1. iNNOvation in TRAINING BUSINESS ANALYSTS HAO HElEN Zhang UniVERSITY of ARIZONA

2. What IS BUSINESS AnalyTICS (BA)
is the practice of iterative, methodical exploration of an organization’s data, with an emphasis on statistical analysis.
( BA)
is used by companies to
gain insights from historical data
make data-driven business decisions
automate and optimize business processes.

3. TWO KEY COMPONENTS
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
ADVANCED ANALYTICS

4. ADVANCED ANALYTICS Descriptive Analytics
summarize the data to understand the present state of a business
Predictive Analytics
apply statistical algorithms to historical data to make a prediction about future performance of a product
Prescriptive Analytics
- make recommendations about how to handle similar situations in the future.

5. BASIC TOOLS Data management tools
data collection, storage, pre-processing
handling big data
Data analysis tools
data visualization, statistical analysis, data interpretation
decision making, data interpretation

6. BASIC STATISTICS COURCES and TOPICS for BA
Introduction to Probability
Introduction to Statistics Inference
Linear Regression, Generalized Linear Models (GLM)
Hypothesis Testing

7. Big DATA CHALLENGES Volume of data is huge and getting larger
Data are noisy, structured or unstructured
Data are complex, difficulty to extract patterns and identify signals
Need to integrate multi-source, multi-level, multi-type data and make a decision
- Need new curricula to teach modern skills for big-data analysis

8. MODERN STATISTICS COURsES for BA
Introduction to Data Mining
Statistical Machine Learning
Statistical Computing and Optimization
Advanced Programming: R or Python, Hadoop, SQL

9. OthER IMPORTANT SKILLS for BA
Communication skills
Presentation skills, technical writing
Consulting skills
Project management skills
Teamwork skills
- Good at collaborating with IT, CS, Math, and Business

10. Email comments to hzhang@math.arizona.edu
THANK YOu