Table of Contents

1. Specify the Question: Using Business Analytics to Address Business Questions
2. Obtain the Data: An Introduction to Business Data Sources
3. Analyze the Data: Basic Statistics and Tools Required in Business Analytics
4. Analyze the Data: Exploratory Business Analytics (Descriptive Analytics and Diagnostic Analytics)
5. Analyze the Data: Confirmatory Business Analytics (Predictive Analytics and Prescriptive Analytics)
6. Report the Results: Using Data Visualization
7. Marketing Analytics
8. Accounting Analytics
9. Financial Analytics
10. Operations Analytics
11. Advanced Business Analytics
12. Using the SOAR Analytics Model to Put It All Together:Three Capstone Projects

Appendix A: Excel Tutorial (Formatting, Sorting, Filtering, and
Using Pivot Tables)
Appendix B: Tableau Tutorial
Appendix C: Power BI Desktop Tutorial
Appendix D: Basic Statistics Tutorial
Appendix E: Installing Excel’s Analysis ToolPak Add-In
Appendix F: Installing Excel’s Solver Add-In

About the Author

Vernon J. Richardson is a Distinguished Professor of Accounting and the G. William Glezen Chair in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas and a visiting professor at Baruch College. He received his BS. Master’s of Accountancy, and MBA from Brigham Young University and a PhD in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has taught students at the University of Arkansas, University of Illinois, Brigham Young University, and University of Kansas and internationally at Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen, Aarhus University, the China Europe International Business School (Shanghai), Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, and the University of Technology Sydney.Dr. Richardson is a member of the American Accounting Association. He has served as president of the American Accounting Association Information Systems section. He previously served as an editor of The Accounting Review and is currently an editor at Accounting Horizons. He has published articles in The Accounting Review, Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, MIS Quarterly, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Operations Management, and Journal of Marketing. Dr. Richardson is also a co-author of McGraw-Hill’s Introduction to Data Analytics for Accounting, Data Analytics for Accounting and Introduction to Business Analytics textbooks.



Katie L. Terrell is an instructor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. She received her B.A. degrees in English Literature and in the Spanish Language from the University of Central Arkansas, and received her MBA from the University of Arkansas. She expects a doctoral degree by 2019. She has taught students at the University of Arkansas, Soochow University (Suzhou, China), the University College Dublin (Ireland), and at Duoc UC, a branch of the Catholic University of Chile (a del Mar, Chile).

She is a member of the American Accounting Association and has published a Statement on Management Accounting for the Institute of Management Accountants on managing organizational change in operational change initiatives. She has recently been recognized for her innovative teaching by being the recipient of the Mark Chain/FSA Teaching Award for innovative graduate-level accounting teaching practices in 2016. She has worked with Tyson Foods, where she held various Information System roles focusing on business analysis, project management for ERP implementations and upgrades, and organizational change management.