Business Analytics Commons^™

Investment Decision Making, Muhammad Yaseen, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

A newly established commercial bank, founded in 2021, has accumulated excess capital reserves. The bank is evaluating long-term investment options to deploy this capital in a way that balances growth and risk. The investment committee is considering two primary strategies: investing in a diversified technology-focused ETF, QQQ, or investing directly in selected individual technology stocks.

The bank's senior management wants capital growth, but it also needs to manage risk exposure. A bank cannot treat an investment decision only as a search for the highest return. It must also consider volatility, concentration risk, liquidity, downside periods, and whether the strategy fits …

German Energy Crisis, Liomar Jimenez, Malachy Mclaughlin, Muhdee Nawab, Mouhamed Sarr, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

For most of the twentieth century, nuclear energy was the quiet backbone of Germany's electricity system. At its peak in 1997, nuclear power supplied over 31 percent of all electricity generated in the country. It was a reliable, low-cost source that kept German industries competitive across Europe. The country's industrial base, including automakers, chemical producers, and heavy manufacturers, depended on affordable, stable power. Nuclear delivered exactly that.

The political climate changed in the late 1990s. After years of advocacy based on concerns about nuclear waste and reactor safety, the Green Party joined the Social Democrats to form the Red-Green Coalition …

Credit Card Analysis, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

A credit card business unit at a bank is facing a retention problem. More customers are leaving the bank's credit card services, and the retention manager wants to identify which customers are most likely to churn so the bank can intervene before the account is lost.

The bank has customer demographic, relationship, and transaction data for more than 10,000 credit card customers. The data includes age, gender, education, income category, card category, months on book, customer inactivity, contact frequency, credit limit, revolving balance, transaction amount, transaction count, and whether the customer attrited.

You are a business analyst on the bank's …

Smartphone Usage, Charles Howard, Josiah Nkele, Berner Hernandez, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

A major smartphone company is studying how smartphone usage affects users' stress, productivity, and sleep habits. As part of the product development team, you have been assigned to analyze user behavior data to help create digital wellness features that improve the overall user experience.

The company has collected behavior data from over 50,000 users to better understand how smartphone habits may influence focus, stress, and performance. By exploring this data, the team hopes to discover patterns that can guide healthier digital usage and create a better balance between daily life and technology use.

Senior product managers are considering several possible …

Airbnb Studies, Fatoumata Diabate, Maria Estevez, Jaliah Fabre, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

In the high-stakes world of short-term rentals, Homeland Sellers serves as an advisory firm for property buyers navigating the global Airbnb market. Historically, investors in the sector have often been led by intuition and gut feeling. That is a dangerous strategy in an increasingly regulated environment. To protect capital, Homeland Sellers is transitioning to a more rigorous, data-driven investment model.

Aspiring hosts face a minefield of financial and legal hurdles. Ignoring local HOA restrictions, fluctuating property tax structures, or strict licensing requirements can create serious risk for net operating income. Beyond regulatory compliance, investors must also account for guest appeal …

Staffing Decisions At Gabriana Cup, Ana Jimenez, Edith Oblitas, Gabriela Pena Guzman, Adriana Valdivia, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

Labor costs are one of the largest operational costs in the service industry. Overstaffing increases expenses unnecessarily, and understaffing reduces service quality and customer satisfaction. You are a business operations analyst working for Gabriana Cup, a local coffee shop. The owner has observed that certain hours appear significantly busier than others, creating operational pressure during peak times. The owner would like to reduce unnecessary labor costs and optimize Gabriana Cup's staffing practices.

Staffing schedules are currently based on assumptions rather than historical sales patterns, costing the coffee shop owner through wasted inventory, overstaffing, understaffing, and unnecessary labor costs. The coffee …

Netflix Content Strategy, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

Netflix operates in a highly competitive streaming market where content strategy directly affects subscriber acquisition, retention, brand positioning, and international growth. A streaming platform cannot simply add more titles indefinitely. Content licensing, production budgets, regional demand, maturity ratings, and genre balance all shape which titles should be prioritized.

You are a content strategy analyst on Netflix's global catalog planning team. Senior management is preparing the next annual content review and wants a data-supported recommendation about how the catalog should be positioned. The team is especially interested in whether Netflix should continue emphasizing movies, expand TV shows more aggressively, prioritize specific …

Bba405-Management Decision Making Syllabus, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for BBA405 Management Decision Making course.

Smartphone And Sleep, Jesenia Ortiz, Melanie Bonilla, Eduard Reyes, Jose Rivera

Open Educational Resources

The case study and Decision: You are a data analyst advising a university-affiliated research and wellness initiative that is evaluating whether late-night smartphone use should be formally discouraged as part of student wellness guidance. Over the past academic year, administrators have raised concerns about declining sleep quality among students and its potential impact on academic performance, health, and decision-making. While smartphones are an essential tool for communication and learning, their use immediately before bedtime has emerged as a possible contributor to sleep disruption. The initiative must decide whether the available evidence is strong enough to justify recommending that students limit …

When The World Hits Play, Eileen Mazariegos, Danjela Halilaj, Yosmairy Guzman, Freddy Cruz Osorno

Open Educational Resources

The case study and Decision: In 2025, Lehman College administrators face a critical decision: how can music be strategically used to improve student engagement, emotional well-being, and campus connection? The decision must be made now, as rising academic stress, digital isolation, and declining campus interaction are affecting student experience. Leadership must determine whether to invest in a data-driven, campus-focused music platform or continue relying on generalized commercial streaming experiences that do not reflect student needs. The outcome of this decision will shape how students connect emotionally, socially, and academically on campus.

Nyc Fire Causes, Alex Rodriguez, Anyely Rojas Romero, Brianna Itwaru, Shahreen Sneha

Open Educational Resources

The case study and Decision: You are a team of newly hired Data analysts who have been chosen to conduct a case study for the Department of New York City. There is an interest in discovering what exactly is causing fires in New York City. Also, how can we prevent them?

Treasury Bills, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

The Scenario and The Decision: You are a Data Analyst at a mid-sized investment advisory firm that manages portfolios for both individual and corporate clients. Recently, a significant portion of the client base has expressed interest in shifting capital toward U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills) as a low-risk investment strategy. However, the firm faces a dilemma: while T-bills are considered "safe," their prices and yields fluctuate based on economic conditions and investor demand, making market entry timing critical. The firm has formally requested that you provide a comprehensive analysis to guide their future investment decisions.

Does Idiosyncratic Volatility Follow A Random-Walk? Evidence From U.S. Stocks, Zihan Cao, Ossama Elhadary

Publications and Research

In asset pricing literature, idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) measures the firm-specific risk that is not explained by broader market movements. In this study, I investigate whether the idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) of individual stocks follows a random-walk. Using monthly residuals from the Fama-French three-factor model (Fama & French, 1993), I estimate IVOL for more than 11,000 U.S. stocks, and apply the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test (Said & Dickey, 1984) to determine whether IVOL behaves like a random-walk. While most stocks display random-walk behavior, the proportion varies across industries, with some sectors showing deviations from random-walk behavior. Stocks with different levels of average return …

From Tarmac To Timetable: A Data-Driven Study Of Airline Delay Performance In Nigeria, Kelechi V. Iwuagwu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project investigates the patterns, causes, and impacts of flight delays in the Nigerian aviation sector from January 2024 to January 2025. Utilizing a dataset containing flight details—including scheduled and actual departure/arrival times, routes, and airline information—the study employs advanced data analytics and visualization techniques to uncover critical insights. The research highlights discrepancies between scheduled and actual flight performance, identifies delay patterns across airlines and timeframes, and explores the ripple effects of delays on subsequent flights.

Furthermore, Nigerian passengers frequently express frustrations over flight delays, cancellations, and poor communication from airlines, yet no publicly available data systematically documents these …

The Impact Of Ai On Salary Trends And Employment Projections, Anastasiia Semerianova, Annie Chen, Rebecca Mui, Ekaterina Viro, Hui Ting Huang, Thiy Alsaidi

Publications and Research

This project is designed to research the potential future impact of AI implementation on job displacement across key industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and others. It aims to analyze how automation and AI technologies influence employment trends and workforce demands, as well as the correlation between AI integration and changes in salary structures. The goal is to provide data-driven insights that can inform policymakers, educators, and industry leaders on how to prepare for and adapt to evolving labor market dynamics.

Comprehensive Data-Driven Analysis Of Nyc Real Estate Transactions: Insights Into Pricing Dynamics, Neighborhood Evolution, And Socioeconomic Influences, Ruiming Xu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project provides a comprehensive analysis of New York City’s real estate market, focusing on its historical evolution, shifting demographics, and the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing trends. Utilizing data from trusted sources like Zillow, the NYC Department of Finance, and the U.S. Census Bureau, the study investigates how property values have changed over time, highlights neighborhoods undergoing notable transformations, and identifies the economic, cultural, and social factors driving these changes. The research aims to reveal the complex forces shaping the market while offering insights into its future direction and the reasons behind current trends. A key …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Bus 9430 (Business Analytics Projects Management), David Messineo

Open Educational Resources

This course delves deep into the pivotal roles, multifaceted opportunities, and inherent challenges faced by organizations aiming to harness business analytics as a competitive edge.

• Business Analytics Frameworks: We'll tap into various frameworks such as Lean, Six Sigma, Benchmarking, Kaizen, Value Chain, Balanced Scorecard, and Strategy Maps. While prior knowledge of these is not mandatory, a little research will prove invaluable when tackling class assignments.

• Project Lifecycle Management: The course draws upon CRISP-DM, Design Thinking, Story-Telling, Systems Thinking, TQM, and Agile/Kanban Methods to instill and enhance a culture of data-driven, evidence-based decision-making in an enterprise.

Prior exposure to these methodologies …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Cis 3920 (Intro To Data Mining), Lawrence Cohen

Open Educational Resources

To successfully compete in today’s global business environment an organization must constantly monitor, recognize, and understand every aspect and every issue of its operations, its industry, and the overall business environment. This course focuses on data mining and understanding the steps of a data mining project from both a business and technical perspective.

Students will actively participate in this course through class discussions, project preparation and presentation, and hands-on labs. We cover both supervised and unsupervised data mining techniques for tasks like targeted mailing campaigns, customer segmentation, customer churn, fraud-detection, and market basket analysis.

In this course, I encourage students …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Mkt 3600 (Marketing Information For Decision Making), Kapil Bawa

Open Educational Resources

Have you ever wondered how marketers get information about markets, determine what consumers want and decide how to position products? Or how pollsters, scientists and researchers can manipulate the design of a survey or a research study to get the findings that they want? Or why some polls seem to be “stacked” to show overwhelming support or opposition to a particular issue?

This course reveals those techniques and tactics, and helps you learn how to critically evaluate the quality of the information you are exposed to on a daily basis. It provides an introduction to marketing research methods, marketing analytics …

Phantom Shootings, Allan Ambris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone is a website designed to critique NYC Open Data reporting with respect to shootings through a series of visualizations and discoveries. The NYPD Shooting Incidents datasets (Historic and Year to Date) introduce themselves to the user by claiming to be a “list of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC.” The supplied documentation reveals that this is not the case.

After understanding the supporting materials, there are still undisclosed truths. My exploration of the data revealed that a single victim may be represented across multiple entries. Additionally, multiple victims may be represented by a single entry. It is …

Essays On Tax Impacts On Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance And Regional Disparity, Mei Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that cover topics on tax impacts on corporate finance, regional disparity and corporate governance.

Chapter 1 - How Do Net Operating Loss Carryforwards Affect Tax Impact on Corporate Capital Structure? This paper examines the impact of net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards on the tax implications of corporate capital structure. Leveraging the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), the largest tax reform in four decades, this paper investigates the effect of NOL carryforwards on firms' sensitivity to tax reforms. As NOL carryforwards have become increasingly significant since 2000, but not widely researched due …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Cis/Sta 3920 (Data Mining For Business Analyitics), Vinayak Javaly

Open Educational Resources

Data Mining is the process by which useful information is extracted from large amounts of data. This course is designed to provide students with the necessary tools and techniques to perform data mining and business analytics. This course is intended as an introductory module targeted at individuals who plan to work with data (modeling, data management) as well as towards those who will work with data scientists. While the course will primarily focus on modeling and evaluation, it will also include data preparation and examination. Modeling techniques covered include decision trees, clustering, and other methods. Emphasis will be placed on …

The Value Of Nfts, Angelina Tham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Non-fungible token stories have flooded the media since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. NFTs have changed the public’s views on art, finances, and the self. The emergence of Web 3 redefined ways of self expression with the help of NFTs. What are NFTs, how are they valuable, and how will they shape the future of digital art? The data visualization for this project indicates that the most popular type of crypto art is in the style of a profile picture. The discussion suggests that NFTs are in their infancy and there will be more to come from digital art, …

College Majors And Unemployment Rates, Anna M. Gellerman, Harshita Ahuja

Publications and Research

College undergraduates often face the question of whether their major and related job force have high unemployment rates. The perceived high unemployment rates of certain majors due to circulating misinformation presents a need for comprehensive research on college majors and their associated unemployment rate. This paper dives into a ten year trend of unemployment rates by college major, and state to state variabilities of majors and their rates.

How To Create A Pivot Table And A Histogram, Harini Mittal

Open Educational Resources

This file gives instructions on how to create a pivot chart and histogram using excel sheet. The instructions have been adapted from the following textbook, but supplemented with screen shots for better understanding.

Anderson, Sweeney, Williams, Camm, Cochran, Fry and Ohlmann. Essentials of Statistics for Business & Economics, 9th Edition

How To Construct A Pie Chart, Harini Mittal

Open Educational Resources

This file provides step-by-step instructions on constructing a pie-chart using excel.

How To Construct A Bar Chart, Harini Mittal

Open Educational Resources

This file gives step-by-step instructions to construct a bar chart in excel.

How To Construct A Frequency Distribution For Non-Numeric Data, Harini Mittal

Open Educational Resources

This is a step-by-step instruction file with screenshots to help anyone construct a frequency distribution table with non-numeric data.

Organizational Decision-Making In The Age Of Big Data And Artificial Intelligence, Anh Luong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines organizational decision-making in the context of big data and artificial intelligence (machine learning) technologies. There are three studies. All three focus on collaborative decision-making in organizations, with study 1 examining it in the context of big data, while study 2 and 3 in the context of artificial intelligence.

Study 1: This study examines the impact of different manners of presenting information on collaborative decision-making performance. Using controlled economic experiments, I assign participants with a resource allocation decision-making task (adapted from the game theoretic public goods provision problem) and examine the collaborative outcomes of groups when exposed to …

Bitcoin: The Pioneer Of Cryptocurrency With A Limited Dream, Anna M. Gellerman, Benjamin Zheng

Publications and Research

BitCoin is the most well known and adaptable cryptocurrency today. Due to the evolvement of the cryptocurrency market, many are thinking what this could mean for society; is the world ready for a new mainstream medium of exchange? This poster argues that although BitCoin is functional for small scale payments, it is inadaptable to become a payment tool comparable to cash and card.