Learning objectives
The course aims at illustrating the statistical methods for the treatment of business information, considering simultaneously several quantitative variables. The data can come from inside the company, such as for example those regarding customers, or they can be obtained through surveys (market research). The aim of multidimensional data analysis is to provide a rational aid to decision making.
Prerequisites
Students are advised to follow the Marketing Data Analysis course only after attending the basic statistic courses.
Course unit content
Data analysis for business problems: data warehouse and data mining as aids to decision making.
Presentation and classification of the information: the data matrix, relations between variables, treatment of missing data.
Introduction to the use of the SPSS package for statistical analysis.
Explorative analysis and display of data: graphical representations of several variables. Identification of outliers. Applications using the SPSS graphical procedures.
Principal component analysis. Applications to marketing problems with the use of SPSS: product positioning, indicators of customer satisfaction, lifestyles.
Statistical methods for market segmentation: measures of distance between individuals or objects, creation of homogeneous groups with hierarchical methods of cluster analysis. Applications to real cases using SPSS: segments of themarket, classification of the customers.
Full programme
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Bibliography
S. ZANI – A. CERIOLI, Analisi dei dati e Data Mining per le decisioni aziendali, Giuffrè Editore, Milano, 2007, chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, e chapter 9, n. 1- 10.
Additional reading for possible in-depth study:
D. J. BARTOLOMEW et al., The Analysis and Interpretation of Multivariate Data for the Social Scientists, Chapman and Hall, London, 2002.
Teaching methods
Classroom lectures carried out also with the aid of a personal computer for the illustration of statistical software and of SPSS in particular.
Supplementary teaching materials (transparencies from the lectures, applications using SPSS, examination subjects, etc.) are available on the professor's WEB site:
(http://economia.unipr.it/DOCENTI/zani).
EXAMINATION METHOD
Written test and possible oral exam.
Assessment methods and criteria
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Other information
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