Introduction to the

Business Data Analytics

OIM7502-B

Module leader: Dr Kamran Mahroof

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Dr Kamran Mahroof
Associate Professor in Supply Chain Analytics

Programme leader:
MSc Applied AI and Data Analytics
BSc (Hons) Management & Business Analytics
BSc (Hons) Finance & Business Analytics
hello!
Outreach Lead – FoMLSS
SAS Analytics Champion

UoB Lecturer of Year 2021

VC Outstanding Achievement Award Winner 2021
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 What are your expectations?

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 Aims of module
• 1. Provide critical awareness of the nature of significance and
role of data analytics for businesses to stimulate appreciation on
their value in business decision making

• 2. Apply techniques for data analysis and modelling, including

statistics and predictive analytics

• 3. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding on usage of data

analytics tools for complex business decisions

• 4. Communicate findings effectively to specialist and non-

specialist audiences.

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 Topics
• Descriptive analytics
• Data visualization
• Bi-variate statistical analyses (e.g. correlation test, chi-square
test)
• ANOVA
• Predictive analytics (e.g. Simple/multiple linear regression)
• Data analytics and Business Intelligence tools
• Data-driven Decision-Making for Businesses
• Big Data and Social Network Analytics
• Use of specialist software for analytics (e.g. SAS)
• Legal and ethical issues surrounding data gathering, use and
management

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 Module overview
On-campus weekly lectures
3rd October 2022– 9th January 2023

On-campus weekly seminars

3rd October – 3rd November

Online SAS labs

14th November – 11th January 2023

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 Career booster week

Week commencing 24th October

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 Module assessments

Formative assessment
• 300 word draft outline of final assessment

Summative assessments
i) MCQ (30%)– Individual
ii) Group Report (50%) and Presentation (20%)

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 Learning Objectives
• Gain an overview of Business Data Analytics

• Understand the evolution of Decision Support System (DSS)

• Learn the conceptual foundations of the DSS methodology

• Describe the Business Intelligence (BI) methodology and

concepts and relate them to DSS

• Understand the various types of analytics

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 The pervasive nature of analytics

What do we mean by Data

Analytics?

Analytics are all around us, can

you think of any examples?

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 Business Environments &
Analytical Decision Support (1)
• Increased hardware, software, and network capabilities
• Group communication and collaboration
• Improved data management
• Managing giant data warehouses and Big Data
• Analytical support
• Overcoming cognitive limits in processing and storing
information
• Knowledge management
• Anywhere, anytime support

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 Business Environments &
Analytical Decision Support (2)
Business Pressures–Responses–Support Model (Sharda et
al., 2014)
Business pressures result of today's competitive
business climate
Responses to counter the pressures
Support to better facilitate the process

Shift towards computerised support of operations 

Business Intelligence

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 Business
pressures

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 Business Pressures Response Model

(Sharda et al., 2014)

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 IT and Management decision-making

(Shollo and Galliers 2015)

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 Decision Support Systems

‘Interactive computer-based systems, which help decision

makers utilise data and model to solve unstructured
problems’ - (Gory and Scott Morton, 1971)

Decision support systems couple the intellectual resources of

individuals with the capabilities of the computer to improve
the quality of decisions

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 Decision Support Systems

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 Executive Information Systems
• Online Analytical Processing

• Data warehousing

• Data mining

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 DSS to BI
• DS S → EI S → B I

• Definition of Business Intelligence

– [Broad Definition] An umbrella term that combines
architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools,
applications, and methodologies
– [Narrow Definition] Descriptive analytics tools and
techniques (i.e., reporting tools)

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 Evolution of BI

(Sharda et al., 2014)

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 Definition of BI
• BI is an umbrella term that combines architectures,
tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and
methodologies
• BI is a content-free expression, so it means different
things to different people
• BI's major objective is to enable easy access to data
(and models) to provide business managers with the
ability to conduct analysis
• BI helps transform data, to information (and
knowledge), to decisions, and finally to action
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 BI provenance
•1970s - MIS reporting - static/periodic reports
•1980s - Executive Information Systems (EIS)
•1990s - OLAP, dynamic, multidimensional, ad-hoc
reporting -> coining of the term “BI”
•2010s - Inclusion of AI and Data/Text Mining
capabilities; Web-based Portals/Dashboards, Big
Data, Social Media, Analytics
•2020s - yet to be seen

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 BI architecture

(Sharda et al., 2018)

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 Concept capabilities

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 Analytics
• Analytics…a relatively new term/buzz-word
• Analytics…the process of developing actionable
decisions or recommendations for actions based on
insights generated from historical data
• According to the Institute for Operations Research and
Management Science (INFORMS)
– Analytics represents the combination of computer
technology, management science techniques, and
statistics to solve real problems.

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 The Will Smith Effect
“I go with my gut, but I like to study. I study everything. So when I wanted
to make the transition from television to movies…I wanted to be the
biggest movie star in the world, so I’ll need to make the biggest movie. So
I looked at the top 10 movies and I tried to find a pattern. 10 out 10 of the
top 10 movies (he looked at) were special effects movies. And 9 out of the
top 10 movies were special effects movies with creatures. And 8 out of the
top 10 movies were special effects movies with creatures and a love story. I
was like an African American Watson. So then I did ‘Men in Black’ and
‘Independence Day’ back-to-back and in the true version of data analysis,
that’s what it was I did – these special effects movies that would travel
globally.”

MIT Sloan

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 The Will Smith Effect
Vision: ‘I want to be the biggest movie star in the world’

Methodology: Analysis of top 10 movies of all time, list of all time top 10 box offices hit

Data standardization: Adjusting for inflation and dollar value

Pattern recognition: Movies with special effects, creatures and love stories are providing hits

Analysis: Digging deeper into the pattern of hits

Next steps: Focus to get movie roles or produce them for global audience

Result: $7bn in box office hits!

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 Analytics overview

(Sharda et al., 2018)

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 Descriptive analytics
Descriptive or reporting analytics
•Summarises historical data to yield useful information
•‘What has happened?’
•Allows you to learn from past behaviours
•Common business examples of such analytics
are historical reports relating to a company’s production,
financials, operations, sales, finance, inventory and
customers

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 Predictive analytics
• Provides estimates regarding the likelihood of a future
outcome
• Looks at historic data to predict the future
• ‘What could happen?’
• Common business examples include understanding
sales trends towards the end of the year, predicting
customers purchasing habits, or forecasting inventory
levels based upon a numerous variables

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 Prescriptive analytics
• Prescribes a number of different possible actions
• Aims to guide to best possible outcome
• Uses both descriptive and predictive to create the
alternatives, and then determines the best one
• ‘What should we do?’
• Surpasses descriptive and predictive analytics by
proposing one or more possible courses of action

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 Brief intro to Big Data Analytics
• Data that cannot be stored in a single storage unit
• Big Data is typically referred to data that comes in
many different forms by they structured, unstructured,
or in a stream
• 3V s – Volume, Variety, Velocity
• 4Vs - Volume, Variety, Velocity, Variability
• 6Vs - Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity, Variability,
Value
• Big Data is worthless if it does not provide business
value (and to provide business value, it has to be
analysed)

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 Reflections..

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 Thank you

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