Springer: Excel Data Analysis  Modeling and Simulation

This book is written for the students and practitioners who are looking for a single introductory Excel-based resource that covers three essential business and analytical skills—Data Analysis, Business Modeling, and Simulation of Complex Problems. The focus of the book is clearly on analysis of problems for decision making, yet detailed explanations regarding how to use Excel tools are provided. After many years of teaching and consulting, it is abundantly clear to me that for most students, a good example is worth its weight in gold. This book contains many excellent examples in each chapter, some simple and others more complex, and there is an abundance of exhibits to guide the student through the maze of steps necessary for each analysis. The content is quite diverse: • data presentation — the Feng Shui of spreadsheets, effective communication and collaboration • data preparation — import, scrub, manipulate data • data analysis — statistical methods: descriptive, inferential, and predictive, Design of Experiments • modeling — deterministic, probabilistic, What-if, Scenarios • simulation — quantifying uncertainty, Monte Carlo Simulation • optimization — constrained, Linear Programming, non-linear models, Goal Seek • Couple these features with detailed discussions of how to realistically organize and extract insight from complex problems, and I believe you have a unique educational combination in one book.

Content Level » Professional/practitioner

Keywords » Analysis and modeling - Applications - Best Practices - Excel-based Resource -Monte Carlo Simulation - Solution - Spreadsheet Engineering - Spreadsheet based - Time Series Data

http://www.springer.com/business+%26+management/operations+research/book/978-3-642-10834-1

1 Introduction to Spreadsheet Modeling ................ 1

1.1 Introduction ............................ 1

1.2 What’s an MBA to do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.3 Why Model Problems? ...................... 3

1.4 Why Model Decision Problems with Excel? . . . ........ 3

1.5 Spreadsheet Feng Shui/Spreadsheet Engineering . ........ 5

1.6 A Spreadsheet Makeover . . . .................. 7

1.6.1 Julia’s Business Problem—A Very Uncertain Outcome . . 8

1.6.2 Ram’s Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.6.3 Julia’s New and Improved Workbook . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2 Presentation of Quantitative Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.2 Data Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.3 Data Context and Data Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.3.1 Data Preparation Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

2.4 Types of Charts and Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.4.1 Ribbons and the Excel Menu System . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.4.2 Some Frequently Used Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

2.4.3 Specific Steps for Creating a Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2.5 An Example of Graphical Data Analysis and Presentation . . . . 36

2.5.1 Example—Tere’s Budget for the 2nd Semester of College 38

2.5.2 Collecting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.5.3 Summarizing Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.5.4 Analyzing Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

2.5.5 Presenting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

2.6 Some Final Practical Graphical Presentation Advice . . . . . . . 49

2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3 Analysis of Quantitative Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

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