Tutoring for B6101 Business Analytics at Columbia Business School

B6101 Business Analytics is a mandatory data analysis course for all MBA & EMBA students at Columbia Business School. The course introduces students to computer models that support managerial decision-making. The models include frameworks such as logistic regression, k-nearest neighbors, ROC curves, Monte Carlo simulation, etc.

What is unique in B6101 Business Analytics class is a custom Business Analytics Microsoft Excel add in available only to students of the B6101 Business Analytics class. Our graduate level statistics tutors provide tutoring for B6101 Business Analytics at Columbia Business School.

B6101 Business Analytics Course Objectives

B6101 Business Analytics aims to teach students:

How to think critically about data and the data analyses
How to identify opportunities for creating value using business analytics
How To estimate the value created using business analytics to address an opportunity.

B6101 Business Analytics covers a variety of real-world case studies to show that business analytics is not just a theoretical discipline but that these techniques are applied to provide insights, making companies far more valuable.

B6101 Business Analytics should help MBA students identify opportunities to apply data analytics at work and create tangible value.

B6101 Business Analytics Teaching Format

The B6101 Business Analytics course teaching format comprises approximately half lecture sessions and half in-class case discussions. This is an ideal mix where the faculty can provide a lot of guidance but also has a robust application of data analysis theory in real-world business decision-making environments. Significant preparation from students is expected for the case discussions. Learning happens in teams so there is a lot of mutual teaching and learning as well. B6101 Business Analytics course at Columbia Business School aims to provide a balance between theoretical concepts and their practical application.

B6101 Business Analytics also has three problem sets to test understanding of key concepts in a time-efficient manner. B6101 Business Analytics “concept checks” short quizzes are given individually to check your understanding of the B6101 Business Analytics material taught in class.

Custom B6101 Business Analytics Excel Add in

There is a custom analytics Excel add in tool for the B6101 Business Analytics that students have to familiarize themselves with. While this exasperates many students, it helps with the assignments once the tool is mastered.

As tutors, we prefer students to learn to use the frameworks without the B6101 Business Analytics add in because it may not be available in the future when students need to apply these data analysis concepts at work.

B6101 Business Analytics Content

The B6101 Business Analytics course is broken into three distinct components.

The first component is Predictive Analytics. Here B6101 Business Analytics students learn how to predict specific outcomes such as pass/fail, loan default (Y/N), etc. Case studies where these concepts are applied in the real world in areas such as lending analytics, movie or music recommendation, healthcare analytics, financial analytics, and sports betting are introduced to students.

The second component is Prescriptive Analytics. Students learn how to use data analysis to make prescriptive diagnoses. Case studies with these concepts include retail analytics, simulating future values, pension analytics, optimization and goal programming with multiple objectives, portfolio analytics, etc.

The third component is appreciating how these data and decision-support systems are deployed at scale and understanding frontiers and emerging challenges in business analytics.

B6101 Business Analytics Faculty

In recent years, B6101 Business Analytics has been taught by several faculty members, from the Decision, Risk and Operations Department at the Columbia Business School including Yash Kanoria, Gustavo Vulcano, Malek Ben Sliman, Omar Besbes, Santiago Balseiro, Ciamac Moallemi, etc.

Textbook for B6101 Business Analytics

The B6101 Business Analytics class does not require a textbook. Instead, students will be provided with case studies, journal articles, and class slides.

Our recommended resources include: For data mining and predictive analytics: Data Science for Business, Provost and Fawcett and Data Mining for Business Intelligence, Concepts, Techniques and Applications, Shmueli, Patel, and Bruce. For Excel modeling and optimization Management Science: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, Powell and Baker. For more advanced machine learning tools: Business Data Science, Taddy and The Elements of Statistical Learning, Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman.

B6101 Business Analytics Evaluation

The final grades in the B6101 Business Analytics class come from a final exam 50%, class participation 10%, concept check quizzes 10%, and assigned homework 30% .