The information era dictates new ways to do business today. Available information through business systems, or social and public media is massive and constantly growing at a very fast rate. Information is nowadays the most precious asset of any initiative. The unit of Business Analytics and Operations Research offers specialists the skills and understanding to use quantitative reasoning skills in business decision making. It is a support tool to managers in solving complex problems in a highly uncertain environment, allows to achieve effectiveness and adequacy of decisions, forecast changes and variability of external and internal processes, and optimise risk levels. Those techniques strongly focus on practical applications, hence there are overlaps with psychology, industrial engineering and organization sciences. Perhaps the best example of this cross-disciplinarity is quantitative decision analysis, also known as mathematics of rationality. It has been developed with the idea to formalise the concept of rationality through quantifiable parameters and make choices based on robust criteria under risk.
This unit provides students with the fundamental and advanced concepts, tools and skills needed to understand the emerging role of business analytics and operations research in organizations. Emphasis would be given to problems in logistics and transport, retailing and procurement. It allows students to understand and apply advanced business analytics tools in a computer-intensive environment and to communicate with analytics professionals to effectively use and interpret analytical models and results for better decision making. There is a descriptive, predictive and prescriptive approaches offered in the unit. Along with this, it discusses the fundamentals and advances of operations research as a discipline area related to simulations and decision-making processes using intelligent methods.
To facilitate your practical activities, the selected textbook includes the online platform MindTap – it is a development of Cengage that provides engaging content, challenges every individual and builds student confidence. You may find more information about the platform (also available as mobile app) at https://www.cengage.com/mindtap/. Most exercises require calculations with the use of computers, calculators or other computational tools. Having said this, what you really need to learn are the methods rather than the calculation skills. While some may find this unit challenging, its knowledge is essential to understand the fundamentals of decision making in complex business environment.