Students seeking the MBA in Business Analytics must complete all required core courses along with 9 credit hours in the Business Analytics concentration courses.
Required Courses
BUS 602 – Accounting for Managers3 credits. This graduate level course is designed to provide insight into managerial accounting concepts with a focus on real-world application. Specifically, this course will examine managerial accounting tools and resources that assist managers with business decisions spanning different disciplines, including human resources, marketing, finance and operations. Standard costing, budgeting and forecasting methodologies will be examined. Financial statements will be analyzed by examining key ratios and trends. Sustainability reporting, which is becoming increasingly more important for businesses today, will also be covered. An entrepreneurial perspective will be provided throughout different aspects of the course, including an entrepreneurship case study. This course is challenging, fast paced and relevant for business managers or those making or supporting business decisions.
BUS 603 – Organizational Development/Behavior3 credits. Organizational Development and Behavior is the study of human behavior in an organizational setting. The purpose of this kind of study is to equip organizational leaders with the insight necessary to develop interpersonal relationships that will build teams, increase productivity, enhance the quality of work life, orchestrate change, improve employee retention, and augment communication. Topics in management including: Perception, Personality and Attitudes, Group Process: Building Teams, Communication, Orchestrating Change, Motivation, Empowerment, Leadership, Performance Appraisals and Business Ethics.
BUS 606 – Strategic Marketing3 credits. This is a course that intends to integrate marketing knowledge and apply it in addressing strategic decision making situations. Strongly emphasizing application, the course is centered around the process of analyzing cases in marketing management with the express purpose of making clear, specific, and justifiable strategic marketing decisions. This course emphasizes the use of analytical skills in making judgments under uncertainty in a variety of marketing contexts, including strategic selling, sales management, new product introduction, franchising, marketing research, and others. It is intended to help students apply critical thinking skills in making better decisions using strategic criteria.
BUS 607 – Corporate Finance3 credits. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the world of corporate finance. Topics covered include financial statement analysis, cost of capital, capital structure, common stock valuation, capital budgeting, market efficiency, dividend policy, mergers and acquisitions, corporate hedging, and corporate restructuring and failure.
BUS 617 – Supply Chain and Negotiations3 credits. The course is designed to help students learn how to identify, dissect, and answer management level problems. To remedy the crucial challenges facing organizations, students will review, analyze, and evaluate solutions. Students cultivate skills using decision and visualization tools, logic frameworks, and negotiation tactics. Students will present fact-based analysis and recommendations in oral and written formats to persuade an audience to support recommendations.
BUS 618 – Managing Information and Technology3 credits. This course provides the foundation for business professionals to collaborate with IT experts while making business decisions with a significant technology component. This course is more strategic than technical and is designed to help the students appreciate and integrate the idea of IT as a critical and strategic asset of the enterprise. This course will cover the strategic use of IS/IT in various industries and sectors including health care, financial services, professional services, manufacturing, distribution, government, among others.
Capstone
BUS 609 – MBA Strategic Management3 credits. Students will develop an understanding of strategy and its formulation, implementation, and evaluation. The course focuses on strategic management decisions and actively incorporates multi-disciplinary elements of marketing, finance, operations, and quantitative analysis. It is designed to help students learn how to identify, dissect, and answer strategic management problems; research, analyze, and offer solutions to crucial challenges facing organizations; and present fact-based analysis and recommendations in oral and written formats to persuade an audience to support recommendations. The course utilizes readings, business cases and real-life examples to accomplish the synthesis.
Business Analytics Concentration Requirements
BUS 724 – Analysis Tools for Managers3 credits. This course is designed to equip managers with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively analyze and interpret data in a business environment. It provides a comprehensive overview of various analytical tools and techniques such as SQL, Tableau, Python and other contemporary technologies that managers can leverage to gain insights and drive strategic decision-making in their organizations.
BUS 762 – Quality as a Business Strategy3 credits. Students will develop an understanding of innovation and quality as key strategic options for organizations in the commercial, public and not-for-profit sectors. Students will discuss how companies are using data science and analytics to encourage innovation and quality. Students will also learn about ways to estimate the return on investment (ROI) from innovation. They will identify an innovative idea relevant to the products, services, processes or strategies of their employer / industry, and learn to use planning and implementation tools such as logic models and project charters in the context of their innovative idea. The course is designed to help students learn through readings, multiple real-life business case studies and hands-on practice.
BUS 776 – Data-Driven Decision Making3 credits. This course presents an overview of managerial decision making – why do it, risk management, and key considerations. The course will present decision matrices through concepts, examples, and applied practice. Students will also explore the use of decision trees, expected monetary value, and data visualization using concepts, examples, and applied practice. They will also learn about function-specific use cases of analytics (such as in marketing, finance, etc.). All concepts will be viewed through a lens of ethical business decision making.
