Our increasingly connected world is producing more data than humans are able to process and is transforming our economy and many businesses. In making decision, executives rely on predictions and forecasts that are based on the versatile data that nowadays companies are increasingly gathering. Problems of this nature occur in fields as diverse as finance, operations management, marketing, risk management among others. Making accurate forecasts is thus a necessity for managers to cope with issues such as seasonality, demand changes, price-cutting maneuvers, and swings in the economy and is fundamental for creating a competitive advantage. Students will learn to:
- Identify different features of realistic data and analyze these features using appropriate predictive analytics methods.
- Identify the limitations and the applicability of different predictive analytics methods.
- Develop different predictive models to predict data and evaluate these models quantitatively.
- Implement predictive models using R.
- Apply these models to various business decisions for the purpose of making better and more informed decisions.