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Data Sources for Business Process Diagnosis

This document provides an overview of sources of data and statistical methods used for business process diagnosis. It discusses using statistics over assumptions and describes common data sources from accounting, production, finance, marketing and economics. Key statistical methods are described for organizing, summarizing and visualizing data including frequency distributions, cross tabulations, graphs and measures of central tendency. Guidelines are provided for collecting quality data, planning statistical studies, and reporting results in a clear and concise manner focused on the business decision.

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Alice Amindzhanova
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6 views15 pages

Data Sources for Business Process Diagnosis

This document provides an overview of sources of data and statistical methods used for business process diagnosis. It discusses using statistics over assumptions and describes common data sources from accounting, production, finance, marketing and economics. Key statistical methods are described for organizing, summarizing and visualizing data including frequency distributions, cross tabulations, graphs and measures of central tendency. Guidelines are provided for collecting quality data, planning statistical studies, and reporting results in a clear and concise manner focused on the business decision.

Uploaded by

Alice Amindzhanova
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Sources of data for the diagnosis of business processes

Module 1.

Preface. Why use statistics?


When the dataset we need to look is large, statistics is a lot better than assumptions and guesses (Kemp S.)
Information for the business decision: Facts. Data plus statistics. Assumptions and guesses.

Quality control, output monitoring. Statistical base for inventory control, supply chain management.

Sampling procedures, descriptive statistics are used for audit conclusions.

Accounting

Production

Finance

Business Statistics

Investment recommendations, market reports (ratios, dividend yields, stock market averages)

Data collection and summarizing, plans, relationships, sales forecasting.

Marketing

Economics

Data collection, forecasting for future of the economy (PPI, GDP)

Planned:
Data collection. Organizing and Summarizing Data. Visualization and Interpretation. Lying with Statistics. The statistical report. Writing up Data Collection plan (Minitask 1, individual).

Data collection
Data information, usually numerical or categorical (Oxford Dictionary of
Statistics).

Data sources. Gathering data: Where and How? Types of variables. Quality of the data.

Data sources
Companies Databases; Business database services; Industry associations; Web sites; Government agencies; Statistical studies, experimental and observational.

Gathering Data
Protect your data from error: use two different methods of gathering data and verify everything you can
(Kemp.S)

Do we have the data? Where to get the data in the right form? Can it be used for our purpose?

Types of variables
Data

Qualitative

Quantitative

Tables: Frequency Distributions, Cross tabulation

Graphs: Bar Graph Pie Chart

Tables: Frequency Distributions, Cumulative Frequency Distribution, Cross tabulation

Graphs: Histogram, Ogive, Steam-and-Leaf, Scatter Plot

Quality of the data: seeing through bias.


Who says so? Find competent source of data. How does he know? Be sure that relevant methods of gathering data are used. Whats wrong? Graphical misrepresentation of data, biased sample, wrong use of the empirical rule. Does it make sense? Is underlying theory valid?

Summarizing Data
let you see the forest as well as the individual trees ([Link]).
Frequency distribution graph. Measures of central tendency. Variance.

The statistical report


is the way the statistical work supports a business decision. Keys to making a good report. Planning a statistical study. Report the results.

Key points:
Focus on the business decision, dont focus on the statistics. Open with one-page summary. Identify the subject. Dont include any justifications or detailed explanations. Save the details for the back of the report.

Planning a statistical study


Statistical study is a process whose outputs are statistics (Kemp S.) Define a business decision to be supported and questions to be answered. Create a research plan. Collect the data. Analyze the data. Report the results.

Report the results


Be sure your report includes:
Authors name and headline. Abstract part (purpose, methods, results, conclusion). Footnotes (if needed).

Homework
Quiz (Kemp, Steven M. Business Statistics Demystified, p.84-86). Quiz (Kemp, Steven M. Business Statistics Demystified, p.109-110).

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