A Practitioner's Guide to Business Analytics: Using Data Analysis Tools to Improve Your Organization’s Decision Making and Strategy

by Randy Bartlett

Gain the competitive edge with the smart use of business analyticsIn 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

Integrating analytics into decision making, corporate culture, and business strategyLeading and organizing analytics within the corporationApplying statistical qualifications, statistical diagnostics, and statistical reviewProviding effective building blocks to support analytics—statistical software, data collection, and data managementRandy 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.

Genres: Business

289 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a practicing statistician/business analyst and I have found Bartlett's treatment of the field to be insightful and eye-opening. His experience in the field shines through his explanations of current best practices. I have already employed many of his ideas about BA group structure and dynamics. I also enjoyed his overview of the statistical tools he keeps in his top-shelf for solving problems he faces. There is something for everyone in this book in an organization that wishes to leverage data to move business forward, from practitioner (like myself) to the CEO.

[Monica · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book suffers from poor writing and editing. He uses initialisms before defining them. When he could say something with a thousand words instead of ten, he chose one thousand. The author comes off as smug rather than as an expert. The typesetting uses black on dark gray with ghosting for case studies making it more difficult to read than necessary. Is there another book that I could recommend to my instructor so the next class of students does not need to be subjected to this textbook?

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, had planned on breaking the book up into chunks for reading, ended up finishing in an extended sitting. State of the art, and thankfully high level, view of the Quant Analytics industry from an experienced professional.

[James Keogh · Rating 5 out of 5]

We used this book in my Leveraging Data for Decision Making class. I liked all of what it said about adding a data analyst to organizations. There was nothing wrong that I found with this book. I just wished the class actually included some analytics to do if you are only a knowledge worker so far.

Bartlett does a great job of explaining complex ideas simply.

[Bishal Paudyal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction.

[Doug Sameulson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Randy Bartlett has written an important and useful book, filling at least some of the large void between books that exhort managers to think more analytically without explaining how, and overly technical books that only quantitative analysts would appreciate. Particular strengths are the recommendations about how to organize to integrate analytical expertise into decision-making and the guidance about how managers can assess whether they are getting good analytical advice.”

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasure to read! It is well written and rich in content. They should have put the footnotes on the same page. Some of them are hilarious so you should bookmark them and flip back when you come to them.

Hakan Gagtas, Ph.D.

[Cliff Chew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a broad-based book that is more geared towards letting management understand some of the concerns and considerations of data analytics.