The State of Analytics and Business Analytics in Academia and Practice

• Activity Number: 167
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Bhushan Kapoor*+ and Ofir Turel
• Companies: Cal State U., Fullerton and Cal State U., Fullerton
• Keywords: Data Warehousing ; Data Mining ; Dashboards ; Scorecards ; Business Analytics ; Deployment and Usage

Abstract

Business Analytics has evolved rapidly to become almost a necessity in many lines of business, such as marketing, healthcare, financial services and many others. It allows companies to utilize the vast amounts of data they anyhow gather, and gain operational and strategic insights which can be used for obtaining and sustaining strategic advantage. While the industry of business analytics has bloomed, most organizations have not been able to fully utilize such tools. A big challenge in the adoption or use of business analytics is finding personnel with adequate business analytical skills. The demand for analytical talent continues to outpace its supply, and academia only recently has started recognizing the need to train graduates to play a major role in this field. Presumably this delay is in part due to the challenges of teaching analytics. Specifically, it requires cross-disciplinary knowledge (e.g., database, data mining, data warehousing, forecasting) which often resides in different university departments. In this paper we will review the state of analytics in industry and academia, and suggest ways in which academia can better respond to industry demands in this domain.