Welcome to The Analytical MBA! This blog is dedicated to highlighting
analytical concepts and methods that have practical applications in the
business world. As a professor in the
Poole College of Management at NC State University, my mission is to train MBA’s
in the art and science of using data to make decisions.
The late Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured, gets
managed.” I would take that one step
further and say that almost every aspect of your business generates data, and
that data is valuable for making business decisions. Managers
- who understand what business questions need to be answered,
- who can define what data is needed to answer the question,
- who can direct their staff to apply some analytical rigor to extract important information from the data,
- and who can then understand how to interpret those analytical results to make decisions
will be in high demand in the foreseeable future.
With that in mind, the Jenkins MBA Program at NC State
University is launching a new Decision Analytics Certificate in the Fall of 2014. This certificate is intended to augment an
MBA-level management education and equip business professionals with the skills
to effectively navigate big data in order to drive business decisions and
strategy. In addition to taking a series
of analytics-focused courses, each student will be required to complete a data
analytics practicum where they will get hands-on experience using analytical
methods to solve real business problems.
I'll leave you with a quote from Stephen Few: “Numbers have an important story to
tell. They rely on you to give them a
clear and convincing voice.” I hope that
this blog will provide you with some insight and encouragement as you learn to
analyze data to “tell the stories” that will help your business thrive.
