Effective Business Decisions Using Data Analysis

Section One: Setting the Statistical Scene in Management

• Introduction; The quantitative landscape in management
• Thinking statistically about applications in management (identifying KPIs)
• The integrative elements of data analytics
• Data: The raw material of data analytics (types, quality and data preparation)
• Exploratory data analysis using excel (pivot tables)
• Using summary tables and visual displays to profile sample data

 Section Two: Evidence-based Observational Decision Making

• Numeric descriptors to profile numeric sample data
• Central and non-central location measures
• Quantifying dispersion in sample data
• Examine the distribution of numeric measures (skewness and bimodal)
• Exploring relationships between numeric descriptors
• Breakdown analysis of numeric measures

Section Three:  Statistical Decision Making – Drawing Inferences from Sample Data

• The foundations of statistical inference
• Quantifying uncertainty in data – the normal probability distribution
• The importance of sampling in inferential analysis
• Sampling methods (random-based sampling techniques)
• Understanding the sampling distribution concept
• Confidence interval estimation

Section Four:  Statistical Decision Making – Drawing Inferences from Hypotheses Testing

• The rationale of hypotheses testing
• The hypothesis testing process and types of errors
• Single population tests (tests for a single mean)
• Two independent population tests of means
• Matched pairs test scenarios
• Comparing means across multiple populations

Section Five:  Predictive Decision Making – Statistical Modeling and Data Mining

• Exploiting statistical relationships to build prediction-based models
• Model building using regression analysis
• Model building process – the rationale and evaluation of regression models
• Data mining overview – its evolution
• Descriptive data mining – applications in management
• Predictive (goal-directed) data mining – management applications