00 Business Analytics Foundation With SAS and Excel Tools

Objectives

• Understand what analytics is
• Understand where analytics is applied and the process involved in it
• Get an overview of the various topics that will be covered in different lessons
• Describe the career path of a business analyst

Analytics

Analytics is a journey that involves a combination of potential skills, advanced technologies, applications, and processes used by firm to gain business insights from data and statistics. This is done to perform business planning.

Places Where Analytics is Applied

Financial services: Credit scoring, fraud detection, pricing, claims analysis
Retail: Promotions, replenishment, demand forecasting, merchandizing optimization
Manufacturing: Inventory replenishment, product customization, supply chain optimization
Health care: Drug interaction, preliminary diagnosis, disease management
Energy: Trading, supply, demand forecasting, compliance
Communications: Customer retention, capacity planning, network optimization

Topics Covered

Lesson 1: Introduction to analytics

• Definition of analytics
• The analytical process
• Applications of analytics
• Understanding of problem
• How a data scientist should act
• Data collection and preparation

Lesson 2: Statistical concepts and their application in business

• Overview of statistical methods
• Descriptive statistics
• Probability theory
• Concept of test of significance
• Hypothesis testing
• Business uses of statistical methods

Lesson 3: Basic analytic techniques

• Basic introduction to SAS and Excel
• Data exploration
• Data visualization
• Diagnostic analytics
• SAS and Excel tool—Business usage

Lesson 4: Predictive modeling techniques

• Regression analysis
• Types of models in regression analysis
• Logistic regression
• Time series analysis
• Cluster analysis
• Predictive modeling – Business usage

Career Path

DATA MANAGER

• Data preparation
• Deployment services
• Report administration

DATA MINER

• Exploratory analysis
• Descriptive segmentation
• Predictive modeling

BUSINESS MANAGER

• Campaign management
• Domain expertise
• Process and ROI evaluation