Business Analytics Exam- Q & A with Complete Solutions

Strategic decision - Answer-A decision that involves higher-level issues and that is concerned with the overall direction of the organization, defining the overall goals and aspirations for the organization's future. Tactical decision - Answer-concern how the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by its strategy, and they are usually the responsibility of midlevel management. Tactical decisions usually span a year and thus are revisited annually or even every six months. Operational decisions - Answer-affect how the firm is run from day to day; they are the domain of operations managers, who are the closest to the customer. Decision making process - Answer-Identify and define the problem. Determine the criteria that will be used to evaluate alternative solutions. Determine the set of alternative solutions. Evaluate the alternatives. Choose an alternative. Business analytics - Answer-the scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions.Footnote Business analytics is used for data-driven or fact-based decision making, which is often seen as more objective than other alternatives for decision making. 3 categories of analytics - Answer-descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics. Descriptive analytics - Answer-encompasses the set of techniques that describes what has happened in the past. Examples are data queries, reports, descriptive statistics, data visualization including data dashboards, some data-mining techniques, and basic what-if spreadsheet models. data query - Answer-is a request for information with certain characteristics from a database. For example, a query to a manufacturing plant's database might be for all records of shipments to a particular distribution center during the month of March. This query provides descriptive information about these shipments: the number of shipments, how much was included in each shipment, the date each shipment was sent, and so on.