Course content

Technological advancement provide increasingly better access to detailed and complex data sources and new opportunities for gathering and using data sources in integrated decision support systems. Big data, business intelligence and business analytics are buzzwords that represent different aspects of this development. This advancement in technology also goes towards intuitive user interfaces that are increasingly making tools available for advanced use for people without detailed knowledge of the technology itself, but who understand the technology at an overall conceptual level. This provides new opportunities for specialists to use technology to tailor decision support for financial and strategic purposes. The purpose of this course is to provide students with good insight into the possibilities for decision support using newer technologies with updated examples from business.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

• Provide basic knowledge about central concepts within business analytics.
• Able to explain the reason for and importance of business analytics.
• Describe central concepts within the field.
• Familiarity with business analytics tools

Skills:

• Use business analytics to support financial and business decisions.
• Describe problem areas related to business analytics.
• Actively participate in discussions and decisions concerning business analytics in a given organization.

General competence:

• Relate business analytics to other fields covered within the bachelor study program
• Relate business analytics to central business functions.
• Use insight from the course to use business analytics.

Learning methods and activities

Lectures, videos, analytic tools, cases and programming exercises.

Recommended previous knowledge

• Introductory course in Marketing
• Organisation and management.
• Financial accounting and analysis.
• Methods in social sciences.
• Corporate strategy.
• MS Excel

Course materials

Selected cases and data sets.

Sharda, Delen, Turban: Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Data Science: A Managerial Perspective, 4th edition (Pearson)