Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur recently organized the first workshop on Business Analytics. The two-day workshop had two goals in mind: first, to make students aware of the role of analytics in the industry; second, through several discussions on research approaches, design and processes, and with the help of experts and faculty members from the institute, the workshop tried to delve deep into the world of Business Analytics. Overall, it turned out to be a fruitful exercise with the promise of more to come in the near future.

The theme of the workshop has gained in significance in recent times, especially since media reports state that the Business Analytics industry is functioning on the back of merely 15000 to 20000 professionals. There will be a demand for around 2 lakh business analysts in the coming years. Knowledge of this information forced the workshop to focus on prerequisites for professionals to embark in a career in business analytics and research. Needless to say, the workshop drew the attention of students from both years of the PGDM program.

While Mathematics, Statistics and IT skills have been a stronghold of Indian students, there is a need to combine business analytics with their computational abilities. That was the great benefit of the workshop – it did everything in its power to equip participants with the knowledge, skills and tools to make it as a business analyst. From applications of business analytics to understanding the research process, sampling techniques to understanding data and variables, the workshop tried to cover all the important aspects of the field.

Of course, there was a special emphasis on handling real-life industry analytics problems, which was of great help to the participants. To acquaint students with the real world situations, there were expert professionals in attendance, including Mr. Vicky Bansal, Research Manager, Gartner Research and Advisory, India, and Mr. Ashish Sharma, Manager, Copal Amba Research. Dr. Prabhat Pankaj, Director, Jaipuria, Jaipur, also conducted a session along with other faculty members of the institute.

Prof. Prashant Sharma, Coordinator, Business Analytics, delivered sessions on understanding the research process and environment, sampling methods and techniques, understanding the data and variables, and basics of data analysis on SPSS. The informative sessions helped students better understand these important, and relevant, concepts. Dr. S. K. Pandey, Assistant Professor, Jaipuria, Jaipur, focussed on the optimization for Google searches. He also highlighted various academic and industry data sources that can aid students in their education and professional careers. Then it was Mr. Pankaj’s turn to lead a review session, which, of course, was quite helpful, as he managed to engage students by creating a live research problem. This prepared students for the following talk on the real-world impact of Business Analytics by leading industry experts Mr. Bansal and Mr. Sharma. They elaborated on the role of analytics and discussed practical industry research problems. As a result, students not only had an understanding of the concepts but valuable insight into the industry as well.

The participants of the workshop returned with their eyes opened about the importance of Business Analytics. They were now looking forward to the next workshop aimed at providing hands on experience on statistical and econometric packages, SPSS, R and E-views. Given the success of this workshop, a lot will be expected of the next one that will be held in October.