Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow Post Graduate Program for Working Managers Business Data Analysis with Spreadsheet

Instructor Session(s) : Vivek Gupta : Twenty of 1.5 hrs. each Term-VI, 2011-12 Credit : 1(one)

1. Objectives and Scope: With todays technology, companies are able to collect tremendous amount of data with relative ease. In fact many companies have more data than they can handle. Operationally this calls for a disciplined thinking process that involves capturing, transformation, abstraction, design of alternatives, to approach a decision making situation. However, the data are usually meaningless until they are analyzed for trends, patterns, relationships and other useful information. All managers need to analyze data and make quantitative and logic based decisions in their job. Use of computer based models can help a decision maker immensely in all of these. The prime objective of this course is to enable the student to develop capability in generating insights via modeling in a wide range of realistic situations. This course offers hands on, example based approach and introduces fundamental concepts using the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel 2007. This course will allow you to become a Excel power user and developer of spreadsheet based decision support tools for commonly faced managerial decision making problems. You will learn how to conduct what if? type analyses, use advanced spreadsheet features such as pivot tables, statistical and financial analysis functions, internal database features, querying external data sources, graphical data display, risk analysis and simulation.

2. Textbook and Readings:

1) [P&B] Stephen G. Powell, Kenneth R. Baker, Management Science: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, Excel 2007 Update, Wiley India Edition, 2009 (http://www.wiley.com/college/powell)

2) [CA] S. Christian Albright, VBA for Modelers, 3rd ed., South-Western Cengage Learning, 2010 (http://kelley.iu.edu/albrightbooks/VBA_Home.htm)
3) Case(s)/ Background Note(s)/ Handout(s), if any, to be given by the instructor

3. Evaluation: End-term exam Assignment/ quizzes/ presentation/ project : 50 % : 50 %

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4. Session Details:

Session

Topics Introduction to Problem Solving, Model and Modeling

Reading(s) Ch. 1, 2, 5 (P&B) Ch 3 , 4 (P&B) + Handouts Handouts

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Retrieving Data for Computation and Analysis Named Ranges, Referencing, Look Up Functions, Importing Data Analyzing unstructured data Text Functions and its variants Applying logic in Decision Making If Function and its variants Other Functions and Formulae Date, Time, Financial Function What If Analysis Goal seek, Scenario Manager, and Data Tables Effective Data Display Charts, Conditional Formatting and Intro. to Dashboards Summarisation of Data (GF) Pivot table, Subtotals, and Consolidating Data Optimization with Excel Solver (GF) Regression and Simulation (GF) Visual Basic for Application (VBA) Development in Excel VBA Programming Fundamentals - I VBA Programming Fundamentals - II Database Handling Student Project Presentation and Course Review

Handouts Ch 7 (P&B) + Handouts Ch 6 (P&B) Handouts Ch 15 (CA) Ch 11 (P&B) Ch 8, 15 (P&B) Ch 1-4 (CA) Ch 5-7 (CA) Ch 9-12 (CA) Ch 14 (CA)

7 8 9 10 11-12 13-14 15-16 17-18 19-20

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