Virtual Training on Analytical Decision Making

This course is designed to help the participants with analysis skills in the business context. It will help in evaluation of management situations faced by managers in organizations. The course emphasis is on developing good judgement in analysing management problems. This is achieved by the participants ability to formulate, analyse and solve managerial problems. The key element of decision-making is to identify the best course of action after thorough analysis of the problem since businesses problems often have too many alternative solutions and hence the course equips the participants with skills of identifying the best option.

Course objectives:

By the end of the course the participants should be able to:

• Apply the knowledge acquired and problem-solving capacity in new settings within broader context related to area of study
• Develop critical thinking and analysis skills
• Learn techniques for critical thinking and improved focus
• Enhance customer service through better problem solving and decision making
• Become more effective in analysis, communication and leadership
• Make appropriate decisions at the right time

Benefits to the organization

Taking employees for a course in Analytical decision-making results to benefits such as:

• Empowerment of employees with information and insight they need to make faster and better decisions while faced with issues
• Identify fraudulent transactions and odd behaviors hence saving company’s money
• Enhance product and service features which lead to better customer satisfaction and profitability
• Minimize operational costs by optimally managing inventories and allocating resources wherever needed

Benefits to the participants

• Helps in improving productivity and satisfaction
• Provide skills that help an individual make right decisions that meet the expectations and requirements of the company
• Recognize different types of biases that give way to bad decision making and learn how to overcome them
• Learn different sources of data and assess the quality of data
• Predict future outcomes using the available data
• Understand ethics involved in making decisions using data

Session 1: Scope and concepts of appropriate decision making

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

• Define business decision making
• Explain the nature and characteristics of decision making
• Discuss the elements of decision making
• Explain the importance of decision making
• Understand the decision-making process
• Understand the difference between individual and group decision making

Session 2: Routine and non-routine operational and strategic decision making

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

• Differentiate between operational and strategic decision making
• Understand what are operational decisions and their role in business
• Explain the characteristics of operational decisions
• Apply tips to improve operational decision making
• Understand strategic decision making and characteristics of those decision
• Understand benefits of strategic decision making
• Understand the steps involved in strategic decisions

Session 3 Business analytics and its role in supporting business decision making

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

• Understand what is business analytics
• Explain different methods of business analytics and the type of questions they address;

– Descriptive analytics (what happened)
– Diagnostic analytics (why did it happen)
– Predictive analytics (when might it happen)
– Prescriptive analysis (how I can make it happen)

• Understand the difference between business analytics and data science
• Analyse the benefits of business analytics
• Explain ways in which business analytics aids in decision making in business
• Develop original and creative responses to problems and issues associated with their professional level at the workplace and research
• Learn how to extract strategic business insights from data and efficiently communicate them to stakeholders

Session 4 Emerging issues and shift in strategic decision making

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

• Explain how the following emerging issues have led to shift in strategic decision making for businesses;

– Globalization
– Ethics
– Corporate governance
– Development of environmentalism
– Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
– Technological development
– Multi-cultural effects
– Innovation and change
– Quality and productivity

Session 5: Data retrieval analytics and management information systems

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

• Understand management information systems (MIS) and its role
• Explain data retrieval and analytics
• Understand data sources and use of technology
• Discuss different database management systems used by businesses
• Apply management information system (MIS) to various business functions/departments
• Contemporary issues in regard to data sources such as;

– Risk with data validity
– Online security protection
– Industry and organizational intelligence including reliability of sources such as whistle blowing
– Ethical standards applied to information and intelligence gathering
– Cost of knowledge acquisition and timeliness