Introduction to Business Analytics

OPS 370

Business Analytics

• Use of:– Data– Quantitative Analysis– Predictive and Prescriptive Models

• Leading to:– Fact-Based Decision Making

Moneyball

• Analytics Used by Oakland A’s

• "The statistics enabled you to find your way past all sorts of sight-based scouting prejudices.“

• Discard previous “important” stats in favor of better ones…

Netflix

• Used Analytics via Netflix Prize

• Goal: Improve In-House Movie Recommendation System by 10%

• Winning Team Won $1 Million Prize

Sentiment from Twitter

• Tweets About Apple

Big Data• Difficult to Precisely Define• “Big Data is what happened when the cost of

keeping information (data) became less than the cost of throwing it away” (George Dyson)

• Definition is Context and User Dependent

Dealing with DataIncreasing Volume

Dealing with Data

• Increasing Variety– Various formats and structures– Static and streaming

• Increasing Velocity– Need to Send Promotions in Real-Time Based On

Customer Location Data– Need to React to Health monitoring data