Business Analytics & Digital Media

Introduction:

Cody: I studied marketing at Illinois Wesleyan during my undergrad. This is my second semester in the ISU MBA program. I have a GA position in the nursing department.  I also  currently work with an entrepreneur who started two companies. One of the companies is a fishing lure business and the other one we make rings out of recycled fishing line. So I have been busy helping him build those businesses.

Chris: My background is in Finance and Management.  I spent 6 years in the Army and completed my undergrad from ISU in 2017.  Currently, I am employed with a captive insurance consulting firm in the suburbs of Chicago.

Marcus: I received my bachelor degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management.  Since then I have worked in management and marketing/data logistics for Jackrabbit presented by The Running Specialty Group.  I am currently pursuing a master degree in Business Administration and hope to further my knowledge in marketing analytics.

Michael: I am currently 23 years old, and I am from Cary, Illinois. My whole life has been spent playing football, and I am on the football team here at Illinois State! I am very interested in Digital Media Analytics, and I plan to use the knowledge gained from the course in my future jobs.

Course Overview

Description of Coursera Business Analytics and Digital Media Course

"The explosion in digital media - web, social and now mobile - represents a departure from how things were like in the last century. This proliferation of digital media is both a threat and an opportunity for many businesses. Business Analytics can be leveraged to process data, sentiment, buzz, contacts, context and other aspects of business interest in real time, for business performance and impact. The course picks and uses use-cases from a variety of industries and geographies, to showcase the potential and impact that business analytics done properly (or not) can have on business performance." - Coursera

About the Professor:

Voleti, Sudhir
Associate
Professor, Marketing

Associate

Dean-Faculty Alignment and Registrar's Office (FARO), Academic Director - IIDS

Here is an example of Professor Sudhir at a research summit, giving a lecture!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa4PbgrTths

Course Breakdown:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/business-analytics

Week 1: Introduction to Business Analytics

Learning outcomes by the end of week 1 should normatively be that (a) Students grasp what is business analytics from the perspective of a business manager, (b) identify areas of interest, overlap, co-ordination and conflict with other business functions and processes in the firm, (c) and, develop an appreciation for the value of data, of analyses and of the components of analytics.

Week 2: Toolscape

An overview of the broad tools available for business analytics and the leveraging of digital media.

Learning outcomes by the end of week 2 should normatively be that (a) Students have an understanding of the broad classes of analytics tools and platforms that currently dominate the market, (b) and, develop an appreciation for the pros and cons of the major groups of tools.

Week 3: Customer Analytics

Introduction to and the application of some important analytical processes in Marketing Analytics

Learning outcomes by the end of week 3 should normatively be that (a) Students have an understanding of the major processes and procedures typically used in a customer analytics setting, in particular factor and cluster analyses (b) and, develop an appreciation for the possibilities that emerge from recombining procedures, data, algorithms and problem formulation perspectives in open source environments.

Week 4 Digital Media

An overview of the big questions, possibilities and challenges.

Learning outcomes by the end of week 4 should normatively be that (a) Students have an understanding of the major types of digital media in use currently by people and firms, (b) and, develop an appreciation for the types of problem solving, data collection, prediction and optimization that can be enabled using digital media tools.

                                                                           OUR THOUGHTS

Week 1: Overall content is concise and presented well. A downside is without prior knowledge one may struggle to keep up. We recommend having some background knowledge before hand.

Our rating 4.5/5.

Week 2: This week provides methods to enhance user learning experience. Such as business experimentation, software tools (RStudio, Github). Also, discussed is machine learning and the learning curve of these machines. Material in this week has advanced concepts. Basic understanding prior would be helpful.

Our Rating 4.5/5.

Week 3:

This week focuses on customer analytics and band visualizing data. Primarily demonstrated with statistical software such as RStudio. Concepts include factorizing and clustering data, joint space mapping, perceptual mapping, as well as other analytic applications. Having a strong understanding of statistics and programing language would be helpful. This is the most technical dense week of the course.

Our Rating 4/5

Week 4: The last week primarily focuses on digital media. This week specifically highlights advertising, social media, segmentation and enterprise management. These combine to create a model representing social relationships between institutions. Generally, summation of this week consists of digital media competence in an app orientated society.

Our Rating 4.5/5

                                            

We find that this course would benefit people with a foundation understanding of digital marketing who are looking to expand on their current knowledge. To conceptualize, this course would equate to a graduate level course. This course is not for the faint of heart, it is challenging but is definitely worth taking.

To improve this course we recommend a more in depth introduction, include a reference glossary for undefined industry jargon.

Overall we would give this course a 4.3/5.