Business Analytics. Harvard Business School Case Studies

Question 1

Name the four types of business analytics mentioned in the article.

current trend of analytics solutions

Answer 1

1. Descriptive
2. Diagnostic
3. Predictive
4. Prescriptive

Question 2

What question does descriptive analytics answer?

It describes

Answer 2

What happened/what is happening

Question 3

What is analysed in descriptive analytics and why?

Imagine explaining a report on what is happening with global temperatures

Answer 3

Historical and current data to identify trends and patterns

e.g. global warming

Question 4

What question does diagnostic analytics seek to answer?

think of why one does a diagnostic test.

Answer 4

Why did this happen?

Question 5

What is studied in diagnostic analyses?

when examining trends to find out why, how is the interaction between variables determined?

Answer 5

existing level of correlation or presence of a causal relationship.

did this variable cause this/ did this variable influence the other

Question 6

What question does predictive analytics answer?

Answer 6

What might happen in the future

Question 7

What is analysed in predictive analytics?

think of excel graphs for example to determine where the line is going

Answer 7

analyzes historical data with trends to make informed predictions

Question 8

What question does prescriptive analytics answer?

Think on the definition of the word prescription.

Answer 8

What should we do next?

Question 9

In the article what did you notice was used to perform a prescriptive analysis to determine the best decision

Answer 9

Hypothesis tests such as the A/B test.

to test which decision yields the best outcome.

Question 10

Describe the A/B test

Answer 10

A means of hypothesis testing where two outcomes of two different choices are compared.

Question 11

True or false

In the article, an A/A test can preceed an A/B test

Answer 11

true

control group vs treatment group