Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - School of Business and Economics

Business Analytics & Data Science

The module is concerned with theories, concepts, and practices to inform and support managerial decision making by means of formal, data oriented methods. Students have the opportunity to develop a variety of skills, including:

 

  • Students are familiar with the three branches of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics and appreciate the relationships between these streams.
  • Given some data, students are able to select appropriate techniques to summarize and visualize the data so as to maximize managerial insight.
  • Students understand the potential and also the limitations of predictive analytics to aid decision making. They comprehend when and how business applications can benefit from predictive analytics. Given some decision task, they are able to recommend suitable prediction methods.
  • Students are familiar with the fundamentals of predictive modelling. Using standard software packages, they can develop basic and advanced prediction models and assess their accuracy in a statistically sound manner.
  • Students develop a basic understanding of optimization methods and heuristic search. They understand the interplay of intelligent search and prediction in the scope of prescriptive analytics and are able to develop corresponding decision support models.

 

Topic & Content

  • Fundamentals of Business Analytics
  • Making data accessible: Tools for summarization, grouping, and visualization
  • The business case for predictive modeling
  • Prediction methods for regression and classification
  • Advanced data types: time series, text, survival, and network data Fundamentals of intelligent search
  • Further elaboration of lecturing material.
  • Practical PC exercises using various software packages (e.g., Excel, Matlab, Python)

 

In the course Business Analytics & Predictive Modeling, we will work with R, a widely-used statistical programming languages. To participate in the course, a basic understanding of R is desirable. The Chair of Statistics is offering a course on Statistical Programming Languages each term. Taking that course is an excellent preparation for Business Analytics & Predictive Modeling. You can find more information at: https://lvb.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/Teaching_Moodle/ss15/63145