Analytical Problem Solving

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate

Operations Research and Analytics enable organizations to turn complex challenges into opportunities. They transform data into information, and information into insights for making better decisions and improving results. There are three types of analytics: - Descriptive Analytics gives insight into past events, using historical data and provides an answer to the question: “What happened?” - Predictive Analytics provides insight on what will happen in the future and answers the question: “What should we expect to happen in the future?” - Prescriptive Analytics helps with decision making by providing actionable advice and answers the question: “How should we respond now given what could happen in the future?” In statistics, you learned tools for Descriptive and some tools for Predictive Analytics. In this course, you will learn the tools of Prescriptive Analytics. Specifically, in this course, you will learn and apply quantitative modeling for solving complex business problems and making better decisions. You will learn how to identify the most important data, consider all available options, weigh difficult tradeoffs, estimate risk, and apply the best decision tools. You will apply what you learn in your finance, operations, marketing, strategy, and other courses. You will learn how to understand results of quantitative analysis, how to draw qualitative insights from it, and how to communicate your findings. We will use Excel (and selected Excel Add-Ins) as the platform for building and using quantitative models and as an incidental benefit, you will become a more proficient Excel user.