Quantitative Techniques I GMBA November 2011

Section 1: General Information

1.1

Administrative details:
Duration (eg one semester, full year) Level (eg introductory, intermediate, advanced level or 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year etc Semester 1 Subject Coordinator

Associated HE Award(s) (eg Bachelor, Diploma)

Master of Business Administration (GMBA)

1 Year

1.2

Core or elective subject/unit

Indicate if the subject/unit is a core subject/unit elective subject/unit other (please specify below):

1.3

Subject/unit weighting
Indicate below, the weighting of this subject/unit and the total course points (eg 10 credit points for the subject/unit and 320 credit points for the course).

Subject/Unit Credit Points 1

Total Course Credit Points 41

1.4

Student workload
Indicate below, the expected student workload per week for this subject/unit: No. personal study hours/week** 9 * ** *** Total workload hours/week*** 18

No. timetabled hours/week* 9

Total time spent per week at lectures, tutorials, clinical and other placements etc Total time students are expected to spend per week in studying, completing assignments, etc That is, * + ** = workload hours

1.5

Mode of Delivery
Indicate if this subject/unit is delivered face to face online independent learning module/un timetabled study by a combination of modes (please specify below) through a practicum other mode (please specify below)

1.6

Pre-requisites
Are students required have undertaken a prerequisite/co-requisite subject/unit(s) for this subject/unit? Yes No If yes, provide details of the prerequisite/co-requisite requirements below:

1.7

Other resource requirements

Do students require access to specialist facilities and/or equipment for this subject/unit (eg special computer access / physical education equipment)? Yes No If yes, provide details of the requirements below:

Laptop and Statistical Softwares Note: Access to these requirements should be detailed under 3.5 in the accreditation application form Section 2 Academic Details

2.1

Introduction

Each and every minute of the day, decisions are made in various businesses and in industries around the world, to see if companies are growing and becoming profitable, or if they are stagnating and falling. Most of these decisions are made with the help of inputs pulled out from, market place, financial/economic world, from workforce around you, from competition around, from environment and other relevant sources, etc. Such inputs usually come in the form of huge data. We need to understand how such data is collected, organized into meaningful form and summarized, to generate information. Subsequently this information is presented to businesses and used for decision-making. The value of this information is directly associated, with the value that it provides the decision maker (or manager), at his/her work. For this, managers require standard, well-acceptable mathematical tools and techniques to uniformly understand and interpret such information. A variety of effective and easy-to-learn quantitative techniques (QT) are available for this. Also, today, the volume of data and information we deal with is enormous. However, with availability of powerful, highend computer and standard software, it does not pose any hindrance for time or resources, to do analysis on a routine basis. These techniques can really provide a powerful cutting edge skill to managers, for generating fast and effective business solutions.

2.2

Objectives of the Course

This QT-1 course is being administered through 8 contact sessions (of 135 mins each). The prime objectives of the course are: to understand how to collect and organize data to learn basic quantitative techniques to analyze such data and apply them to learn the use of associated software for large scale computation and analysis

to interpret results & make conclusions, in business decisions

2.3

Pedagogy

The pedagogy for the course comprises of: 1. Pre-class preparation or Self study

2. Classroom sessions - Theoretical inputs, problem solving in class, software usage 3. Group, as well as individual work out sessions, in the classroom 4. Case analysis of similar business situations 5. Tutorial sessions for clarifications (conducted by Teaching Assistant at SPJCM

2.4

Course Evaluation

The following pattern for course evaluation will be followed in this course.

Assessment Type Quiz

Final Examination Total

Weighting

40% 60% 100%

Note: Grading will be based on an individuals relative performance in the class.

2.5

Recommended Reading Material

The following core book is prescribed and provided as courseware.

PrescribedBook:
1) Ken Black, (2004) Business Statistics for Contemporary Decision Making, 4th ed. John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd., Singapore. In addition to this, handouts may be provided for classroom discussion and exercises, if needed. Sloticipants may also like to consult additional references that are given below. Reference Books: 1) Levin, Richard I. and Rubin, David S., (2000) Statistics for Management, 7th edition. Pearson Education (Singapore) Pte Ltd., Indian Branch, New Delhi. 2) Albright, Christian S., Winston, Wayne L. and Zappe, Christopher 2003, Data Analysis & Decision Making With Microsoft Excel, First Reprint, Thomson Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore. 3) Anderson, David R., Sweeney Dennis J and Williams Thomas A., (2010) Statistics for Business and Economics, Cengage Learning (formerly South Western) 7th Indian Reprint.

2.6

Session Plan

This 1-credit QT-1 course will be covered over 8 contact Sessions, each covering 135 minutes [spanning two Slots: A (65 mins.) and B (70 mins)]. Detailed plan of these 8 Sessions appear below. It is important to get a grasp of the summary of each of the mentioned chapters, and especially the key terms given in them. These you will find at the end of every chapter. Each chapter gives a detailed explanation of these key terms and there are worked out, numerical examples as well. These help you understand how these key terms are applied in decision making. A prior, general understanding of all these key terms is CRITICAL, before you come to class.

Further clarifications on these terms & concepts will also be provided in the class, but only if you ask. These terms/concepts will be used for Case analysis and discussions. Needless to say, this subject needs loads of practice! Session No Topic Pre-read Chap 1 (Summary pg.14 Key terms pg.15 Session 1 Descriptive Statistics & Data Handling Time Slots for Class Slot A Self study / Application exercise Slot B In Class Data handling utilities using s/w. Concepts & Applications Case: Atomic Sales (to be given in class) Atomic Sales Discussion. Concepts closure

Chap 3 (Summary pg.86 Key terms pg.87 Formula pg.88)

Session 2

Variability, Std deviation & their Applications

Chap 3 (Summary pg.86 Key terms pg.87 Formula pg.88)

Slot A Self study/ Application exercise Slot B

Concepts, workout & Discussion Case Reading: Coco Cola Goes Small (pg.93) Case Discussion, Implications.

Session 3

Probability, Normal & Binomial distribution

Chap 4 (Summary & Key terms pg.134 Formula pg.134) Chap 5& 6 (Summary & Key terms pg173,212)

Slot A Self study / Application exercise Slot B

Probability Matrix & Decision tree pg108-112 Application exercises

Probability Distbn Normdist, Norminv & Binomdist use

Session 4

Sample and Sampling Techniques

Chap 7 (Summary & Key terms pg. 246/7)

Slot A Self study / Application exercise Slot B

Advantages & Disadvantages of different types of Sampling, Std Error Workouts using Std Error

Special Applications Setting a hypothesis. Claim vs. Challenge Testing of Means Workouts on caselets & their Applications Testing of Proportions, s/w use for solving

Slot A Hypothesis Testing Chap 9 (Summary & Key terms pg.332 Formula pg.333) Self study / Application exercise Slot B

Session 5

Session 6

Regression

Chap 13&14

Slot A

Concepts & s/w usage in regression

Analysis & Correlation

(Summary & Key terms pg.514 & 546) Case: Starbucks introduces Debit Card pg. 550 Chap 16 (Summary & Key terms pg.645/6)

Self study / Application exercise Slot B

Starbucks Case, additional workouts

Case discussion, Implications.

Slot A Self study / Application exercise Slot B

Measures of error, Smoothing, Trend & Seasonality assessment Debourgh Case, additional workouts

Session 7

Forecasting Case: Debourgh Manufacturing Co.

Case discussion, Implications.

Slot A Session 8 Decision Analysis (DA) Chap 19 (CD) Self study / Application exercise Slot B

DA Concepts, Case: Flower boy problem (to be given in class) Application Exercise (to be given in class) Discussions, Implications