A Practitioners Guide To Business Analytics

Gain the competitive edge with the smart use of business analytics In today’s volatile business environment, the strategic use of business analytics is more important than ever. A Practitioners Guide to Business Analytics helps you get the organizational commitment you need to get business analytics up and running in your company. It provides solutions for meeting the strategic challenges of applying analytics, such as: Integrating analytics into decision making, corporate culture, and business strategy Leading and organizing analytics within the corporation Applying statistical qualifications, statistical diagnostics, and statistical review Providing effective building blocks to support analytics—statistical software, data collection, and data management Randy Bartlett, Ph.D., is Chief Statistical Officer of the consulting company Blue Sigma Analytics. He currently works with Infosys, where he has helped build their new Business Analytics practice.

Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide provides practical resources to tackle the project-related issues associated with requirements and business analysis—and addresses a critical need in the industry for more guidance in this area. The practice guide begins by describing the work of business analysis. It identifies the tasks that are performed, in addition to the essential knowledge and skills needed to effectively perform business analysis on programs and projects.

This book provides a guide to businesses on how to use analytics to help drive from ideas to execution. Analytics used in this way provides “full lifecycle support” for business and helps during all stages of management decision-making and execution. The framework presented in the book enables the effective interplay of business, analytics, and information technology (business intelligence) both to leverage analytics for competitive advantage and to embed the use of business analytics into the business culture. It lays out an approach for analytics, describes the processes used, and provides guidance on how to scale analytics and how to develop analytics teams. It provides tools to improve analytics in a broad range of business situations, regardless of the level of maturity and the degree of executive sponsorship provided. As a guide for practitioners and managers, the book will benefit people who work in analytics teams, the managers and leaders who manage, use and sponsor analytics, and those who work with and support business analytics teams.

Maximize profit and optimize decisions with advanced business analytics Profit-Driven Business Analytics provides actionable guidance on optimizing the use of data to add value and drive better business. Combining theoretical and technical insights into daily operations and long-term strategy, this book acts as a development manual for practitioners seeking to conceive, develop, and manage advanced analytical models. Detailed discussion delves into the wide range of analytical approaches and modeling techniques that can help maximize business payoff, and the author team draws upon their recent research to share deep insight about optimal strategy. Real-life case studies and examples illustrate these techniques at work, and provide clear guidance for implementation in your own organization. From step-by-step instruction on data handling, to analytical fine-tuning, to evaluating results, this guide provides invaluable guidance for practitioners seeking to reap the advantages of true business analytics. Despite widespread discussion surrounding the value of data in decision making, few businesses have adopted advanced analytic techniques in any meaningful way. This book shows you how to delve deeper into the data and discover what it can do for your business. Reinforce basic analytics to maximize profits Adopt the tools and techniques of successful integration Implement more advanced analytics with a value-centric approach Fine-tune analytical information to optimize business decisions Both data stored and streamed has been increasing at an exponential rate, and failing to use it to the fullest advantage equates to leaving money on the table. From bolstering current efforts to implementing a full-scale analytics initiative, the vast majority of businesses will see greater profit by applying advanced methods. Profit-Driven Business Analytics provides a practical guidebook and reference for adopting real business analytics techniques.

The digital age has transformed the very nature of marketing. Armed with smartphones, tablets, PCs and smart TVs, consumers are increasingly hanging out on the internet. Cyberspace has changed the way they communicate, and the way they shop and buy. This fluid, de-centralized and multidirectional medium is changing the way brands engage with consumers.At the same time, technology and innovation, coupled with the explosion of business data, has fundamentally altered the manner we collect, process, analyse and disseminate market intelligence. The increased volume, variety and velocity of information enables marketers to respond with much greater speed, to changes in the marketplace. Market intelligence is timelier, less expensive, and more accurate and actionable.Anchored in this age of transformations, Marketing Analytics is a practitioner's guide to marketing management in the 21st century. The text devotes considerable attention to the way market analytic techniques and market research processes are being refined and re-engineered. Written by a marketing veteran, it is intended to guide marketers as they craft market strategies, and execute their day to day tasks.

Designed in an exam format, with questions to be answered in three hours, this practice paper helps Sergeants' and Inspectors' Part I candidates prepare for their multiple-choice examination. Questions are presented in the Type A exam-style and answers are fully referenced to the official syllabus in Blackstone's Police Manuals 2015.

The Practitioner's Guide to Data Quality Improvement offers a comprehensive look at data quality for business and IT, encompassing people, process, and technology. It shares the fundamentals for understanding the impacts of poor data quality, and guides practitioners and managers alike in socializing, gaining sponsorship for, planning, and establishing a data quality program. It demonstrates how to institute and run a data quality program, from first thoughts and justifications to maintenance and ongoing metrics. It includes an in-depth look at the use of data quality tools, including business case templates, and tools for analysis, reporting, and strategic planning. This book is recommended for data management practitioners, including database analysts, information analysts, data administrators, data architects, enterprise architects, data warehouse engineers, and systems analysts, and their managers. Offers a comprehensive look at data quality for business and IT, encompassing people, process, and technology. Shows how to institute and run a data quality program, from first thoughts and justifications to maintenance and ongoing metrics. Includes an in-depth look at the use of data quality tools, including business case templates, and tools for analysis, reporting, and strategic planning.

The Standard for Business Analysis – First Edition is a new PMI foundational standard, developed as a basis for business analysis for portfolio, program, and project management. This standard illustrates how project management processes and business analysis processes are complementary activities, where the primary focus of project management processes is the project and the primary focus of business analysis processes is the product. This is a process-based standard, aligned with A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, and to be used as a standard framework contributing to the business analysis body of knowledge.

Praise for Financial Statement Analysis A Practitioner's Guide Third Edition "This is an illuminating and insightful tour of financial statements, how they can be used to inform, how they can be used to mislead, and how they can be used to analyze the financial health of a company." -Professor Jay O. Light Harvard Business School "Financial Statement Analysis should be required reading for anyone who puts a dime to work in the securities markets or recommends that others do the same." -Jack L. Rivkin Executive Vice President (retired) Citigroup Investments "Fridson and Alvarez provide a valuable practical guide for understanding, interpreting, and critically assessing financial reports put out by firms. Their discussion of profits-'quality of earnings'-is particularly insightful given the recent spate of reporting problems encountered by firms. I highly recommend their book to anyone interested in getting behind the numbers as a means of predicting future profits and stock prices." -Paul Brown Chair-Department of Accounting Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU "Let this book assist in financial awareness and transparency and higher standards of reporting, and accountability to all stakeholders." -Patricia A. Small Treasurer Emeritus, University of California Partner, KCM Investment Advisors "This book is a polished gem covering the analysis of financial statements. It is thorough, skeptical and extremely practical in its review." -Daniel J. Fuss Vice Chairman Loomis, Sayles & Company, LP

Your go-to guide on business analysis Business analysis refers to the set of tasks and activities thathelp companies determine their objectives for meeting certainopportunities or addressing challenges and then help them definesolutions to meet those objectives. Those engaged in businessanalysis are charged with identifying the activities that enablethe company to define the business problem or opportunity, definewhat the solutions looks like, and define how it should behave inthe end. As a BA, you lay out the plans for the processahead. Business Analysis For Dummies is the go to reference onhow to make the complex topic of business analysis easy tounderstand. Whether you are new or have experience with businessanalysis, this book gives you the tools, techniques, tips andtricks to set your project’s expectations and on the path tosuccess. Offers guidance on how to make an impact in your organizationby performing business analysis Shows you the tools and techniques to be an effective businessanalysis professional Provides a number of examples on how to perform businessanalysis regardless of your role If you're interested in learning about the tools and techniquesused by successful business analysis professionals, BusinessAnalysis For Dummies has you covered.

The updated, real-world guide to interpreting and unpacking GAAP and non-GAAP financial statements In Financial Statement Analysis, 5th Edition, leading investment authority Martin Fridson returns with Fernando Alvarez to provide the analytical framework you need to scrutinize financial statements, whether you’re evaluating a company’s stock price or determining valuations for a merger or acquisition. Rather than taking financial statements at face value, you’ll learn practical and straightforward analytical techniques for uncovering the reality behind the numbers. This fully revised and up-to-date 5th Edition offers fresh information that will help you to evaluate financial statements in today’s volatile markets and uncertain economy. The declining connection between GAAP earnings and stock prices has introduced a need to discriminate between instructive and misleading non-GAAP alternatives. This book integrates the alternatives and provides guidance on understanding the extent to which non-GAAP reports, particularly from US companies, may be biased. Understanding financial statements is an essential skill for business professionals and investors. Most books on the subject proceed from the questionable premise that companies' objective is to present a true picture of their financial condition. A safer assumption is that they seek to minimize the cost of raising capital by portraying themselves in the most favorable light possible. Financial Statement Analysis teaches readers the tricks that companies use to mislead, so readers can more clearly interpret statements. Learn how to read and understand financial statements prepared according to GAAP and non-GAAP standards Compare CFROI, EVA, Valens, and other non-GAAP methodologies to determine how accurate companies’ reports are Improve your business decision making, stock valuations, or merger and acquisition strategy Develop the essential skill of quickly and accurately gathering and assessing information from financial statements of all types Professional analysts, investors, and students will gain valuable knowledge from this updated edition of the popular guide. Filled with real-life examples and expert advice, Financial Statement Analysis, 5th Edition, will help you interpret and unpack financial statements.

Big Data Analytics with Spark is a step-by-step guide for learning Spark, which is an open-source fast and general-purpose cluster computing framework for large-scale data analysis. You will learn how to use Spark for different types of big data analytics projects, including batch, interactive, graph, and stream data analysis as well as machine learning. In addition, this book will help you become a much sought-after Spark expert. Spark is one of the hottest Big Data technologies. The amount of data generated today by devices, applications and users is exploding. Therefore, there is a critical need for tools that can analyze large-scale data and unlock value from it. Spark is a powerful technology that meets that need. You can, for example, use Spark to perform low latency computations through the use of efficient caching and iterative algorithms; leverage the features of its shell for easy and interactive Data analysis; employ its fast batch processing and low latency features to process your real time data streams and so on. As a result, adoption of Spark is rapidly growing and is replacing Hadoop MapReduce as the technology of choice for big data analytics. This book provides an introduction to Spark and related big-data technologies. It covers Spark core and its add-on libraries, including Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, GraphX, and MLlib. Big Data Analytics with Spark is therefore written for busy professionals who prefer learning a new technology from a consolidated source instead of spending countless hours on the Internet trying to pick bits and pieces from different sources. The book also provides a chapter on Scala, the hottest functional programming language, and the program that underlies Spark. You’ll learn the basics of functional programming in Scala, so that you can write Spark applications in it. What's more, Big Data Analytics with Spark provides an introduction to other big data technologies that are commonly used along with Spark, like Hive, Avro, Kafka and so on. So the book is self-sufficient; all the technologies that you need to know to use Spark are covered. The only thing that you are expected to know is programming in any language. There is a critical shortage of people with big data expertise, so companies are willing to pay top dollar for people with skills in areas like Spark and Scala. So reading this book and absorbing its principles will provide a boost—possibly a big boost—to your career.

Recent research has shown that organizations continue to experience project issues associated with the poor performance of requirements-related activities a core task for the practice of business analysis. In fact, poor requirements practices are often cited as a leading cause of project failure in PMI's Pulse of the Profession surveys. Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide provides practical resources to tackle the project-related issues associated with requirements and business analysis and addresses a critical need in the industry for more guidance in this area.

This comprehensive edited volume is the first of its kind, designed to serve as a textbook for long-duration business analytics programs. It can also be used as a guide to the field by practitioners. The book has contributions from experts in top universities and industry. The editors have taken extreme care to ensure continuity across the chapters. The material is organized into three parts: A) Tools, B) Models and C) Applications. In Part A, the tools used by business analysts are described in detail. In Part B, these tools are applied to construct models used to solve business problems. Part C contains detailed applications in various functional areas of business and several case studies. Supporting material can be found in the appendices that develop the pre-requisites for the main text. Every chapter has a business orientation. Typically, each chapter begins with the description of business problems that are transformed into data questions; and methodology is developed to solve these questions. Data analysis is conducted using widely used software, the output and results are clearly explained at each stage of development. These are finally transformed into a business solution. The companion website provides examples, data sets and sample code for each chapter.

An aspiring business analyst has to go through the rigors of the interview process in order to prove his knowledge, skill, ability, and worth to a prospective employer. The intent of this book is to provide a comprehensive guide to help aspiring as well as experienced business analysts prepare for interviews for suitable roles. The Q&A format of the book seeks to guide readers in planning and organizing their thoughts in a focused and systematic manner. Additionally, this book also aims to not only clarify existing concepts but also help candidates to enhance their understanding of the field. Thus, the book can also be used for preparing for professional certification exams offered by various leading institutes across the globe.

Drive maximum business value from digital analytics, web analytics, site analytics, and business intelligence! In Building a Digital Analytics Organization, pioneering expert Judah Phillips thoroughly explains digital analytics to business practitioners, and presents best practices for using it to reduce costs and increase profitable revenue throughout the business. Phillips covers everything from making the business case through defining and executing strategy, and shows how to successfully integrate analytical processes, technology, and people in all aspects of operations. This unbiased and product-independent guide is replete with examples, many based on the author’s own extensive experience. Coverage includes: key concepts; focusing initiatives and strategy on business value, not technology; building an effective analytics organization; choosing the right tools (and understanding their limitations); creating processes and managing data; analyzing paid, owned, and earned digital media; performing competitive and qualitative analyses; optimizing and testing sites; implementing integrated multichannel digital analytics; targeting consumers; automating marketing processes; and preparing for the revolutionary “analytical economy.” For all business practitioners interested in analytics and business intelligence in all areas of the organization.

Concrete instructions for digital transformation in business Supply Chain Management is without question deeply affected by the disruptive forces of a modern organization, positively as well as negatively. Between Advanced Analytics and AI, agile role models and autonomous warehouses a senior executive is often in danger of losing track in the digital jungle. In these exciting times, with their many turning points, h&z aims to share insights around digital supply chains, their application in business and the so vital transformation to successfully prepare organizations for this challenge. This book provides insights into best practices current supply chain and how CSOs apply technologies and advancements. It also makes daring forecasts about how processes and leadership must be designed so that the digital transformation does not fail in its infancy, but leads to a truly agile organization.

The Guide to Business Data Analytics provides a foundational understanding of business data analytics concepts and includes how to develop a framework; key techniques and application; how to identify, communicate and integrate results; and more. This guide acts as a reference for the practice of business data analytics and is a companion resource for the Certification in Business Data Analytics (IIBA(R)- CBDA). Explore more information about the Certification in Business Data Analytics at IIBA.org/CBDA. About International Institute of Business Analysis International Institute of Business Analysis(TM) (IIBA(R)) is a professional association dedicated to supporting business analysis professionals deliver better business outcomes. IIBA connects almost 30,000 Members, over 100 Chapters, and more than 500 training, academic, and corporate partners around the world. As the global voice of the business analysis community, IIBA supports recognition of the profession, networking and community engagement, standards and resource development, and comprehensive certification programs. IIBA Publications IIBA publications offer a wide variety of knowledge and insights into the profession and practice of business analysis for the entire business community. Standards such as A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge(R) (BABOK(R) Guide), the Agile Extension to the BABOK(R) Guide, and the Global Business Analysis Core Standard represent the most commonly accepted practices of business analysis around the globe. IIBA's reports, research, whitepapers, and studies provide guidance and best practices information to address the practice of business analysis beyond the global standards and explore new and evolving areas of practice to deliver better business outcomes. Learn more at iiba.org.

Covers Data Science concepts, processes, and the real-world hands-on use cases. KEY FEATURES ● Covers the journey from a basic programmer to an effective Data Science developer. ● Applied use of Data Science native processes like CRISP-DM and Microsoft TDSP. ● Implementation of MLOps using Microsoft Azure DevOps. DESCRIPTION "How is the Data Science project to be implemented?" has never been more conceptually sounding, thanks to the work presented in this book. This book provides an in-depth look at the current state of the world's data and how Data Science plays a pivotal role in everything we do. This book explains and implements the entire Data Science lifecycle using well-known data science processes like CRISP-DM and Microsoft TDSP. The book explains the significance of these processes in connection with the high failure rate of Data Science projects. The book helps build a solid foundation in Data Science concepts and related frameworks. It teaches how to implement real-world use cases using data from the HMDA dataset. It explains Azure ML Service architecture, its capabilities, and implementation to the DS team, who will then be prepared to implement MLOps. The book also explains how to use Azure DevOps to make the process repeatable while we're at it. By the end of this book, you will learn strong Python coding skills, gain a firm grasp of concepts such as feature engineering, create insightful visualizations and become acquainted with techniques for building machine learning models. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN ● Organize Data Science projects using CRISP-DM and Microsoft TDSP. ● Learn to acquire and explore data using Python visualizations. ● Get well versed with the implementation of data pre-processing and Feature Engineering. ● Understand algorithm selection, model development, and model evaluation. ● Hands-on with Azure ML Service, its architecture, and capabilities. ● Learn to use Azure ML SDK and MLOps for implementing real-world use cases. WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR This book is intended for programmers who wish to pursue AI/ML development and build a solid conceptual foundation and familiarity with related processes and frameworks. Additionally, this book is an excellent resource for Software Architects and Managers involved in the design and delivery of Data Science-based solutions. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Data Science for Business 2. Data Science Project Methodologies and Team Processes 3. Business Understanding and Its Data Landscape 4. Acquire, Explore, and Analyze Data 5. Pre-processing and Preparing Data 6. Developing a Machine Learning Model 7. Lap Around Azure ML Service 8. Deploying and Managing Models

This book highlights the different types of data architecture and illustrates the many possibilities hidden behind the term "Big Data", from the usage of No-SQL databases to the deployment of stream analytics architecture, machine learning, and governance. Scalable Big Data Architecture covers real-world, concrete industry use cases that leverage complex distributed applications , which involve web applications, RESTful API, and high throughput of large amount of data stored in highly scalable No-SQL data stores such as Couchbase and Elasticsearch. This book demonstrates how data processing can be done at scale from the usage of NoSQL datastores to the combination of Big Data distribution. When the data processing is too complex and involves different processing topology like long running jobs, stream processing, multiple data sources correlation, and machine learning, it’s often necessary to delegate the load to Hadoop or Spark and use the No-SQL to serve processed data in real time. This book shows you how to choose a relevant combination of big data technologies available within the Hadoop ecosystem. It focuses on processing long jobs, architecture, stream data patterns, log analysis, and real time analytics. Every pattern is illustrated with practical examples, which use the different open sourceprojects such as Logstash, Spark, Kafka, and so on. Traditional data infrastructures are built for digesting and rendering data synthesis and analytics from large amount of data. This book helps you to understand why you should consider using machine learning algorithms early on in the project, before being overwhelmed by constraints imposed by dealing with the high throughput of Big data. Scalable Big Data Architecture is for developers, data architects, and data scientists looking for a better understanding of how to choose the most relevant pattern for a Big Data project and which tools to integrate into that pattern.