104 Syllabus
UGBA 104 Analytic Decision Modeling Using Spreadsheets
Haas School of Business
Fall 2014
By some estimates, due in part to the Internet, we generate zettabytes (billion gigabytes) of data each year. This flood of data is transforming every aspect of business from finance to marketing to manufacturing. In this course, we will develop the basic tools for exploiting data in business decision-making. Whether you are interested in finance and wish to balance a portfolio between risk and return, an Internet entrepreneur designing a Google AdWords campaign, or the next Michael Dell, managing inventory and assembly from your dorm room, this course introduces the data-driven, analytical solution strategies to the common, underlying business problems.
While the underlying concepts, models, and methods of this course are mathematical in nature, we will develop them using the same tool used by the financial analysts on Wall Street, by the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road, and by the countless startups in Silicon Valley: Excel spreadsheets. This course examines all steps in constructing an analytical model: defining a problem, developing a model, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing the economic implication of results, and understanding how the models’ results depend on the data upon which it is based. You will learn to use Excel add-ins for solving constrained optimization problems and running Monte Carlo simulations.
Throughout the course we will emphasize systematic, logical thinking, and problem solving, illustrated by building and analyzing models of a variety of problems in operations, finance, and marketing. In this way, this course also will serve to integrate various functional areas of management on a common spreadsheet platform.
Administrative Information
INSTRUCTORS:
contact info
office hours
Thomas Lee (8/27 – 10/17)
thomasyl@haas.berkeley.edu
Office hours through 10/17*
Terry Hendershott (10/20 – 12/5)
hender@haas.berkeley.edu
Office
Haas School of Business
Fall 2014
By some estimates, due in part to the Internet, we generate zettabytes (billion gigabytes) of data each year. This flood of data is transforming every aspect of business from finance to marketing to manufacturing. In this course, we will develop the basic tools for exploiting data in business decision-making. Whether you are interested in finance and wish to balance a portfolio between risk and return, an Internet entrepreneur designing a Google AdWords campaign, or the next Michael Dell, managing inventory and assembly from your dorm room, this course introduces the data-driven, analytical solution strategies to the common, underlying business problems.
While the underlying concepts, models, and methods of this course are mathematical in nature, we will develop them using the same tool used by the financial analysts on Wall Street, by the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road, and by the countless startups in Silicon Valley: Excel spreadsheets. This course examines all steps in constructing an analytical model: defining a problem, developing a model, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing the economic implication of results, and understanding how the models’ results depend on the data upon which it is based. You will learn to use Excel add-ins for solving constrained optimization problems and running Monte Carlo simulations.
Throughout the course we will emphasize systematic, logical thinking, and problem solving, illustrated by building and analyzing models of a variety of problems in operations, finance, and marketing. In this way, this course also will serve to integrate various functional areas of management on a common spreadsheet platform.
Administrative Information
INSTRUCTORS:
contact info
office hours
Thomas Lee (8/27 – 10/17)
thomasyl@haas.berkeley.edu
Office hours through 10/17*
Terry Hendershott (10/20 – 12/5)
hender@haas.berkeley.edu
Office