May 14, 2022
A Brief History of Business Analytics (Part 2 of 8)
1749 — In the Beginning, there was Statistics
Much of the material used in this article has been adapted from Professor James R. Evan’s Textbook “Business Analytics”.
Previous: A Brief History of Business Analytics (Part 1 of 8)
Contents
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: 1749 — In the Beginning, there was Statistics
- Part 3: 1937 — Operations Research (OR) / Management Science (MS)
- Part 4: 1968 — Business Intelligence
- Part 5: Late 1960s — Decision Support Systems (DSS)
- Part 6: 2014 — Information Systems (IS)
- Part 7: 2014 — Business Analytics (BA)
- Part 8: Summary
According to Evans (2014), Modern BA can be viewed as an integration of Statistics, Business Intelligence (BI) / Information Systems (IS), and Operations Research (OR) / Management Science (MS). Figure 1 shows the Evolution of Business Analytics adapted from Evans (2014).
According to Wikipedia (2018g), Statistics was founded in 1749. It is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data (Wikipedia, 2018l). It is the beginning and forefather of Modern BA.
Statistics has a long and rich history, yet only rather recently has it been recognized as an important element of business, driven to a large extent by the massive growth of data in today’s world (Evans, 2014).
Statistical methods allow us to gain a richer understanding of data that goes beyond data reporting – by not only summarizing data succinctly but also finding unknown and interesting relationships among the data.
Statistical methods include:
✓ Description
✓ Exploration
✓ Estimation
✓ Inference
✓ Regression
✓ Forecasting
References
- (NUS), N. U. o. S. (2018). Bachelor of Science in Business Analytics from http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/programmes/ug/ba/
- Aramos. (2018). Operations Research Timeline. from https://www.iit.comillas.edu/aramos/MM/timeline.pdf
- ComputerHope. (2018). When was the First Computer Invented? , from https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
- Evans, J. R. (2014). Business analytics: Harlow Pearson, [2014]
- Pearson new international edition.
- TechTarget. (2017, April 2017). Business Analytics (BA). from https://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/definition/business-analytics-BA
- Wikipedia. (2018a). Business Analytics
- Wikipedia. (2018b). Business Intelligence
- Wikipedia. (2018c). Chief Information Officer (CIO)
- Wikipedia. (2018d). Data Mining
- Wikipedia. (2018e). Decision Support System
- Wikipedia. (2018f). Executive Information System (EIS)
- Wikipedia. (2018g). History of Statistics
- Wikipedia. (2018h). Information Systems
- Wikipedia. (2018i). Management Information Systems (MIS)
- Wikipedia. (2018j). Management Science
- Wikipedia. (2018k). Operations Research
- Wikipedia. (2018l). Statistics
- Wikipedia. (2018m). Transaction Processing System (TPS)
About Dr. Alvin Ang
Dr. Alvin Ang earned his Ph.D., Masters and Bachelor degrees from NTU, Singapore.
Previously he was a Principal Consultant (Data Science) as well as an Assistant Professor. He was also 8 years SUSS adjunct lecturer. His focus and interest is in the area of real world data science. Though an operational researcher by study, his passion for practical applications outweigh his academic background
He is a scientist, entrepreneur, as well as a personal/business advisor. More about him at www.AlvinAng.sg.
