ESP 3025 Decisions from Data: Driving an Organisation with Analytics

ESP 3025 Decisions from Data: Driving an Organisation with Analytics

Course code: 
ESP 3025
Department: 
Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Credits: 
0
Course coordinator: 
Espen Andersen
Course name in Norwegian: 
Decisions from Data: Driving an Organisation with Analytics
Product category: 
Executive
Portfolio: 
Executive Short Programmes
Semester: 
2018 Spring
Active status: 
Active
Level of study: 
-
Teaching language: 
English
Course type: 
One semester
Introduction

The course is intended for professionals who want to understand the potential and the requirements and process of data analysis, whether they currently work with data scientists, manage data science projects, invest in data science, or must act on data-driven knowledge already or have not yet done that. We particularly encourage employers that are expanding data-driven capabilities to use this course as a universally accessible introduction to data-driven strategy for existing employees. 

According to the 2012 World Economic Forum, “data is the new oil”. Analytics and data science, particularly of the “Big Data” available from sensors and web interactions, are increasingly critical for productivity gains and strategic competitive advantage. Practitioners in these fields typically come from computer science or statistics, and have years of technical training, but no systematic training or experience in business management problems. On the other hand, strategic management professionals have experience with management problems and could potentially benefit from a deeper understanding of data science potential.
Data science at work aims to help bridging this gap. With a three-day intensive overview on data science possibilities, visualized outcomes and scenarios, this course helps strategic management professionals understand data science possibilities with the goal of making them better data science consumers and better able to communicate with data scientists.
We will introduce students to successful big data and analytics projects, ask the students to imagine the data-driven questions they would want answered, and let them reflect on their own organizations’ data science opportunities. That way, they would go back aware of what can be done with data science.
Through lectures, real-world cases and a final workshop, the course introduces data science and analytics for public, private, and non-profit strategic management applications. 

Learning outcomes - Knowledge

After completing the program, students will understand strategic management applications of data science. Students will leave the course better able to communicate with technical partners (e.g., data science and business intelligence teams), better able to contribute to data-driven strategy development, and more knowledgeable about ways in which data can inform critical decisions.
We will introduce concepts and intuitions underlying data science, all of which we contextualize in strategy applications. We will introduce examples of strategic problems through which data science offered otherwise elusive insight. We will also offer a workshop where students will specify real strategic management projects that could be passed to an internal IT team for execution.

Course content

This program covers two overarching themes, incorporating a workshop in which students can apply those themes to their own organizations. The first theme is Strategy in the Age of Digitalization. Organizations and individuals are increasingly digital. What strategic opportunities and challenges does this create? The second theme is Data Science as an Essential and Distinctive Capability. In an increasingly digital world, organizations must master techniques to acquire, manage, and process vast amounts of data. Such data science mastery is today’s competitive advantage, and tomorrow’s barrier to entry. After introducing these themes, a workshop will allow students to brainstorm about their own organizations’ digital opportunities and digital needs.

Software tools
No specified computer-based tools are required.
Qualifications

These are open courses without formal admission. The primary target group are managers and professional key people in the business. Therefore, it is assumed that participants have a good combination of theoretical background and practical experience.

Required prerequisite knowledge

Executive Short Programmes are primarily for executives, managers and specialists in the private and public sectors. The programmes are without formal admission requirements, but it is assumed that participants have a good combination of theoretical background and practical experience.

Exam organisation: 
None
Total weight: 
0
Sum workload: 
0

Text for 0 credits