Introduction to Business Analytics

Comprehensive flashcards covering key terms and definitions from the Introduction to Business Analytics lecture notes, including types of decisions, analytical categories, big data characteristics, and ethical/legal issues.

Strategic Decisions

Decisions that involve higher-level issues concerned with the overall direction of the organization, defining overall goals and aspirations for the future.

Tactical Decisions

Decisions concerning how the organization should achieve the goals and objectives set by its strategy, usually the responsibility of midlevel management.

Operational Decisions

Decisions affecting how the firm is run from day to day, typically the domain of operations managers.

Business Analytics

The scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions.

Descriptive Analytics

The set of techniques that describes what has happened in the past, including data queries, reports, and visualization.

Data Query

A request for information with certain characteristics from a database.

Data Dashboards

Collections of tables, charts, maps, and summary statistics updated as new data becomes available.

Unsupervised Learning Technique

A descriptive method that seeks to identify patterns in data based on notions of similarity (cluster analysis) or correlation (association rules).

Predictive Analytics

Techniques that use models constructed from past data to predict the future or ascertain the impact of one variable on another.

Supervised Learning Techniques

Data mining techniques that use past data to find patterns or relationships among data elements in a large database.

Simulation

The use of probability and statistics to construct a computer model to study the impact of uncertainty on a decision.

Prescriptive Analytics

Analytics that indicate a course of action to take; it is often a predictive model combined with a rule.

Optimization Models

Models that give the best decision subject to the constraints of the situation.

Simulation Optimization

A technique that combines probability and statistics to model uncertainty with optimization techniques to find good decisions in complex settings.

Decision Analysis

A method used to develop an optimal strategy when a decision maker faces several alternatives and an uncertain set of future events.

Utility Theory

A branch of decision analysis that assigns values to outcomes based on the decision maker’s attitude toward risk.

Big Data

Any set of data that is too large or too complex to be handled by standard data-processing techniques and typical desktop software.

Volume (Big Data)

One of the four Vs, referring to data at rest and existing data to process in the range of $\text{terabytes}$ to $\text{exabytes}$.

Velocity (Big Data)

One of the four Vs, referring to data in motion and streaming data requiring response times from $\text{milliseconds}$ to $\text{seconds}$.

Variety (Big Data)

One of the four Vs, referring to data in many forms, including structured, unstructured, text, and multimedia.

Veracity (Big Data)

One of the four Vs, referring to data in doubt due to inconsistency, incompleteness, ambiguities, or latency.

Hadoop

An open-source programming environment that supports big data processing through distributed storage and cloud computing.

MapReduce

A programming model used within Hadoop that performs two major steps: the map step and the reduce step.

Cloud Computing

The use of data and software on servers housed externally to an organization via the internet.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The use of big data and computers to make decisions that would have required human intelligence in the past.

Data Scientists

Analysts trained in computer science and statistics who know how to process and analyze massive amounts of data.

Sentiment Analysis

A technique that allows companies to monitor "the voice of the customer" to adjust services and products based on customer feedback data.

Conjoint Analysis

A predictive technique used to design stadium premium seating based on fan survey data.

Data Breaches

Unauthorized uses of data, which are a major concern for companies obligated to protect stored data.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

One of the strictest privacy laws that went into effect in the European Union in May $\text{2018}$, regarding data consent and individual rights.