• PRACTICAL TECHNICAL TIPS GUIDE STUDENTS IN APPLYING CONCEPTS TO ACTUAL BUSINESS PRACTICE. Integrated throughout the chapters, insightful tips help students apply chapter concepts to real business practices, decisions and planning. Guidelines and insights range from general technical information to application-specific tips when using Excel, pivot tables, StatTools, Solver and @RISK.
• EASY-TO-FOLLOW, STEP-BY-STEP EXAMPLES HIGHLIGHT ACTUAL BUSINESS CHALLENGES. This edition's extremely user-friendly approach includes more than 130 interesting examples drawn from real business situations or events. The solution to each example is worked out in a clear, step-by-step method that uses screenshots to make it easy for students to understand and replicate.
• EMPHASIS ON MODERN DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS EQUIPS STUDENTS FOR TODAY'S BUSINESS WORLD. In addition to covering traditional methods of data analysis, including summary stats, correlations, histograms, scatterplots and time series graphs, this edition emphasizes more recent digital tools for analyzing data. Students learn to use Excel tables and pivot tables, Excel’s Data Model, Excel’s Power Query and Power Pivot add-ins and data visualization with Tableau Public.
• NUMEROUS CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS, PROBLEMS AND CASES HELP ENSURE UNDERSTANDING. This edition offers approximately 200 conceptual questions, 1,000 problems and 40 cases for checking students’ mastery of the material as they progress through your course. Complete Excel-based solutions are available for all of these conceptual questions, problems and cases.
• MINDTAP DIGITAL RESOURCES ACCELERATE STUDENT PROGRESS. Provide engaging content, challenge every individual learner and build student confidence with MindTap -- the platform that gives you complete control over your course. This edition's MindTap digital resources now offer more variety, depth, the option to randomize homework assignments and practice problems with video tutorials created by text author Chris Albright. The interactive MindTap Reader offers Excel examples, data file downloads and solutions files.
• VISUAL LEARNING TOOLS EMPHASIZE KEY CONCEPTS FOR SIMPLE REVIEW AND STUDY. Critical concepts and equations are set off in boxes throughout this edition to make future reference easier. In addition, helpful margin notes and “Fundamental Insight” features emphasize the most relevant, practical information from each chapter.
• ENGAGING OPENING VIGNETTES CAPTURE STUDENT INTEREST WHILE EMPHASIZING THE RELEVANCE OF CHAPTER CONCEPTS. Each chapter opens with an interesting vignette that sets the stage for learning by illustrating why the chapter’s concepts are important in today's business context.
• To further enhance the hallmark approach of the text, new Excel activities have been added to MindTap to strengthen problem-solving skills using spreadsheets. Powered by MindTap and Microsoft, these Excel activities provide students with real experience solving business statistics problems. Integrated directly within MindTap, students receive algorithmic Excel starting files, system-generated Excel solution files to check their own work, and problem-walkthrough videos created by author Chris Albright as targeted help resources.
• UPDATES REFLECT THE LATEST VERSION OF EXCEL FOR OFFICE 365, WINDOWS OR MAC. This edition is completely compatible with the latest version of Excel. Inviting screenshots all correspond with the latest Excel version. However, because changes from previous versions are not extensive for business analytics purposes, this edition also works well even if you are still using Microsoft Office 2013, 2010 or 2007. Because many students now use Macintosh computers, the material is compatible with Excel for Mac, whenever possible.
• NEW INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL DETAILS HOW TO USE EXCEL EFFECTIVELY. Chapter 1 now includes an introductory section on spreadsheet modeling. This provides business examples that help students master key Excel skills while covering special Excel tools, such as IF and VLOOKUP functions, data tables, goal seek and range names.
• NEW OPTIONAL ADD-IN FOR EXCEL OFFERS ALTERNATIVE TOOLS. Although not an “official” part of the book, author Chris Albright has written a DADM_TOOLS add-in for Excel (for Windows or Mac) with tools for creating summary stats, histograms, correlations and scatterplots, regression, time series analysis, decision trees and simulation. This add-in provides a less involved alternative to the Palisade add-ins and is available at no cost at https://kelley.iu.edu/albrightbooks/free_downloads.htm.
• Created by author Chris Albright, all new Chapter Overview videos have been added to MindTap to introduce students to key themes and topics covered within the chapter. The overview video prepares students for success by outlining the main topics and themes covered in the reading, homework, and assessments.
• UPDATED PROBLEMS PRESENT THE MOST CURRENT BUSINESS DATA AVAILABLE. In addition, the DADM 7e Problem Database.xlsx file provides you, the instructor, with an entire database of problems. This file indicates the context of each problem and clearly shows how each problem in this edition corresponds with problems in the previous edition.
• THIS EDITION'S PROBABILITY CHAPTERS ARE NOW REORGANIZATION AND STREAMLINED. Coverage of probability and probability distributions (in the previous edition's Chapter 4) and coverage of normal, binomial, Poisson and exponential distributions (in the previous edition's Chapter 5) are now streamlined and combined in a single new Chapter 5, Probability and Probability Distributions.
• NEW MATERIAL EFFECTIVELY INTRODUCES “POWER BI” TOOLS AND DATA VISUALIZATION. Previous chapters on data mining and importing data into Excel are reorganized and rewritten to offer an increased focus on the tools commonly included in business analytics. A new Chapter 4, Business Intelligence Tools for Data Analysis, explains Excel’s Power Query tools for importing data into Excel, Excel’s Power Pivot add-in and the DAX language for even more powerful data analysis with pivot tables and Tableau Public for data visualization.

1. Introduction to Business Analytics.

Part 1: DATA ANALYSIS.

2. Describing the Distribution of a Variable.

3. Finding Relationships among Variables.

4. Business Intelligence (BI) Tools for Data Analysis

Part 2: PROBABILITY AND DECISION MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY.

5. Probability and Probability Distributions.

6. Decision Making under Uncertainty.

Part 3: STATISTICAL INFERENCE.

7. Sampling and Sampling Distributions.

8. Confidence Interval Estimation.

9. Hypothesis Testing.

Part 4: REGRESSION ANALYSIS AND TIME SERIES FORECASTING.

10. Regression Analysis: Estimating Relationships.

11. Regression Analysis: Statistical Inference.

12. Time Series Analysis and Forecasting.

Part 5: OPTIMIZATION AND SIMULATION MODELING.

13. Introduction to Optimization Modeling.

14. Optimization Models.

15. Introduction to Simulation Modeling.

16. Simulation Models.

Part 6: ADVANCED DATA ANALYSIS.

17. Data Mining.

Part 7: BONUS ONLINE MATERIAL.

18. Analysis of Variance and Experimental Design.

19. Statistical Process Control.

Appendix A: Statistical Reporting.

S. Christian Albright

S. Christian Albright received both his B.S. degree in mathematics and his Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford. He then taught in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University until his retirement in 2011. He taught courses in management science, computer simulation and statistics to all levels of business students, including undergraduate, M.B.A. and Ph.D. students. He has published more than 20 articles in leading operations research journals in applied probability. After retiring, he worked for several years for the Palisade software company. Now living in Hilton Head, SC, he continues to revise several successful textbooks, including this edition, PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT SCIENCE and VBA FOR MODELERS.

Wayne L. Winston

Wayne L. Winston is Professor Emeritus of Decision Sciences at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is now Professor of Decision and Information Sciences at the Bauer College at the University of Houston. Dr. Winston has received more than 45 teaching awards and is a six-time recipient of the school-wide M.B.A. award. His current interest focuses on showing how to use spreadsheet models to solve business problems in all disciplines, particularly in finance, sports and marketing. In addition to publishing more than 20 articles in leading journals, Dr. Winston has written such successful textbooks, including OPERATIONS RESEARCH: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS; MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS; SIMULATION MODELING WITH @RISK; DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS; SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS; MATHLETICS, DATA ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS MODELING WITH EXCEL 2016; MARKETING ANALYTICS; and FINANCIAL MODELS USING SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION. Dr. Winston received his B.S. degree in mathematics from MIT and his Ph.D. in operations research from Yale.