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MN50550: Business analytics

Follow this link for further information on academic years Academic Year: 2015/6
Further information on owning departmentsOwning Department/School: School of Management
Further information on credits Credits: 6
Further information on unit levels Level: Masters UG & PG (FHEQ level 7)
Further information on teaching periods Period: Semester 2
Further information on unit assessment Assessment Summary: CW 40%, EX 60%
Further information on unit assessment Assessment Detail:
  • Coursework (CW 40%)
  • Examination (EX 60%)
Further information on supplementary assessment Supplementary Assessment: Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations)
Further information on requisites Requisites:
Further information on descriptions Description: Aims:
The availability of high quality and voluminous data, has increased and renewed interest in analytics, a discipline that is redefining how organisational decisions are being made and managed. Today¿s business is eagerly looking for those with analytical skills able to understand and analyse data and draw insights that support and determine the way decisions are made. This unit aims to equip students with analytical thinking, problem solving skills and a spectrum of modern analytics tools and techniques that assist the process of decision making in a number of business areas including finance, marketing and operations management.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the unit students should be able to:
* Recognise the role that analytics techniques can play in the solution of management problems.
* Identify problems that are amenable to these techniques.
* Understand and apply the key statistical techniques that underpin business analytics.
* Communicate effectively with specialists in management science and operational research.

Skills:
Intellectual skills:
* the ability to apply specific statistical knowledge to a range of managerial situations, (T/F/A)
* a critical awareness of business analytics frameworks (T/F/A)
* the ability to acquire and analyse data, information and situations; to evaluate relevance and validity, and to synthesise it in the context of topical business problems (A)
Professional Practical skills:
* evaluate the potential range and value of various Business Analytics approaches (T/F)
* operate effectively both independently as well as within teams and assume leadership roles where appropriate (F)
Transferable/Key skills:
* openness and capacity to continue learning with the ability to reflect on earlier knowledge and practice and integrate the new with past experience and effectively apply it to the present situations (T/F)
Personal/Interpersonal:
* an ability to manage and work in teams with an awareness of issues such as culture and gender, to identify learning/working styles and to use these to the benefit of the individual and the team (F)
* the facility to prepare and produce effective business reports (T/F/A).

Content:
The unit covers a spectrum of fundamental methods and techniques to answer three basic questions; What happened? What will happen? and What should happen?. Towards this end, the course consists of three parts; the descriptive, the predictive and the prescriptive analytics/decision analysis. The descriptive part tackles the question "what happened", and focuses on the analysis of data in order to analyse and understand the past and current state. The predictive analytics address the question "what will happen", by using quantitative modelling techniques to estimate temporal relationships and identify the risks based on a set of input data. The last part of the course, the prescriptive/decision analysis answers the question of "what decisions must be made" such that to maximise efficiency, effectiveness, profitability or other relevant objectives through the use of quantitative methods. Below some of the main topics (among others) covered in this unit are given:
* Descriptive statistics
* Probability distributions
* Regression analysis
* Prediction techniques
* Simulation
* Decision trees
* Optimisation.
Further information on programme availabilityProgramme availability:

MN50550 is Compulsory on the following programmes:

Department of Chemistry
  • USCH-AFM07 : MSci(Hons) Chemistry with Management (Year 4)
  • USCH-AKM07 : MSci(Hons) Chemistry with Management with Industrial Placement (Year 5)
School of Management

MN50550 is Optional on the following programmes:

School of Management
Notes:
* This unit catalogue is applicable for the 2015/16 academic year only. Students continuing their studies into 2016/17 and beyond should not assume that this unit will be available in future years in the format displayed here for 2015/16.
* Programmes and units are subject to change at any time, in accordance with normal University procedures.
* Availability of units will be subject to constraints such as staff availability, minimum and maximum group sizes, and timetabling factors as well as a student's ability to meet any pre-requisite rules.