Learning Outcomes:

• Discuss the evolution of business analytics.
• Identify key business problems and critical assumptions for business analysis.
• Explain the entire process of developing useful business analytics results from data.
• Describe the roles and challenges of using spreadsheet modeling.
• Develop the influence chart.
• Explain the principles and guidelines of spreadsheet and workbook design.

Overview

Business analytics has been used intensively and extensively by financial institutions, marketers, retailers, and manufacturers. The advancement of technologies and the richness of data from various sources have made it more accessible and affordable to support the decision-making process throughout the whole business process. Spreadsheet modeling, being versatile and flexible, provides cheaper and more powerful analytical solutions to organizations. It is able to cope with most modeling tasks in order to address the important business problems in the organization.

This unit introduces readers to the evolution and process of business analytics as well as the background knowledge of spreadsheet modeling. Roles and challenges of using spreadsheet modeling are also highlighted. In addition, principles and guidelines to design, build, and test spreadsheet models are discussed in this unit.