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Master of Science in
Business Analytics
Prof Vincent Nijs // Rady @ UCSD

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About me
• Ph.D and MS marketing
analyitcs
• Research Area:
Marketing Effectiveness
• At UCSD since 2010
• Previously:
Northwestern University
(Kellogg School of
Management)

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Students in Business Analytics classes

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Why the increased interest?
25 hottest skill on LinkedIn
1. Statistical analysis and data mining
5. SEO/SEM Marketing
6. Business Intelligence

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Netflix Uses Pirate Sites to Determine What
Shows to Buy
This week Netflix rolled out its video streaming service in the Netherlands
where it hopes to build a massive user base in the years to come. One of the
keys to achieve this goal is getting the rights to the most popular movies
and TV-shows, and this is where pirate sites come in. Netflix Vice President
of Content Acquisition Kelly Merryman says that popularity on file-sharing
platforms determines in part what TV-series the company buys.
http://torrentfreak.com/netflix-uses-pirate-sites-to-determine-what-shows-to-buy-130914/
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Business Analytics – Past and Future
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In 2009, Hal Varian, chief economist at
Google, described statistician as the “sexy job
in the next 10 years” (Lohr, 2009). Yet by
2012, the Harvard Business Review used
similar logic to declare data scientist as the
“sexiest job of the 21st century” (Davenport
and Patil, 2012). Speaking at the 2013 Joint
Statistical Meetings, Nate Silver—as always—
helped us to unravel what had happened. He
noted that “data scientist is just a sexed up
term for a statistician”.

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Brandon Harris
So ... companies should hire lots of statisticians?

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Business Analytics (Data science for Business)

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How to get into Business Analytics?

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Learning-by-doing
“It is kind of hard being the exalted leader
in your first day on the job.”
Prof. Florian Zettelmeyer
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
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Business Analytics at Rady (MSBA 2016)
Successful businesses use data and models to make better business decisions and gain competitive
advantage. Vast amounts of data on customers, suppliers, operations, and financial transactions are
collected from a variety of sources, often managed in diverse systems, by multiple stakeholders.
Transforming this data into business insights that can enhance decision-making is a key strategic
challenge for businesses of every size, across all industries. Companies are looking for skilled
professionals who can work effectively in teams to frame key operational and strategic business
questions and use data and analytics to find the answers. msba@rady.ucsd.edu

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Business Analytics at Rady (CBA)
The Center for Business Analytics serves as a catalyst for research,
education, and innovation in the use of analytics and "big data" for
data-driven decision-making. http://rady.ucsd.edu/analytics/

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Tools for Business Analytics
Prof Vincent Nijs // Rady @ UCSD

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What about a spreadsheet? (e.g., Excel)

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Is Stata any better?

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And SAS (Shudder)?

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R for Business Analytics

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Popularity of R
Source: Rexer Analytics Data Miner Survey 2013
https://www.kaggle.com/

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Popularity of R
R Foundation: RStudio, Microsoft, TIBCO, Google, Oracle, HP and others
http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2015/06/r-at-microsoft.html

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Documentation: http://vnijs.github.io/radiant/
Giving managers access to the power of R …
Code: https://github.com/vnijs/radiant

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Big Data
Prof Vincent Nijs // Rady @ UCSD

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What is Big Data?
“data that exceeds the processing capacity of conventional
database systems. The data is too big, moves too fast, or doesn’t
fit the strictures of your database architectures”
[Edd Dumbill]

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http://yourdatafitsinram.com/

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Predictive Models
Prof Vincent Nijs // Rady @ UCSD

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Do Trade Promotions Work?
$ off
$ off ?
$ off ?
Manufacturer
End User/Consumer Retailer
Distributor/Wholesaler
*Based on “Channel Pass-Through of Trade Promotions”, Marketing Science, 2010
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Manufacturer
Wholesaler
Retailer
Consumer
One major product category
 Many sub-categories
 250 products
 30 states
 1 Manufacturer (many brands)
 100+ Wholesalers
 1000+ retail stores
Data
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What does Pass-through look like?
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Incremental retailer profits from trade promotions –
Inclusive
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Incremental manufacturer profits from trade promotions –
Inclusive
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Incremental manufacturer profits from trade promotions
– Selective
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• A large proportion of trade promotions does not reach the consumer
• On average, a 10% promotion from the manufacturer results in a 4.1%
promotion for the consumer
• Up to 56% of trade promotions may be unprofitable
• Recommendation: Offer trade promotions when demand is elastic and
channel members cooperate (i.e., pass-through)
Are trade promotions an effective tool to influence
retail prices?
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