Hello World!

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.