Ateneo - UPO

The course is a journey through the advanced use of Excel to arrive to understand how to use it for modelling the business decision framework.

These issues are discussed through the presentation of Case Studies such as: Capital Budgeting; Assessing Risk of Marketing New Products; Multiperiod Capital Rationing; Modeling Weather and the how climate impacts on the profitability of the tourism industry; Forecasting Soccer Results; Hire or dismiss? Modeling the COVID epidemic.

The course is also strongly suggested to students with a major in Management & Finance

Excel Business Analytics (Statistics & Math Model Building): a free course on youtube

H. Guerrero Excel Data Analysis: Modeling and Simulation, Second Edition, Springer (2019)
Additional useful reference: Microsoft Excel 365 Bible, Michael Alexander, Richard Kusleika, John Walkenbach, March 2022
The course is based on the use of Excel 2021 for Windows. The instructions and teaching materials are specifically tailored for Windows users. Adaptability to other operating systems (Linux or macOS) is not guaranteed.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
1. use Excel at an advanced level as an aid to managerial decisions
2. formalize and support the decision making process using quantitative analysis
3.communicate the results of quantitative data analysis

Basic knowledge of Excel: basic operations and functions, use a worksheet

Lectures including both theory and exercises using Excel 365. Each student is required to have a laptop with Office 365.

Additional information will be made available during the course on the course web page (www.dir.uniupo.it).
Attendance of the course lessons is strongly recommended.

Teaching instructions and materials are specifically tailored to Windows PC users.

Face-to-face classes
These classes run in a computer lab and you do not need to bring your own device.

Active participation in the classroom.
Final individual or group work (max 3 components per group) with written report and presentation, aimed at testing the understanding of the most advanced topics and the ability to apply the acquired knowledge to analyze articulated and complex problems.

1.Introduction to Spreadsheet Modeling: Building Good Spreadsheet Models
2. Visualizing Data and Excel Charts
3. Data Entry and Manipulation: advanced functionalities in Excel 365
4. Data Queries with Sort, Filter, and Advanced Filter, Pivot Tables and Charts
5. What If Analysis
6. Costruzione di Dashboard

7. Excel Data Analysis Tools: Averages, Variance, Probability & More

8. Frequency Distributions & Histograms

9. Linear Regression: Cross Section and Time Series Analysis
10. Forecasting

11. Monte Carlo Simulation: use cases for business
12. Excel Solver: scenario optimization

If time allows
13. Power Query for Importing, Cleaning & Transforming Data
14. Excel Power Pivot for Big Data

Knowledge and understanding
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
Identify appropriate models and the correct methodology for solving managerial problems.
Knowing how to use deterministic models and scenario analysis.

Skills:

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
Properly organize the information contained in the data to build a consistent quantitative model.

Formalize the decision process in a quantitative model.
Use the advanced features of Excel in order to implement the quantitative model and present its results.