to as
advanced analytics
• Financial analytics
• Use of predictive models to:
• Forecast future financial performance
• Assess the risk of investment portfolios and projects
• Construct financial instruments such as derivatives
• Construct optimal portfolios of investments
• Allocate assets
• Create optimal capital budgeting plans
• Simulation is also often used to assess risk in the financial sector
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Business Analytics in Practice
Human resource (HR) analytics
• New area of application for analytics
• The HR function is charged with ensuring that the organization:
• Has the mix of skill sets necessary to meet its needs
• Is hiring the highest-quality talent and providing an environment that retains it
• Achieves its organizational diversity goals

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Business Analytics in Practice
Marketing analytics
• Marketing is one of the fastest growing areas for the application of analytics
• A better understanding of consumer behavior through the use of scanner
data and data generated from social media has led to an increased interest in
marketing analytics

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Business Analytics in Practice
Marketing analytics (contd.)
• A better understanding of consumer behavior through marketing analytics
leads to:
• Better use of advertising budgets
• More effective pricing strategies
• Improved forecasting of demand
• Improved product line management
• Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty

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Figure 1.4: Google Trends for Marketing, Financial,
and Human Resource(HR) Analytics, 2006–2015

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Health care analytics
• Descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics are used to improve:
• Patient, staff, and facility scheduling
• Patient flow
• Purchasing
• Inventory control
• Use of prescriptive analytics for diagnosis and treatment

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Supply chain analytics
• The core service of companies such as UPS and FedEx is the efficient delivery
of goods, and analytics has long been used to achieve efficiency
• The optimal sorting of goods, vehicle and staff scheduling, and vehicle routing
are all key to profitability for logistics companies such as UPS, FedEx, and
others like them
• Companies can benefit from better inventory and processing control and
more efficient supply chains

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Analytics for government to:
• Drive out inefficiencies
• Increase the effectiveness and accountability of programs
• Analytics for nonprofit agencies to ensure their effectiveness and
accountability to their donors and clients

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Sports analytics
• Professional sports teams use to:
• Assess players for the amateur drafts
• Decide how much to offer players in contract negotiations
• Professional motorcycle racing teams that use sophisticated optimization for
gearbox design to gain competitive advantage
• Teams use to assist with on-field decisions such as which pitchers to use in
various games of a MLB playoff series

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Business Analytics in Practice
• Sports analytics (contd.)
• The use of analytics for off-the-field business decisions is also increasing
rapidly
• Using prescriptive analytics, franchises across several major sports
dynamically adjust ticket prices throughout the season to reflect the relative
attractiveness and potential demand for each game

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Business Analytics in Practice
Web analytics
• The analysis of online activity, which includes, but is not limited to, visits to
web sites and social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn
• Leading companies apply descriptive and advanced analytics to data collected
in online experiments to determine the best way to:
• Configure web sites
• Position ads
• Utilize social networks for the promotion of products and services

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