Lahore University of Management Sciences DISC 420 - Business Analytics Fall Semester 2015
Lahore University of Management Sciences DISC 420 - Business Analytics Fall Semester 2015
Lahore University of Management Sciences DISC 420 - Business Analytics Fall Semester 2015
COURSE BASICS
Credit Hours 3
Lecture(s) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week 2 Duration 75 min. each
COURSE DISTRIBUTION
Core This is a core course for MGS majors
Elective Elective for all other majors
Open for Student Category Freshmen (ACF majors only)
Close for Student Category
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Lahore University of Management Sciences
Throughout the Management Science degree, students have already been exposed to a number of statistical and analytical
techniques such as decision analysis, regression, optimization, etc. However, before these can be practically deployed as
business analytics or business intelligence (i.e. analytical tools and techniques that rely on a business data to solve business
problems) three things remain. These three things, described as follows, are the focus of this course:
1. Understanding the systems and their organization to support business analytics: Why use a data warehouse on top
of a regular database? What components and processes have todays organizations developed to practically deal with
capture and dissemination of business intelligence? (The top left circle in the diagram above)
2. Data mining techniques: Certain analytical techniques rely on computerized machine learning. There are supervised
versus unsupervised learning and classification versus association. This course will approach the subject from a
business perspective: what is the objective of the technique? What business problems can it resolve? And mostly
hands-on application of the tools. (the overlap between information systems circle and statistics circle)
3. Integration of business analytics topics: No real-world problem comes with a label such as Use regression or the a
priori algorithm. After studying data-mining techniques, the student should now have a full menu of approaches at
their disposal. It is the intelligence of the business professional that guides them in choosing which technique to
employ. Hence, this course aims to help students practice this judgment call at a basic level in various situations
essentially using a case-based approach.
COURSE PREREQUISITE(S)
i. DISC 112 (Computers & Problem Solving)
ii. DISC 212 (Intro to Management Science)
iii. DISC 320 (Qualitative & Quantitative Methods in Business)
iv. DISC 321 (Decision Analysis )
v. Or equivalent
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to
1. Understand the typical vocabulary used across various business intelligence systems, especially with respect to data-
mining.
2. Avoid confusions created by proprietary names of business intelligence systems and components (e.g. SAP Business
Objects, Teradata, Microstrategy, Zambeel, etc.) and understand their functionality regardless of organization they work
for.
3. Select between descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytical techniques according to the business problem at hand,
or at least know who to refer to within their business intelligence organization in order to solve this problem.
4. Efficiently self-train to apply OR guide technical staff in applying data-mining techniques when they engage with the
business intelligence systems and organization of modern businesses to solve typical real-world business problems.
Lahore University of Management Sciences
General Learning Goals & Objectives
Goal 1 Effective Written and Oral Communication
Objective: Students will demonstrate effective writing and oral communication skills
Goal 2 Ethical Understanding and Reasoning
Objective: Students will demonstrate that they are able to identify and address ethical issues in an organizational context.
Goal 3 Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
Objective: Students will demonstrate that they are able to identify key problems and generate viable solutions.
Goal 4 Application of Information Technology
Objective: Students will demonstrate that they are able to use current technologies in business and management context.
Goal 5 Teamwork in Diverse and Multicultural Environments
Objective: Students will demonstrate that they are able to work effectively in diverse environments.
Goal 6 Understanding Organizational Ecosystems
Objective: Students will demonstrate that they have an understanding of Economic, Political, Regulatory, Legal,
Technological, and Social environment of organizations.
Major Specific Learning Goals & Objectives
Goal 7 (a) Discipline Specific Knowledge and Understanding
Objective: Students will demonstrate knowledge of key business disciplines and how they interact including application to
real world situations (Including subject knowledge).
Goal 7 (b) Understanding the science behind the decision-making process (for MGS Majors)
Objective: Students will demonstrate ability to analyze a business problem, design and apply appropriate decision-support
tools, interpret results and make meaningful recommendations to support the decision-maker
Indicate below how the course learning objectives specifically relate to any program learning goals and objectives.
PROGRAM LEARNING GOALS AND COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES COURSE ASSESSMENT ITEM
OBJECTIVES
Goal 1 Effective Written and Oral Objective #4 Exam
Communication
Goal 2 Ethical Understanding and
Reasoning
Goal 3 Analytical Thinking and All objectives Lab Assignments, Exam
Problem Solving Skills
Goal 4 Application of Information All objectives Lab Assignments, Exam, Project
Technology
Goal 5 Teamwork in Diverse and
Multicultural Environments
Goal 6 Understanding Organizational Objective #1 Quizzes, Exam
Ecosystems
Goal 7 (a) Discipline Specific All objectives All items
Knowledge and Understanding
Goal 7 (b) Understanding the Objectives #2 & #4 All items
science behind the decision-making
process
Quizzes
Petitions in general: Petitions should be submitted along with proper documentation (e.g. a medical certificate certifying illnesses
or OSA certifying participation in OSA activity) and shall be approved on case-by-case basis. NOTE: OSA activities are planned
events SO PLEASE BRING THESE (or at least e-mail a scan) BEFORE THE CLASS YOU PLAN TO MISS. Later OSA petitions will be
assumed not to be genuine.
Quizzes: To keep the number of quizzes to a minimum, we reserve the right to use un-announced quizzes. Quizzes will mostly be
objective-based in order to test understanding of vocabulary throughout the course or if they are tied to a case discussion, they
may be subjective in that event. An n-1 policy will be applied only if the number of quizzes > 4. A missed (without petition
approval) quiz will automatically be graded zero (0).
You are required to attend with your designated section. Neither quiz nor assignments can be transferred to any other section,
especially as the Learning Management System follows the Zambeel sectioned roll no. It is your responsibility to ensure that
your details on LMS & Zambeel are up to date.
COURSE OVERVIEW
RECOMMENDED
Sess. # TOPICS SESSION OBJECTIVE(S)
READINGS
a. Build a mental map of
Introduction to Business Intelligence & Business
1. CC, Ch. 1 the course
Analytics
b. Contract for the course
a. How are the various
Case: Managing with Analytics at P&G
levels of analytics
Case
1. How far into the levels of analytics (seen in last employed in a modern
2. session) have Procter & Gamble progressed? organization
Managing with Analytics at
b. What is the role of
2. Should Torres over-ride the forecast? What P&G
analysts & managers in
is the weakness in the BI if you say, Yes?
the modern organization
CC, Ch. 3 Generic concepts in Data
3. Data Visualization Basic
Visualization
Data Visualization Exercise Albright et. al. Section on Application of data
4.
Case: King Kola Beverages Ltd. Pivot Tables visualization concepts
5. a. Advanced approaches to
Advanced Data Visualization: Tutorial Slides: visualizing data
the Grammar of Graphics Grolemund, Visualizing b. Introduction to R and its
6.
(Introduction to R, R Studio & ggplot2 package) Data graphing packages
14. MID-TERM
TEXTBOOK(S)/SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
PLEASE OBTAIN THE COURSE PACK from the library for this course as there are multiple sources which have been used for
the readings. Some of the textbook abbreviations used are explained below:
[V] C. Vercellis (2009) Business Intelligence: Data Mining & Optimization for Decision Making Wiley.
[CC] J. Camm, J. Cochran, M. Fry, et. al. (2015) Essentials of Business Analytics, Cengage.
[PB] Stephen G. Powell and Kenneth R. Baker Management Science, The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, Wiley, 4 th Ed