Ch. 12 - Business Analytics and Power BI

Question 1

business analytics (BA)

Answer 1

• developing actionable decisions or recommendations

- examines data, formulates analytical models, communicates to decision makers

Question 2

business intelligence (BI)

Answer 2

• applications, technologies + processes for gathering, storing, accessing, and analyzing data
• help business users make better decisions

Question 3

roles of manager (Mintzberg)

Answer 3

• interpersonal
• informational
• decisional

Question 4

why is decision making difficult?

Answer 4

• increasing # of alternatives
• most decisions must be made under time pressure
• increased uncertainty in decision environment, making it more difficult
• often necessary to rapidly access remote information, consult with experts, or conduct a group decision-making session

Question 5

framework for computerized decision analysis

Answer 5

• problem structure (structured, semi-structure, unstructured)
• nature of decisions (operational/management control, strategic planning)
• the decision matrix

Question 6

what are the 3 business analytics target?

Answer 6

• development of 1 or a few related analytics applications
• development of infrastructure to support enterprise-wide analytics
• support for organizational transformation

Question 7

BA tools

Answer 7

• excel
• multidimensional analysis (OLAP)
• data mining
• decision-support systems
• statistical procedures (descriptive statistics; affinity analysis; liner, multiple + logistic regression; etc.)

Question 8

descriptive analytics

Answer 8

summarizes what has happened in the past + enables decision-makers to learn from past behaviours

Question 9

BA tools in descriptive analytics

Answer 9

• online analytical processing (OLAP)
• data mining
• decision-support systems (sensitivity analysis, what-if analysis, goal-seeking analysis)

Question 10

predictive analytics

Answer 10

examines recent + historical data to detect patterns and predict future outcomes and trends

ex. banking, health care, weather, police work, insurance, etc.

Question 11

prescriptive analytics

Answer 11

goes beyond descriptive and predictive models by recommending one or more courses of action + identifying the likely outcome of each decision

• requires predictive analytics + actionable data and feedback system to track outcome produced by the action taken

Question 12

BA tools in prescriptive analytics

Answer 12

• optimization
• simulation
• decision trees

Question 13

dashboards

Answer 13

provides easy access to timely information + direct access to management reports

• user-friendly, supported by graphics
• enables management to examine exception reports + drill down into detailed data

Question 14

drill down

Answer 14

ability to go to details at several levels; can be done by series of menus or by clicking on a drillable portion of the screen

Question 15

critical success factors (CSFs)

Answer 15

• factors most critical for the success of a business

- can be organizational, industry, departmental, or for individual workers

Question 16

key performance indicators

Answer 16

specific measures of CSFs

Question 17

status access

Answer 17

latest data available on KPI or some other metric, often in real time

Question 18

trend analysis

Answer 18

short, medium and long term trend of KPIs or metrics, which are projected using forecasting methods

Question 19

exception reporting

Answer 19

reports highlighting deviations larger than certain thresholds. Reports may include only deviations

Question 20

geographic information technology (GIS)

Answer 20

provide computer-based systems for capturing, manipulating, and displaying data using digitized maps

enable geocoding; every record has identified geographic location