Introduction To Business Analytics Using Simulation

Introduction to Business Analytics Using Simulation, Second Edition employs an innovative strategy to teach business analytics. The book uses simulation modeling and analysis as mechanisms to introduce and link predictive and prescriptive modeling. Because managers can't fully assess what will happen in the future, but must still make decisions, the book treats uncertainty as an essential element in decision-making. Its use of simulation gives readers a superior way of analyzing past data, understanding an uncertain future, and optimizing results to select the best decision. With its focus on uncertainty and variability, this book provides a comprehensive foundation for business analytics. Students will gain a better understanding of fundamental statistical concepts that are essential to marketing research, Six-Sigma, financial analysis, and business analytics. Teaches managers how they can use business analytics to formulate and solve business problems to enhance managerial decision-making Explains the processes needed to develop, report and analyze business data Describes how to use and apply business analytics software Offers expanded coverage on the value and application of prescriptive analytics Includes a wealth of illustrative exercises that are newly organized by difficulty level Winner of the 2017 Textbook and Academic Authors Association's (TAA) Most Promising New Textbook Award in the prior edition

Introduction to Business Analytics Using Simulation Models introduces the fundamental principle of business analytics and data science: APPLIED PROBABILITY. Because probability is extremely counter-intuitive, the book makes extensive use of simulation models to provide students with experiential learning to develop a deep and true understanding of how uncertainty and decision-making work. This book helps you understand the foundation of data science techniques in use today.Based on an MBA course Jon has taught at Wake Forest University over the past 25 years, Introduction to Business Analytics Using Simulation Models provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You'll learn how to think about the uncertain future and create data-science probability models for business decision-making.

This book outlines the benefits and limitations of simulation, what is involved in setting up a simulation capability in an organization, the steps involved in developing a simulation model and how to ensure that model results are implemented. In addition, detailed example applications are provided to show where the tool is useful and what it can offer the decision maker. In Simulating Business Processes for Descriptive, Predictive, and Prescriptive Analytics, Andrew Greasley provides an in-depth discussion of Business process simulation and how it can enable business analytics How business process simulation can provide speed, cost, dependability, quality, and flexibility metrics Industrial case studies including improving service delivery while ensuring an efficient use of staff in public sector organizations such as the police service, testing the capacity of planned production facilities in manufacturing, and ensuring on-time delivery in logistics systems State-of-the-art developments in business process simulation regarding the generation of simulation analytics using process mining and modeling people’s behavior Managers and decision makers will learn how simulation provides a faster, cheaper and less risky way of observing the future performance of a real-world system. The book will also benefit personnel already involved in simulation development by providing a business perspective on managing the process of simulation, ensuring simulation results are implemented, and that performance is improved.

Business Analytics (BA) is about turning data into decisions. This book covers the full range of BA topics, including statistics, machine learning and optimization, in a way that makes them accessible to a broader audience. Decision makers will gain enough insight into the subject to have meaningful discussions with machine learning specialists, and those starting out as data scientists will benefit from an overview of the field and take their first steps as business analytics specialist. Through this book and the various exercises included, you will be equipped with an understanding of BA, while learning R, a popular tool for statistics and machine learning.

Better Business Decisions with Simulation: An Introduction for Business Students is an introduction to discrete event simulation (DES) intended for the MBA and related academic markets. The book presents an overview of DES and highlights the key role it can play in helping organizations improve the processes they employ to produce their goods and services. Following an overview of DES, the book presents an introduction to the SIMIO software system as well as a step-by-step description with pictures of how to build and analyze basic models in SIMIO. Several detailed examples are presented. The presentation is aimed at the non-technical audience with the intention of illustrating both the usefulness of DES modeling and analysis and the power of SIMIO. Along the way, the book highlights SIMIO's relative "ease of use" and debunks the notion that one needs to be an engineer or similarly trained analyst to build useful simulation models. With SIMIO's "select-drag-& click" modeling capability, the power of simulation has been taken to the masses! This book is ideally suited for a two - four week segment in a university course on Business Analytics, Management Science, healthcare analytics, or Operations Management. It could also be used as introductory materials for a corporate training course on modern simulation. Course materials, including PowerPoint slides and the SIMIO models discussed in the book are available for instructors adopting the book.

Practical Business Analytics Using SAS: A Hands-on Guide shows SAS users and businesspeople how to analyze data effectively in real-life business scenarios. The book begins with an introduction to analytics, analytical tools, and SAS programming. The authors—both SAS, statistics, analytics, and big data experts—first show how SAS is used in business, and then how to get started programming in SAS by importing data and learning how to manipulate it. Besides illustrating SAS basic functions, you will see how each function can be used to get the information you need to improve business performance. Each chapter offers hands-on exercises drawn from real business situations. The book then provides an overview of statistics, as well as instruction on exploring data, preparing it for analysis, and testing hypotheses. You will learn how to use SAS to perform analytics and model using both basic and advanced techniques like multiple regression, logistic regression, and time series analysis, among other topics. The book concludes with a chapter on analyzing big data. Illustrations from banking and other industries make the principles and methods come to life. Readers will find just enough theory to understand the practical examples and case studies, which cover all industries. Written for a corporate IT and programming audience that wants to upgrade skills or enter the analytics field, this book includes: More than 200 examples and exercises, including code and datasets for practice. Relevant examples for all industries. Case studies that show how to use SAS analytics to identify opportunities, solve complicated problems, and chart a course. Practical Business Analytics Using SAS: A Hands-on Guide gives you the tools you need to gain insight into the data at your fingertips, predict business conditions for better planning, and make excellent decisions. Whether you are in retail, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, government, or any other industry, this book will help your organization increase revenue, drive down costs, improve marketing, and satisfy customers better than ever before.

Master decision modeling and analytics through realistic examples, intuitive explanations, and tested Excel templates. Business Analytics with Management Science has been designed to help students, practitioners and managers use business analytics to improve decision-making systems. Unlike previous books, it emphasizes the application of practical management science techniques in business analytics. Drawing on 20+ years of teaching and consulting experience, Dr. Arben Asllani introduces decision analytics through realistic examples and intuitive explanations – not complex formulae and theoretical definitions. Throughout, Asllani helps practitioners focus more on the crucial input-output aspects of decision making – and less upon internal model complexities that can usually be "delegated" to software.