Online Courses
Data Analytics for Business Professionals (1 hour, 16 minutes)
What can data analytics do for your business? Take a lesson from companies like Xerox and UPS, with qualitative and quantitative examples along the way. Data analytics can help cut costs, speed up delivery, generate forecasts, and improve outcomes for your business over time. In this introductory course, economist and author John Johnson shows you how to use analytics to make data-driven decisions and gain competitive advantage. Explore examples of real-life analytics in action, distinguishing between predictive and prescriptive approaches, and learning how to formulate and pose your own questions. Find out how to collect, clean, and aggregate data from different sources across your organization, and identify when data is flawed. John gives you pointers on planning and deploying an analytics strategy that fits the specific needs of your business, covering a variety of simple techniques: averages, sampling, cherry picking, forecasting, correlation, causality, and more.
Introduction to Business Analytics (1 hour, 25 minutes)
Data is an extremely valuable resource. But without study, it can’t be used to create a data-informed strategy. Business analytics helps organizations leverage data to make better, more informed decisions. This course is a basic introduction that lays out the foundations of analytics in an easy-to-understand and engaging manner. Expert John David Ariansen explains why data is so powerful, what insights really matter, and how to use common analysis tools and techniques. Additionally, John David explores data source maps, database management, and all the various data sources that may be encountered. By the end of the course, you should have the skills necessary to start collecting, tracking, and analyzing a variety of data, including sales, marketing, and psychographic metrics.
Books
Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals 1st Edition
Author: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Summary : Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation.
Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to:
Understand the importance of context and audience
Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation
Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information
Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data
Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization
Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience
Decision Analysis for Managers: A Guide for Making Better Personal and Business Decisions
Author: David Charlesworth
Summary : Everybody has to make decisions—they are unavoidable. Yet we receive little or no education or training on how to make decisions. Business decisions can be dif_ cult: which people to hire, which product lines or facilities to expand and which to sell or shut down, which bid or proposal to accept, which process to implement, how much R&D to invest in, which environmental projects should receive the highest priority, etc. This book gives you all the tools you need to… • clarify and reach alignment on goals and objectives and understand trade-offs in reaching those goals, • develop and examine alternatives, • systematically analyze the effects of risk and uncertainty, and • maximize the chances of achieving your goals and objectives. Success (getting what you want) depends on luck and good decision making. You can’t control your luck, but you can maximize your odds by making the best possible decisions, and this book gets you there. Broadly speaking, this book organizes and presents otherwise formal decision-making tools in an intuitively understandable fashion. The presentation is informal, but the concepts and tools are research-based and formally accepted.
Please contact learning@nextcenturi.com with questions, suggestions or anything else related to the Manager Toolkit.