capstone project in business analytics

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Business Analytics Capstone

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• Module 1: Capstone Project Topic - The Problem of Adblocking
• The Business Analytics Specialization was designed to help you learn how to think about using data in making big (and small) business decisions. In this Capstone project, you'll be asked to create a strategy for a fictional digital search engine and content provider, GoYaFace, Inc. (often abbreviated as “GYF”). The strategy will be used in responding to the increasing popularity and availability of “adblocking” software, which could have significant negative repercussions for GYF’s business. You are to assume the role of the leader of the Digital Advertising Tactics and Action (“DATA”) Team at GYF, which has been assigned the job of formulating GYF’s strategy in responding to the threat of adblocking. Your task is to develop a strategy that will be recommended to GYF’s senior leadership. Using what you've learned about business analytics, you'll (i) create a detailed problem statement focusing on GYF’s ad-buying customers (Module 2), (ii) develop a strategy (Module 3), (iii) describe the anticipated effects of the strategy (Module 4), and (iv) form a plan for measuring the effects of your strategy (Module 4). You'll then put these four pieces together into a final project (Module 5). First, please read the full description of the project in the “Project Description” link below, and then look at the background information about adblockers and the “GYF Company Profile” link in the content for Module 1. When you are ready to begin the first assignment, please move on to Module 2: Defining the Problem.
• Module 2: Defining the Problem
• In Module 2, you'll define the problem adblockers poses for GYF. GYF is intended to be a composite of leading internet platform and content providers who derive substantial revenues from mobile advertising like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, so you should frame your research around the real-world problems these companies have faced and are facing. Defining the problem thoroughly will have a direct impact on how successful your strategy will be received by your peers. The more deeply you consider the effects of adblockers on the companies that buy advertising space from GYF, the more appropriate your overall strategy is likely to be. Please use the resources below to find out more about the problem, and then create your Problem Statement and submit it for peer review below. You can and should draw from all of the Business Analytics Specialization courses, but your Problem Statement should focus on how adblockers might adversely affect GYF’s relationship with the companies that pay GYF to place advertisements on GYF’s mobile applications and content. You should consider the issue of causality in your Problem Statement - we've included some lectures from the underlying courses to refresh you on that topci. And you are strongly encouraged to complete and include a response to Application Exercise 1 (see link below) as part of your Problem Statement.
• Module 3: Your Strategy
• In Module 3, you will focus on creating your recommended strategy for GYF to address adblockers. Your strategy does not have to be lengthy, but it must be clear, and it must address the problem. (Hint: if you have a clearly defined problem, your strategy is much more likely to be clearly defined as well). You'll be submitting your strategy for peer review, and then also reviewing the work of at least 3 of your peers. It's OK if reviewing the strategies of other learners in this course gives you further ideas for revising your own strategy. One of the primary benefits of peer review is to expand the range of feedback you can get, and we designed this Module around peer review so that you can get as much feedback as possible before moving on to the next phase of the project. You may find the resources and lectures below helpful in formulating your strategy and considering how data can be leveraged and appropriately understood. You are strongly encouraged to complete and include your response to Application Exercise 2 as part of your Strategy.
• Module 4: Effects of Your Strategy/Measuring these Effects
• Module 4 was designed to give you the opportunity to focus on the effects of your strategy. Effects and Measurement can be often overlooked in strategy development; creating a thoughtful and thorough plan for measuring the effects will improve your final project tremendously. In this part of the project, you will describe two events: what you think will happen and how you will measure it. Look to the courses in the Business Analytics Specialization to see what kind of data companies use to measure effects to create a measurement plan of your own. You are strongly encouraged to complete and include your responses to Application Exercises 3 and 4 as part of your Effects and Measurement components. You may create a scenario (Operations Analytics) to predict some of the intended effects of your strategy, either following the outline of Application Exercise 3, or of your own design. Once you submit your own plan for effects and measurement, please review the work of at least three of your peers. You may find new ideas, or new ways of looking at data and measurement from this exercise. We encourage you to incorporate what you've learned into your final submission!
• Module 5: Final Project Submission
• In this final Module, you will combine the four revised elements of your presentation (Problem Statement, Strategy, Effects, and Measurement, including any responses to the Application Exercises you've completed) into one presentation and submit it for peer review. You'll then be asked to review the work of at least three of your peers. Once you have gotten feedback on your plan, you may use it as an example of strategic thinking at your current job, or as a work sample when you are applying for a new one. A successful strategic analysis which describes the use of data-driven decision making will make you much more marketable in almost any field. Good luck!

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Putting It All Together: Your Analytics Capstone Project

Given the emphasis our Online MSBA program places on developing a well-rounded, multifaceted skill set, it is no surprise that the program concludes with a culminating collaborative analytics project. In the Business Analytics Capstone Project course, students are asked to apply everything they have learned in the program toward solving a challenging real-life business problem.

Each graduating cohort in the Online MSBA program will have a distinct capstone project experience featuring unique data sets provided by W&M’s impressive roster of corporate partners. This is no ordinary business school assignment: It’s your opportunity to deploy your new analytics, data visualization and communication skills on real data, with a real-world impact on a major organization’s strategic decisions and demonstrate excellence across each of the Online MSBA program’s four pillars .

Connect Beyond the Capstone With W&M

Show off your skills.

In completing the capstone course, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Gain experience you won’t find in a textbook or problem set by engaging with real-world data from an actual organization
• Use your new technical skills in SQL, R and Python programming, Tableau, and other tools and programs to analyze complex data
• Approach an open-ended raw data set and make your own decisions about how to clean it and parse it into intelligible slices
• Develop a comprehensive presentation to relay your findings and recommendations to an audience of business leaders
• Work closely with faculty advisors to help you stay on track and ensure your successful completion of your project
• Demonstrate your ability to collaborate by delegating and completing the tasks that make up a complex analytics project

Capstone Snapshot: Data Feast

The capstone experience for the Online MSBA cohort graduating in spring 2020 was the Data Feast competition , which pitted two teams of Online MSBA students against two teams of students from the on-campus MSBA program to analyze a data set and offer strategic insights to guide the expansion efforts of an up-and-coming sports and entertainment company. Two winners were declared in each of the areas of technical skills and business acumen, and the winners of the technical challenge was one of the two Online MSBA teams!

Read more about how this experience helped 2020 MSBA graduates Jamar Jenkins and Cheryl Ngo synthesize their new skills and solidify their confidence.

Data Feast 2020

The capstone helped me realize that there is a lot of work to be done for analytics problems aside from just the exciting new coding you've learned. There's cleaning to be done, there are questions to be asked, there's a background to be understood and there are end goals by the business involved. There are a lot of different layers to things beyond just ‘Here's an answer to a simple question.’

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William & Mary has engaged Everspring , a leading provider of education and technology services, to support select aspects of program delivery.

M.S. in Business Analytics Capstone

Gain Real-World Experience and Address Business Challenges

In the Capstone Project for Georgetown McDonough’s M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) program, you’ll apply the concepts, methods, and tools learned in the program to a challenging business analytics problem with a local, national, or global organization.

Over the course of two semesters, you’ll work with Georgetown’s faculty advisors and a group of other MSBA students to:

• Define an organizational challenge.
• Collect and analyze necessary data.
• Assess possible courses of action.
• Make a recommendation to the organization.
• Present actionable insights to partners and McDonough faculty.

As you move through the Capstone Project, you’ll hone your skills with analytics tools, business functions, computing and technology, and value-based data analytics. Your experience from the Capstone Project will help you to stand out from other applicants as you seek to establish or advance your career.

“Graduates are going to show readiness to use data science in real life. They will be able to add this to their resume, show it to employers, and even use it to start a career. The Capstone Projects will be drawn from real-world problems and may be conducted with both industry and academic partners.” Sudipta Dasmohapatra, MSBA Academic Director and Professor

MSBA Curriculum

The curriculum for Georgetown McDonough’s MSBA program includes a total of 18 courses, and each course lasts seven weeks. Part of the curriculum is a two-course Capstone Project, which will begin mid-residency and end with a final project presentation to a partner company/organization prior to graduation.

Selected Capstone Partner Organizations

We have some great partner organizations for you to work with on your projects. Below are just a few of the groups our students have worked with.

• Capco Consulting
• Dovel Technologies
• Deloitte Consulting
• Gray Associates
• Marriott International
• The Census Bureau
• US Green Building Council
• Virtus Investment Partners

Capstone Project Timeline

Rather than moving toward a prescribed outcome, the Capstone Project and its goals should mimic the workplace by emerging organically from insights based on the data collected. To pace the Capstone Project appropriately, student groups adhere to the following timeline of project milestones.

Project Advisors

The Capstone Project will be overseen by the program leadership including the program manager. Other relevant MSBA and Georgetown faculty experts will serve as project mentors, as needed.

• Faculty Team: Professors Sudipta Dasmohapatra and Gregory Lyon

Professor Sudipta Dasmohapatra

Sudipta Dasmohapatra is the academic director of the M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) and professor of the practice at the McDonough School of Business. She has worked with numerous industry partners and government and non-profit organizations on a variety of business analytics projects.

She has over 10 years of experience consulting in analytics and data science and served on the advisory boards of two strategic analytics start-up firms— Vertaeon, Inc. based in Atlanta, and Kloutics, Inc., based in Pune, India. She joined the board of the Statistical and Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), an NSF-funded math and statistics institute, in July 2018 as the associate director of diversity. She holds a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.

Professor Gregory Lyon

Dr. Lyon is the Assistant Director for the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) and Assistant Teaching Professor in Business Analytics at the McDonough School of Business. He has served as a data science consultant for projects ranging from survey research to global workforce development to regulatory compliance and has taught programming, analytics, and data science to students of all levels, including graduate students and working professionals. Dr. Lyon also holds multiple certifications in cloud computing and analytics including AWS cloud architecture (SAA-C02) as well specialized AWS cloud certifications in machine learning (MLS-C01) and data analytics (DAS-C01). Prior to Georgetown, he earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers University and was a postdoctoral researcher in data science and survey research at Tufts University.

Capstone Partnership Opportunities

The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University is always seeking additional partners for the MSBA Capstone Project. The MSBA program accepts proposals each spring for additional Capstone Project partner organizations.

“These Capstone Projects will be conducted with industry, government, or academic partners in any field you can imagine, from healthcare to retail to financial services to education. The Capstone Project teams will consist of student members who will be carefully selected into their teams based on the needs of the project.” Sudipta Dasmohapatra, MSBA Academic Director and Professor

By becoming a partner for an MSBA Capstone Project, your company can provide a real-world learning experience for Georgetown students while working through data-driven solutions to your unique challenges.

Download a PDF  for more details about the benefits of a Capstone Project partnership.

For more information about how organizations can get involved with Georgetown University, visit  https://msb.georgetown.edu/corporate-partnerships/

Contact Our MSBA Team

[email protected] Call Today:  (202) 729-9995

Business Analytics Capstone Experience

The business analytics capstone experience allows students to work on real-world business problems using data and statistics..

Graduate students work with a UM-Dearborn faculty advisor and a mentor from a sponsoring company to model, analyze and recommend a solution for a significant business problem.

Sponsoring a Capstone Project

The curriculum for the Master of Science-Business Analytics  in the College of Business prepares students to deal with the challenging task of deriving deep insights from the vast array of structured and unstructured data in a variety of business areas. The program prepares students to pursue careers such as a data scientist or analyst.

Capstone Project Overview

The capstone project is the core of the MS-Business Analytics curriculum. This 15-week course emphasizes a team-based learning experience in which students conduct real-world analytics projects using data provided by the sponsoring organization. Since Winter 2016, students have completed 25 projects with 9 sponsoring organizations. Some of the industry sectors represented by our sponsors include manufacturing, healthcare, energy, retail, logistics, information technology, and service. Student projects have included optimal supply-chain logistics configuration, health-care services profitability analysis, predictive modeling for parts classification, analysis of customer satisfaction in a call center, forecasting weather-related power outages, data-modeling for smart mobility, augmented analytics & conversational analytics for data mining applications, information assurance trend analysis, and learning analytics.

Why Sponsor a Capstone Project

Sponsoring a project provides MS-Business Analytics students an opportunity to gain experience applying their coursework to real-world business problems.

It also offers the sponsoring organizations the opportunity to work with our students.  Many organizations make formal offers of employment to project participants after their work in the capstone project.

Only select students participate in the Capstone course.  These students are selected on the basis of:

• Superior academic performance in the graduate program.
• Successful completion core courses in statistical modeling and analysis, optimization, forecasting, and data mining.
• Demonstrated teamwork and problem-solving skills.

Course Deliverables:

• A formal written project report.
• A software demonstration (if developed for a particular application)
• A public presentation summarizing the project results.

There is no cost to sponsor a project.

Requirements for Sponsor

• A project lead who will interface with the student team and Faculty Coordinator on all project matters.
• 2 to 3 hours each week for meetings with the student team, either in person or online.
• A brief, well-defined problem statement. The solution to the problem must require quantitative analysis, such as statistical analysis, optimization, predictive modeling, data mining, visual analytics, and exploratory analysis.
• A prepared data set that requires data modeling, such as data cleansing, data preparation, data normalization, data merging, or data parsing. Students must be able to analyze the data using natural languages, such as R or Python.

Project teams sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect the privacy of the data and other information shared by the sponsor. Sponsors may anonymize business-sensitive information and other technical details.

Project Details

At the start of the semester, the sponsor and students meet to discuss the following: 

• The organization’s business problem.
• The specific goal of the data analytics project.
• A description of the available data.
• Project-meeting schedules between the sponsoring organization and the student team.

The goal of the project is for students to:

• Understand and clearly define the business decision problem.
• Process and analyze data.
• Design, model and develop a solution.

During the project, student teams maintain regular communication with the project sponsors through scheduled site visits, web meetings and weekly progress updates. The Faculty Coordinator tracks project progress with technical reviews and updates with the student teams throughout the semester.  In addition, the Faculty Coordinator and project sponsors jointly conduct mid-term progress reviews and provide feedback to the student teams.

The University provides student teams with access to an extensive portal of prominent software in a cloud-based environment, which students will use on their projects.

At the conclusion of the project, the student teams will make a public presentation of their findings to the sponsor, College of Business faculty, staff and students.

View the capstone project syllabus .

Project Schedule

The Capstone project course is offered two times a year, during Fall and Winter semesters. We welcome your inquiries about sponsoring a Capstone project. We are always planning for projects for upcoming semesters. The tentative schedule is as follows:

• Through August 15 in any calendar year for Fall semester.
• Through November 15 in any calendar year for Winter semester.
• First Wednesday for Fall semester.
• First Wednesday for Winter semester.
• Wednesday of the Final Examinations week for Fall semester.
• Wednesday of the Final Examinations week for Winter semester.

Capstone Projects for Winter 2023

Automated alert system for the application program interface management tool at the university of michigan.

This study presents the development of an automated mechanism for log and user affiliation change monitoring using Python scripts. The current practice of manual log queries and affiliation change observations is not only cumbersome but also poses potential security risks due to delays in observation. To address this, the proposed solution automates the process of accessing the application system and logs to generate alerts. The use of Python scripts enables efficient performance and scalability while reducing the need for manual involvement. The developed solution is expected to improve the overall security and monitoring of the system by providing real-time alerts and reducing response time.  Though, the current solution of the study is via python scripts, Splunk's built in alert system and pubsub were also thought of as alternatives but were not feasible for security concerns and lack of ability to specialize respectively.

Study of an Accessibility Tool for a Learning Management System at the University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is devoted to providing a learning environment that is comprehensively accessible, a fact exemplified by the Electronic and Information (EIT) Standard Practice Guide (SPG) of 2022. In line with the university’s accessibility goals, Information Technology Services (ITS) at the university endorsed the Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool (UDOIT), an automated accessibility checker tool used at the university since 2019. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about pressing circumstances that halted ITS’s promotion of the tool and clouded their understanding of its usage at the university. This study leverages learning analytics to drive ITS’s assessment of the efficacy of UDOIT as an accessibility tool. It utilizes the concepts of Axiomatic System Design to systemize the design process. The study expounds the methodology used to construct a complete dataset using UDOIT output. Using a predefined set of research questions, the study conducts a full-scale analysis of the dataset, leveraging descriptive statistics with data visualization to identify patterns in the usage of UDOIT across semesters, colleges, users, and more. The study concludes with a structured summary of results and a user manual allowing ITS to replicate this analysis. Insight gained from this study will guide future UDOIT training and support ITS’s efforts towards enhancing digital accessibility at the University of Michigan.

User Behavior Analysis of Learning Management System - Pre, During and Post Covid

Canvas learning management system. The study identifies the module design and item addition patterns of faculty in Canvas and their relation to student behavior in traversing through course modules. Additionally, the study aims to determine the level of Canvas awareness among faculty and propose instructional design improvements to enhance the user experience. The analysis revealed an increase in the percentage of courses that have only the 'modules' tool enabled on the left-hand navigation during the During-Covid and Post-Covid timeline. The study also provided information on the percentage of courses in each department that used different tools during different terms. The navigational analysis of Canvas usage by learners across different academic units revealed that the School of Social Work stood out in terms of the frequency of tools accessed. Interestingly, despite the expectation that the School of Public Health would have the highest percentage of module usage due to receiving the highest level of instructional support, this was not the case. Providing instructional support can significantly enhance user engagement with Canvas. The analysis suggests that ITS teaching and learning prioritize the implementation of instructional support across all academic units to facilitate continuous user engagement with course content, as evidenced by the higher usage of the Modules tool throughout active sessions. Based on the findings, the study recommends exploring several areas for further investigation, including analyzing child tools usage, exploring the correlation between student grades and time spent on Canvas, and analyzing user navigation for external tools integrated with Canvas. These findings can help identify areas that require more instructional support to improve the user experience on Canvas.

Recent Projects

Evaluating the use of my learning analytics (myla) within canvas at the university of michigan.

My Learning Analytics (MyLA) is an optional additional dashboard design tool embedded within Canvas. It offers assignment planning, grade calculations, and resources accessed features to help students engage in self-regulated learning. We analyzed student, course, and log data for 3,929 students enrolled in 61 courses offering the MyLA tool over 4 terms. Using this data, patterns of student activity were identified with the tool and tested for correlation between the use of the tool and course performance.

Multiple methods were developed to classify and separate students into two groups: users of the tool and non-users. The data was used to identify any similar academic or demographic characteristics among students. After analyzing the data, it was determined that there is a significant positive difference between users and non-users of the MyLA program when it comes to course performance. This difference in final course grade increases in magnitude and significance when users are determined by having two or more distinct weeks active in MyLA.

University of Michigan Information and Technology Services - Vulnerability Trend Analyses

This project identified and analyzed all the departments across the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor that are vulnerable to hacking.

The student team used  Tenable.io , an industry-standard tool used to identify hacking risks within an organization's IT systems. The tool provided a massive data set containing all UM IP addresses, each of which was rated as far as its vulnerability to a cyber attack. Students matched this list with a file containing department names and their corresponding subnets.

Students performed data wrangling and data filtering on these two files to retain IP addresses corresponding to severe CVSS (common vulnerability severity rating) and VPR (vulnerability priority rating) ratings. Students then used the Python tool  ipaddress  to map IP addresses and IP subnets from either of the files to produce a list of the departments that are most vulnerable to hacking. After the mapping process, students analyzed and created a data visualization of the list of IP subnets and departments to identify how often each department was flagged a vulnerable to hacking. The students repeated this analysis over three consecutive months.

The students' work identified the UM departments which are the most vulnerable to hacking -- which turned out to be UM's Information Technology Services itself, followed by the College of Engineering.

University of Michigan Project: Conversational Analytics Using Google Dialog Flow

With the rise of messaging apps and social media technology being used as a main form of communication, U-M's Office of Budget and Planning wants to be able to quickly and conveniently analyze student survey data over the last 5 years. Gathering useful information about student needs and expectations is vital to help the University decide which technologies they should adopt to communicate with students to maintain a better student-university relationship. Chatbot and Voice Assistant are primarily being used to support staff by gathering the information they need from the student survey data. This project will task students to utilize Google assistant to answer questions and Dialog-flow to create a seamless interaction between users and system.

University of Michigan Project: Augmented Analytics and Visualization of Student Services Activities

U-M’s Information Technology Services has collected a lot of data over the years through various activities across the Ann Arbor campus. The Office of Budget and Planning wants its staff to have the ability to run reports and gain insights from the UMay survey data. Students will be tasked to design a model by implementing and creating Augmented Analytics that will connect the end-user to this large set of raw data. This will include the ability to process verbal queries and respond with visual analytics, which will make it easier for the end-user to understand the results.

Process for Generating an Origin-Destination Demand Matrix for Use in a Commuter Ride-sharing Simulation at Ford Smart Mobility

Ford Motor Company has expanded into mobility services with the purchase of a startup company, Chariot, which offers a carpooling service to commuters in select urban areas and uniquely allows potential customers to vote on new commuter routes. To support Ford and Chariot in identifying new commuter routes in cities where the company is not operating, this research effort created a process that simulates commuter origin and destinations, the number of commuters, and time of departure. The process selected San Francisco, CA as a starting point in part for verification purposes because Chariot already has operations in the city. Results indicate the process properly simulated commuter flow. Specifically, commuter’s origin locations were highly dispersed across San Francisco, but the destination locations indicate commuters are traveling towards areas of high employment. The process also accurately simulated departure times associated with the rush hour commute. In summary, the process created can be replicated to model commuter traffic patterns in other cities and identify where large of commuters are traveling from and to and during what time of day. Thus, the process provides Ford and Chariot commuter data to help guide early business decisions. An end-to-end analytics framework was utilized to process publicly available data from a very large number of sources by utilizing advanced data mining, visual analytics and simulation techniques to generate traffic flow inputs for advanced transportation network and simulation models.

Modeling for Predicting Power Outages due to Weather Events for DTE Energy

DTE Energy, the electrical service provider for Southeast Michigan, allocates a great deal of resources toward managing outages, particularly those caused by big weather events. This research project aimed to develop a series of models which are geographically sensitive (at the service center level) to predict number of power outages per day based on weather data. Using an ensemble of neural networks, a model for each service center was created that is sensitive to three different scenarios. These models, specifically those belonging to the four service centers which experience the greatest number of electrical service interruptions, predict number of outages in that service center to an industry benchmark level of accuracy. Further, one scenario—high temperature and high wind speed days—predicts outages substantially beyond industry benchmarks. Finally, we discuss our attempt at a more time sensitive model, predicting outages hourly. An end-to-end data analytics framework was utilized to process large disparate datasets by utilizing advanced data mining techniques to cleanse, merge and prepare data for modeling utilizing predictive modeling, and classification & forecasting algorithms. This work has enabled DTE Energy to better plan their labor and other resources in restoring power in a more efficient manner.

An Analytics Approach to Managing Inbound Call Support at Stefanini IT Solutions

Harnessing the power of data and analytics is the first step in driving operational efficiencies for the business of the future. Stefanini is looking to gain data driven insights into two of their existing call-center processes – inbound call handling process and the existing service ticket creation process. Stefanini currently maintains and captures data related to these two processes separately. The purpose of this project is to combine the call related data with the corresponding tickets and assist Stefanini to gain a better understanding of on what impact the issue types have on the duration of the calls. The analysis will also help Stefanini identify key areas to drive automation, deploy additional employee trainings and optimize the existing staffing models that can eventually generate operational efficiencies for the company. An end-to-end analytics framework was designed by effectively combining the two disparate data sets by utilizing exploratory data analytics, visualization and advanced analytics techniques to generate key insights to help drive efficiencies and automation for Stefanini.

“We were impressed with the analysis and report. The results from this analysis are extremely insightful and will inform our instructional design approach and benefit the colleges we support and collaborate with.”

“The results from this analysis are extremely insightful and will be instrumental for us and the IT Accessibility Assistance Director's strategic efforts to increase and enhance adoption of UDOIT.”

“The deliverables from students’ analyses were insightful and will help us implement the automated alert system for the Application Program Interface Management tool”

College of Business Graduate Office

MS Business Analytics Capstone Projects

Master of Science Business Analytics students are required to complete a business analytics capstone project in their last semester. Projects are based on real-world data provided by companies. We welcome participation from firms from any industry. Student teams will analyze applicable data sets which will help you make informed decisions, key to your business success. Dr. Sridhar Nerur and Dr. Jay Samuel oversee all projects. Contact: [email protected]

• Sentiment analysis of social media content (positive, negative or neutral)
• Stock Market prediction based on time-series modelling
• Text analysis of product/business reviews and how they impact performance
• Predicting house prices based on historical data
• Building a recommender system for movies
• Predicting customer churn and recommending solutions to avoid this
• Text analysis of blogs to identify common trends

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15 Business Analyst Project Ideas and Examples for Practice

Explore business analyst real time projects examples curated for aspiring business analysts that will help them start their professional careers.

Your search for business analyst project examples ends here. This blog contains sample projects for business analyst beginners and professionals. So, continue reading this blog to know more about different business analyst projects ideas.

Business analysts are the demand of the twenty-first century! One can easily affirm this by looking at a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has revealed that as of May 2020, the median annual salary received by management analysts is $87,660. The bureau’s report also suggests that we are likely to witness an increase in the jobs of management analysts by 11% between 2019 and 2029. The rate is pretty higher than the average for other occupations. Additionally, the bureau mentioned that there is likely to be intense competition for such jobs because the role offers handsome salaries.

Avocado Machine Learning Project Python for Price Prediction

Downloadable solution code | Explanatory videos | Tech Support

The role of a business analyst primarily deals with analysing the growth of a business and suggesting methods to improve the existing strategies. Thus, to play such a crucial, one needs to possess a robust set of skills. Let us discuss a few of these to give you a more clear understanding of the skills required to become a business analyst .

Excellent verbal and written communication.

Communicate with different stakeholders and hold different meetings.

Up-to-date knowledge of new technologies and methodologies.

The capability of learning different business processes.

Ability to layout different ways of improving business growth.

Strong time management skills.

Understanding of various analytical tools and their implementation in revealing insights about the business.

Host different workshops and training sessions.

Knowledge of writing formal reports.

Having motivated you with our introduction of this blog, we now present business analyst sample projects that you can try to test/enhance your skills.

Table of Contents

Business analyst practice projects for beginners, business analyst real-time projects for intermediate professionals, advanced business analyst projects examples , top 15 business analyst project ideas for practice.

This section has beginner-friendly projects for business analyst roles that newbies in this domain can start with.

1) Market Basket Analysis  

Have you heard of the Beer-and-diapers story? In 2016, Mark Madsen, a research analyst, asked if there is a correlation between the sales of diapers and beers? It turned out that when a few stores placed beers closer to the diapers section, the beer sales went up. This strategy did not work for all the stores, but for a few, it did. By reflecting on this story, we want you to understand how important it is for a business to analyse the correlation between different purchased products, also called Market Basket Analysis.

Project Idea: In this project, you will work on a retail store’s data and learn how to realize the association between different products. Additionally, you will learn how to implement Apriori and Fpgrowth algorithms over the given dataset. You will also compare the two algorithms to understand the differences between them.

Source Code: Market basket analysis using apriori and fpgrowth algorithm  

Get FREE Access to  Data Analytics Example Codes for Data Cleaning, Data Munging, and Data Visualization

2) Estimating Retail Prices

For any product-selling business, deciding the price of their product is one of the most crucial decisions to make. And, thus for an aspiring business analyst, it becomes essential to understand what factors influence the decision-making process of product prices.

Project Idea: Mercari is a community-driven electronics-shopping application in Japan. In this project, you will build an automated price recommendation system using Mercari’s dataset to suggest prices to their sellers for different products based on the information collected. You will learn how to use Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) tools and implement different machine learning algorithms like Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines, and Random Forest in R programming language. If you are specifically looking for business analyst finance planning projects for beginners , this project will be a good start. 

Source Code: Machine learning for Retail Price Recommendation with R

New Projects

3) Analyzing Customer Feedback

Collecting feedback from customers has become a norm for most companies. It provides them with the user’s perspective and guides them on what changes they should make to their product to increase its sales. Additionally, if the product reviews are public, potential customers feel motivated to trust the genuineness of the seller.

Project Idea: This project deals with the analysis of reviews of products available on an eCommerce website. You will work on textual data and implement data pre-processing methods like Gibberish Detection, Language Detection, Spelling Correction, and Profanity Detection. You will learn how to use the Random Forest model for ranking different reviews. Furthermore, you will explore the method of extracting sentiments and subjectivity from the reviews.

Source Code: Ecommerce product reviews - Pairwise ranking and sentiment analysis  

Recommended Reading: How to learn NLP from scratch in 2021?

Upskill yourself for your dream job with industry-level big data projects with source code

4) Predicting Avocado Prices

Did you know that more than 3 million new photos of avocado toasts were uploaded to Instagram every day in 2107? As per the British Vogue Magazine , this is indeed true. No doubt that so many of us enjoy avocado toasts in our breakfast. If you are also one of such people, this project idea will keep you hooked as it is all about avocados.

Project Idea: In this project, you will learn how a business analyst can use data analysis methods and help promote the growth of a business. You will work on the dataset of a Mexican-based company and layout an Avocado-price-map for them as they plan to expand their reach to different regions in the US. You will be testing the implementation of various models like the Adaboost Regressor, ARIMA time series model, and Facebook Prophet model to predict the Avocado prices.

Source Code: Avocado Price Prediction

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5) Predicting the Fate of a Loan Application

Those interested in banking projects for business analysts will indeed consider this one their favorite from this section as this project deals with loans. For understanding banks’ business model, it is crucial to learn the whole process of approving a loan application.

Project Idea: In this project, you will explore the different factors that influence the eligibility of a loan application’s approval. You will utilise different machine learning algorithms for predicting the chances of success of a loan application. This project will also help you learn about various statistical metrics used widely by business analysts like ROC curve, Gradient boosting, MCC Scorer, Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique, and XGBoost.

Source Code: Loan Eligibility Prediction 

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6) Predicting Customer Churn Rate

When customers start declining at an unexpected rate, various stakeholders go to business analysts for guidance. It is indeed one of the critical responsibilities of a business analyst to check the rate of customers churning out.

Project Idea: This project will guide you about performing univariate and bivariate analysis on the given dataset of a bank. You will learn how different statistical methods like SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations), RandomSearch, GridSearch, etc. should be used and interpreted. This project is another instance of a banking project for business analysts . So, if that’s your bias in sample business analysis projects , do check this one out. Source Code: Customer Churn Prediction

Recommended Reading: 

• Is Data Science Hard to Learn? (Answer: NO!)
• 15 Machine Learning Projects GitHub for Beginners in 2021
• Access Job Recommendation System Project with Source Code

After you have completely solved the above-mentioned projects, proceed to the sample business analyst projects listed in this section to further enhance your skills. These projects are slightly more challenging as they are closer to real-world problems. So, please refer to the source code links for help.

Explore SQL Database Projects to Add them to Your Data Engineer Resume.

7) Prediction of Selling Price for different Products

You must have noticed a few brands sometimes send their loyal customers' coupon codes to attract them. These coupons are often customized according to their purchase history with the brand and thus the offer varies from customer to customer.

Project Idea: In this project, you will work on the dataset of a retail company to estimate the price at which a customer is likely to buy a specific product. Once that is complete, you will use your estimation to design offers for different customers. For the solution, you will use machine learning algorithms like Gradient Boosting Machines (GBM), XGBoost, Random Forest, and Neural Networks and use different metrics to test each of their performances.

You can add this project under the heading of business analyst finance projects on your resume to highlight the diversity of your skillset.

Source Code : Predict purchase amount of customers against various products

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8) Store Sales Prediction

In most firms, investors are usually external stakeholders that are not directly involved in the firm’s business but are definitely affected by it. And, it is the business analyst’s responsibility to keep the investors up-to-date with the existing and expected growth of the firm’s business model.

Project Idea: In this project, you will work on the dataset of 45 stores of the famous Walmart store chain. The goal is to predict the sales and revenue of different stores based on historical data. You will work with numeric and categorical feature variables and perform univariate & bivariate analysis to find the redundancy in variables. Additionally, you will learn the implementation of the ARIMA time series model and other machine learning models.

Source Code: Walmart Store Sales Forecasting

9) Analyzing Customer Churn

 It's the customer who pays the wages. --Henry Ford

Customer churn is painful for all the stakeholders in a company. A business analyst must thus look for ways in which the customer churn rate can be minimised. Additionally, they have to identify the cause behind customer churn to improving business growth. Having a fair idea of which customer is likely to churn out will help a business analyst develop better strategies.

Project Idea: In this project, you will be introduced to one of the popular classification machine learning algorithms , logistic regression. The goal is to use logistic regression for estimating the chances of churn for each customer. Through this project, you will get to explore different statistical methods, including confusion metric, recall, accuracy, precision, f1-score, AUC, and ROC.

Source Code: Churn Analysis for Streaming App using Logistic Regression

10) Estimating Future Inventory Demand

While inventory management does not directly fall in the bucket of a business analyst’s responsibilities, one may still find it there as inventory demand directly impacts several other aspects of a business including sales, marketing , finance, etc. With so many advancements taking place in the IT industry, a business analyst can easily use various tools to forecast the inventory demand. Project Idea: Through this project, you will explore the application of various machine learning models, including Bagging, Boosting, XGBoost, GBM, light GBM, and SVM for predicting the inventory demand of a bakery. This project will also introduce you to the implementation of autoML/H 2 0 and LSTM models.

Source Code: Inventory Demand Forecasting using Machine Learning in R

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11) Predicting Coupon Sales

In the previous section, we mentioned a project that will help you in creating customised coupons for a business’s customers. The next step will be to keep track of which coupons have been purchased. This will further help in understanding customer behaviour and preferences.

Project Idea: In this project, you will work on the dataset of one of Japan’s famous joint coupon websites, Recruit Ponpare. The goal is to estimate which coupons a customer is likely to buy based on their previous purchases and browsing behaviour on the website. You will use different graphical methods to visualise the data and various methods of handling missing values in a dataset. You will evaluate the cosine similarities of coupons and users and use them to make the desired predictions.

Source Code: Build a Coupon Purchase Prediction Model in R

12) Creating Product Bundles

Often when we visit a McDonald’s outlet, we intend to buy only a burger, but when we look at the meal menu, we end up buying the full mean instead of a single burger. This method of combining a few products and selling them as a single unit is called product bundling. It helps in increasing the sales of a business.

Project Idea: In this project, you will identify product bundles from the given sales data. While market basket analysis is commonly used for solving such problems, you will be using the time series clustering method. The two techniques will be compared to understand the significance of both methods.

Source Code: Identify Product Bundles from Sales Data

Recommended Reading: 50 Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

Professional Business Analysts planning to aim for senior roles will find business analyst projects samples in this section. A senior business analyst is often expected to possess knowledge of Big Data tools . Thus, you will find the projects described below rely on these tools.

13) Analyzing Log Files

If you are new to Big data projects and want to learn the basics of data analysis using Hive, then this project will be a good start. This simple project has been added to this section to prepare you for the next two projects.

Project Idea: This project is simply about analyzing log files of different users of a website. You will learn how to use Apache Hive to extract meaningful data insights by executing real-time queries.

Source Code: Hive Sample Projects-Learn data analysis using sample data for Hive

14) Retain Analytics

Retail Analytics refers to the complete analysis of various aspects of a business, including customer behavior and demands, supply chain analysis, sales, marketing, and inventory management. Such deeper analysis assists in deeply understanding the business model and smoothens various decision-making processes.

Project Idea: In this project, you will work with the Walmart stores dataset and use various Big Data techniques and tools to perform retail analytics. You will explore how to use tools like AWS EC2, Docker -composer, HDFS, Apache Hive, and MySQL for implementing the full solution.

Source Code: Retail Analytics Project Example using Sqoop, HDFS, and Hive

Build an Awesome Job Winning Project Portfolio with Solved End-to-End Big Data Projects

15) Analyzing Airline Data

Data has become a huge asset for many industries, and the airline industry is no exception. They rely on big data to answer a few of the most vital questions like when the customers are likely to witness minimum delay in flight timings? Are older planes more prone to delays? etc. Project Idea: For this project, you will work on the dataset of an airline and find answers to questions like the ones mentioned above. You will be guided on how to ingest data and extract it using Cloudera VMware. After that, you will learn about preprocessing the data using Apache Pig. Next, you will use Hive for making tables and performing Exploratory Data Analysis. You will also get to explore the application of HCatloader and parquet through this project. Source Code: Hadoop Hive Project on Airline Dataset Analysis

Hey, Hey! The blog hasn’t ended yet. Going by what Steve Jobs said. “ ‘Learn continually. There's always “one more thing” to learn.’, we don’t want your learning journey to stop here. Check out more such Data Science Projects and Big Data projects from our repository to work on more exciting projects like the ones discussed in this blog.

About the Author

Manika Nagpal is a versatile professional with a strong background in both Physics and Data Science. As a Senior Analyst at ProjectPro, she leverages her expertise in data science and writing to create engaging and insightful blogs that help businesses and individuals stay up-to-date with the

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Top Business Analytics Projects to Sharpen Your Skills and Build Your Business Analytics Portfolio

Business analytics is the tool used by professionals to make sound business decisions. It fosters the profitability of a business and helps increase a business’s market value. This is why business owners are keen on employing business analysts or business intelligence analysts to help achieve their objectives. 

With the increase in demand for such professionals, you will need to develop cutting-edge skills to land a position. If you don’t want to get certified yet, you should consider completing business analytics projects. These projects will help you gain hands-on experience and showcase to employers your expertise and skill level in business analytics .

Find your bootcamp match

5 skills that business analytics projects can help you practice.

Completing business analytics projects can set you apart from other job applicants. These projects will help you develop real-world experience. Whether your focus is on customer relationship management, financial management, human resources, marketing, or supply chain management, these projects will be invaluable to your growth. 

• SQL. SQL is a popular coding language used in databases. Through it, analysts and developers write queries to retrieve data from transaction databases. Data scientists and data analysts also rely on the coding language. After retrieving data from the databases, business analysts present the data visually to stakeholders. 
• Statistical Languages. Working on business analytics projects will expose you to statistical languages such as R and Python. Analysts rely on R for statistical analysts and Python for programming. A combination of these languages can help you work easily with big data sets.
• Statistical Software. These projects are also quite beneficial in helping you build skills in statistical software. Through the projects, you will become familiar with SAS, SPS, and Excel. 
• Data Visualization . A significant part of business analytics involves data visualization . As part of the projects, you will not only learn how to fetch data from different databases but also present them to stakeholders. This means you will get to familiarize yourself with data visualization tools and techniques. 
• Machine Learning. As you work on the projects, you will encounter many instances where machine learning is vital . You should expect to use business intelligence tools for curating friendly user interfaces and augmented analytics to receive accurate insights. 

Best Business Analytics Project Ideas for Beginners 

Being a beginner in the field of business analytics does not mean you cannot pursue projects to boost your portfolio. There are plenty of beginner-friendly business analytics project ideas to help you grow your skills in business analytics. Below we curated a list of the best beginner project ideas to jumpstart your career.

Data on Employee Performance and Resignation

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Data Visualization, Machine Learning 

In this project, you will provide a company with data that can explain why employees are resigning. The goal is to take these results and use them to improve the business environment. You can take into account the employee’s distance from home, work culture, or job role. You should evaluate each factor with the relationship to resignation. 

Forecasting Sales of a Mall During December

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Data Visualization

A mall features a variety of shops and stalls that see high traffic during the holiday season. In this project, you should be able to determine which is the most popular product and how to ensure the shop does not run out of stock. You should check the current inventory and the customer segmentation to ensure you can forecast the sales properly. 

Predicting the Success of a Product

In this project, you can rely on your analytical skills to determine if a particular product will sell well in a specified market. For instance, you can focus on the entertainment industry. With thousands of hours of content being disseminated daily, it is quite challenging to establish which song or movie will do well. You will need to make use of historical data and models to make predictions. 

Predicting Sales for an Upcoming Car Design

This project involves taking a deep dive into customer needs and wants. You can work on a project to determine if a new car design, color, or shape will appeal to the target audience. There is a wide variety of cars available in the market to help you determine the most popular vehicle. 

Customer Segmentation

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Statistical Languages

In this project, you will deal with a wide customer base of an organization. The main aim of the project is to provide the best customer segmentation to the business leader, development, and marketing team to design campaigns. You should check on the spending ability of the customers and the most popular products. 

Best Intermediate Business Analytics Project Ideas 

If you have confidence in your business analytics skills and would like to take on new challenges, you should pursue intermediate business analytics projects. These mid-level projects will open you up to new horizons in business analytics. They can also help in landing a well-paying job position in tech or other fields. 

Project Management and Business Analysis

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning

You can get plenty of ideas by reading this paper on project management and business analytics. The paper covers lessons from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge and A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge . The latter provides a comprehensive guide in the elicitation process, also referred to as enterprise analysis. 

The above-mentioned books are instrumental to improving your project management skills and informing you on best practices in the industry. You will start with identifying the organizational problem and finish by defining systems capabilities. 

Human Resources

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Data Visualization 

This project involves automating processes, multidimensional analysis, self-service access, and recruitment methods. Your goal is to find ways to improve recruitment and retainment for a company while remaining within a set budget. This project will help you develop analytical skills in establishing the sensitive areas of a business that can lead to potential losses.

Business Analytics Capstone

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Data Visualization

If you have a computer science or business degree, you should consider working on this capstone project. This project-based course will help you learn real-world applications for data-driven decision making. By working on this project, you will familiarize yourself with using data to optimize businesses, maximize value, and make operations efficient. 

This capstone project will take business professionals through challenges faced by global companies such as Yahoo and Google. You will learn how to use data for addressing business challenges. It’s a curated project by Yahoo to help you master how to make data-driven decisions after complete evaluation. 

Sales Conversion Optimization

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Statistical Software, Statistical Programming

This is a great project to work on Return on Investment. Through this project, you will be able to develop campaign strategies that will positively impact business operations. You will also optimize the budget to be more impactful by utilizing methods such as email blasting and social media marketing.

Optical Character Recognition

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Statistical Programming

You can choose to work on optical character recognition, which deals with converting text in images to typed text. You can find open-source project templates for creating optical character recognition software with Python and Swift. You can program an application that turns handwritten documents into typed ones. 

Advanced Business Analytics Project Ideas

These advanced business analytics project ideas can take your expertise to a professional level. These projects feature advanced concepts such as pattern matching, forecasting, sentiment analysis, graph analysis, and neural networks. Find out more about the business analytics project details and the skills you will gain below.

Credit Risk Classification Analysis

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Statistical Programming 

In this project, you can choose to focus on a particular financial organization or simply generalize. However, the more specific, the easier it will be to analyze the credit risk. You will start by analyzing the historical data of the customer, financial information, and loan purpose. 

You should check on factors like age, gender, marital status, job type, and income in your project. This classification tool should inform the business on the best cause of action when issuing credit or loans. 

Sales Data Exploration and Reduction

This project will help inform business leaders on the best course of action when it comes to remaining profitable. You can take a deep dive into the project to make it advanced by including the products or services that will generate more value or a higher ROI. You can also add customer segmentation to the project to help the leaders identify the target audience. 

Music Sales in America

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Data Visualization, Machine Learning

This project involves assessing factors in music sales like genre, popular artists, and sales distribution. The project will require you to work with Tableau for data visualization. By the end of the project, you will be familiar with top musicians, data mining, data visualizations, and machine learning concepts. 

University Fundraising

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Statistical Programming, Data Visualization

To complete this project, you will need to include the degree that attracts the most funds, gift donors, and pledge deals. It is best to present this data individually in Excel or a similar tool. Your project should display your ability to conduct in-depth research, data analysis, data visualization, and statistical programming. 

Exploring Aircraft Hardware Suppliers

• Business Analytics Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Data Analysis, Statistical Programming

This is an excellent advanced project idea in business analytics that tackles the demand and supply of aircraft hardware. In the project, you will be expected to create a menu, explore orders, minimum purchases, forms of payment, and customer preferences. To make it more complex, you can also feature the shopping time. 

Business Analytics Starter Project Templates

To complete the named business analytics projects, you do not need to start from scratch. There are exceptional template samples that can help you work on your projects seamlessly. Find a list of business analytics starter project samples below. 

• Business Analyst Template Toolkit . Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned business analyst, this template toolkit provides templates to address your needs. You will find about 12 sample templates, work samples, and guidebooks. Each of these templates can be customized to fit your needs. 
• Software Requirements Documentation Template . This template features business requirements, rules, reports, user interfaces, and data requirements. It also comes with the process flows, use cases, service level agreements, business continuities, and data security plans. 
• Attribute Metadata Template . Data features entities and attributes. Entities are identifiable classes of people or things, and attributes are characteristics that give further descriptions. You can rely on this template for the names, attributes, data types, values, and definitions of entities. You can also add extra segments like risk, priority, complexity, stability, and status. 
• Business Analysis Plan Template . This template will help you develop a reliable business analysis plan. Through this template, you can document your business planning activities regarding the project.
• Templates for Business Analysts . Tech Canvas features several business analytics templates to provide a solid structure to use in your organization. For example, they feature a strategy analysis template, solicitation and collaboration template, requirement analysis template, and Pareto analysis template. 

Next Steps: Start Organizing Your Business Analytics Portfolio

A well-curated portfolio might be what you need to get to the next level in your career. After you have amassed solid real-world skills from the business analytics projects, you need to know how to present them for job applications. The tips we list below will guide you to designing a winning resume.

Pinpoint Your Achievements 

Use your portfolio for marketing your skills and experience. Always try to capture the recruiter’s attention from the onset by displaying your best work. Often hiring managers receive hundreds of applications, so it’s important for you to highlight your achievements to showcase your skills. 

"Career Karma entered my life when I needed it most and quickly helped me match with a bootcamp. Two months after graduating, I found my dream job that aligned with my values and goals in life!"

Venus, Software Engineer at Rockbot

Key in Relevant Information 

Align your portfolio to the job requirements and description. Use these job sections to guide you in adding relevant information to your portfolio. You will gauge the skills and experience needed, which will help you curate the best-suited portfolio. 

Make It Simple 

You must present a straightforward portfolio. Your portfolio should have concise documents which are organized. Keep it updated so that it can be easier for the employer to track your progress over the years. 

Business Analytics Projects FAQ

Yes, a well-curated business analytics portfolio can lead to a well-paying career. As a professional, consider aligning your documents according to the job requirements. This will significantly increase your chances of employment. 

No, you do not need to learn how to code to complete a business analytics project. However, having basic knowledge of software programming can be highly beneficial. You will have a broad understanding of the technical side of the business.

There are four different types of business analytics. There are descriptive, diagnostic, prescriptive, and predictive.

No, business analytics projects are not difficult to complete. As long as you have the motivation and experience to complete a project, you will be able to see it through. Ensure you have a strict schedule to help you remain consistent. 

About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication .

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• Specialized Master in Business - Analytics

Specialized Master in Business Analytics Analytics Management Capstone

The Pre-Capstone and Analytics Management Capstone courses are an experiential learning opportunity integrated throughout the SMB-A curriculum, which exposes you to leading organizations' real-world analytics challenges. You'll realize the full potential of the analytical skills acquired throughout the program, gain experience managing a small team and showcase your business expertise to a professional audience.

Connecting Analytics with Business

Unlike most other graduate analytics programs, Ohio State's SMB-A program is taught within the Fisher College of Business. The connection Fisher provides between business and analytics means you'll gain highly desirable real-world experience solving problems companies are facing today. No matter the current stage of your career or analytics experience level, we tailor the program and capstone experience to you. It's time to advance your leadership skills and analytical expertise so you can reach your goals. View the three steps of the Analytics Management Capstone below.

View the SMB-A Capstone Webinar

Step 1: Select your real-world project

Identify a real value-adding consulting project in diverse sectors of interest to you (technology, healthcare, operations, supply chain, education, finance, government, research, retail, etc.) , where data can inform practice. Companies all over the world and in diverse sectors choose Fisher students to take on significant problems they face.

Working professional SMB-A students (part-time or full-time) typically choose a project with analytical work related to their current employer. It's an excellent way to capitalize on existing contextual knowledge and understanding of the analysis's relevance and potential impact. It's also a great way to impress leadership at your current organization.

Being a school of business at a renowned university has its benefits. Students without a project/current employer can work with a SMB-A program director to tap into Fisher sourced-projects for clients who expect the same quality of deliverables and positive teamwork that they would receive from their own employees.

• Past Projects
• Organizations

Examples of Past Projects

• Kimball Midwest Inventory Accuracy: Death by A Thousand Cuts
• Data-driven Fundraising to Increase Workplace Giving
• Publisher Deal Qualification Score
• An Analysis of the Effect of Order Changes on Freight Costs in the Supply Chain
• Hospital ROI and Distributor Chargeback Forecasting Model
• P&G Nyquil & Dayquil Sales Prediction
• Analysis of the Relationship of Time to Candidate Decisions to Withdraw from Recruitment Process Risk-Prediction Model for Myocardial Infarction
• Forecasting the Demand and Supply of Cash at a Bank’s Cash Vaults: Building a Better Mouse Trap
• Past Due Invoice Root Cause Analysis
• Analysis of Hawaiian Telecom and the Possible Prediction of Churn based on Sentiment
• New Account Opening Attrition Model
• Thin Credit Profiles or Synthetic Identities?

Sample of Participating Organizations

As an SMB-A student, you'll benefit from the unique combination of a tight-knit graduate program at one of the largest universities in the country. Ohio State's Fisher College of Business has a wide range of organizations that work with our SMB-A and MBA graduate students on analytics projects.

• ACME Logistics
• Alliance Data
• Allied Mineral
• Bamboo Rose
• Cardinal Health
• City of Columbus
• FacilitySource
• Lease or Buy
• Little Italy
• Lodestone Academy
• Mid-Ohio Foodbank
• Ohio State (Chemistry)
• Ohio State (Medical)
• Renaissance Periodization
• Sandvik Hyperion
• Stanley Black & Decker
• State of Ohio
• Stony Creek Brewery
• U.S. Military
• Whole Foods Market

Are You an Organization Looking to Participate?

Having analytical work completed by Fisher College of Business students is a great way to contribute while also benefitting your organization. Fisher has numerous project opportunities in both the undergraduate and graduate analytics curricula that can fit your needs and interest. Accepted projects typically require organizations to provide data relevant to the context. They will also require time allocated to dialogue between the originating organization and the student/team to ensure a contextual understanding of the data set's task and nature.  To facilitate the best match between your project and student availability, please complete this form .

Connect with Fisher about analytics projects

Step 2: Leverage your analytics micro-team

As part of your capstone experience, you and another SMB-A student manage a small analytics team in a real-world setting, which occurs in a spring Pre-Capstone course.

About the Pre-Capstone

The Pre-Capstone is a data and methods preparatory curriculum in advance of the summer term. This curriculum continues discussions of problem structuring, begun in the Fall. It includes a 10-week Micro-Team experience where SMB-A students manage and collaborate with a junior analyst and advisory faculty member. By its design, and exposure to additional analytics tools, the Pre-Cap ensures you'll be well-prepared for successful independent Capstone work in the Summer term. A typical team is as follows:

* The number of assigned Fisher undergrad students matches the number of SMB-A students on the micro-team (1-1, 2-2, 3-3).

Some benefits of the micro-team experience

• Demonstrate skills gained in coursework as a project lead
• Establish tasks and timelines
• Coordinate any required NDAs
• Apply descriptive/predictive/prescriptive analysis
• Reporting and presentation work that builds leadership

Step 3: Put theory into practice

To help guide initial thoughts and the ultimate development of the project and its deliverables, SMB-A students and their teams will make use of several frameworks. Examples include the OUtCoMES Cycle, Systems-Oriented A3, and the Management Analytics Decision-Tree. These resources, and more, are introduced and utilized during 1-hour advisory sessions every two weeks during the autumn and spring semesters, which lead into the summer when you will move to two 1-hour advisory sessions every week for seven weeks. Below is a quick look at the Management Analytics Capstone timeline. The capstone is an integral part of the SMB-A program structure and curriculum .

Project Planning Resource Examples

The outcomes cycle.

An iterative process used to structure otherwise unstructured or poorly structured real-world problems. The approach identifies core performance objectives, critical levers, and salient limitations on managerial decision-making. Used with analytical tactics, the approach provides actionable prescriptions to practice. Learn more about The OUtCoMES Cycle.

Systems-Oriented A3

To support documentation throughout the OUtCoMES Cycle and assist in the final capstone presentation, students and their teams complete both a preliminary A3 for early feedback on project plans and a final A3 as part of your final project report. No matter your analytics experience level, Fisher teaches proven real-world business-analytics techniques and provides high-value resources to support your development and career growth.

Management Analytics Decision-Tree

To help you think about the analytical tools and tactics that might prove useful in each stage of your project journey, the International Institute for Analytics provides a decision-tree framework.  This framework can guide you in selecting analytical approaches from descriptive, to predictive and through prescriptive stages of your work. In the SMB-A program, you'll gain an understanding of multiple vantage points through which data is considered, extracted, and scrutinized to empower you as a decisive business leader capable of leading analytics teams.

Next, explore the SMB-A program structure

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Gain Real-World Experience

The M.S. in Business Analytics capstone project is designed to develop your problem-framing, teamwork, project management and communication skills while integrating all of your previously gained technical knowledge by managing a business analytics project using real datasets provided by clients and other relevant databases.

Built around student teams, the capstone project gives students the opportunity to provide business analytics solutions to real organizations under the guidance of on-site corporate managers and faculty members. Potential capstone projects cover a wide range of industries in the Los Angeles area, with a focus on engaging the surrounding Silicon Beach community.

The LMU M.S. in Business Analytics Advisory Board is highly involved with our program's capstone projects, providing guidance and support in the development of the curriculum, as well as directly to the student teams throughout their project.

Past capstone projects include:

• Fandango: Analyzed and predicted theater occupancy based on past sales data, movie data and other external data sources to provide strategic insights for marketing, pricing and operational decisions.
• RMDS + Future Data Lab: Analyzed how retail agglomeration affects business performance using geographic information systems, census data and business performance data in order to effectively design retail conglomeration.
• Qdoba: Assessed the performance of stores in multi-unit retailing systems by using the synthetic control method to create a synthetic benchmark store for evaluating new management teams, A/B testing for products and promotions, and competitor impact on a store.
• RPA: Analyzed consumer behavior during the COVID-19 crisis using a wide range of consumer data from Natural Language Processing, Convolution Neural Network and other mining techniques to provide insights for RPA to better communicate and design post-crisis advertising messages for their clients.
• Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles: Analyzed past patient behavior to build a predictive model for patient appointment cancellations and no-shows to plan appropriate levels of staffing without compromising the level of service or wait times.

By giving you the opportunity to manage a business analytics project from conception to final presentation of findings, you gain valuable work experience that will provide numerous benefits as you look toward your future career path .

Past Capstone Project Clients

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Applied Analytics Project (AAP)

A unique and attractive proposition.

The AAP is a 10-week project serving as the students' comprehensive exam, and it should represent their best efforts.​

NDA: A standard nondisclosure agreement protects the client and all data, and it provides full ownership to the client in the end.

Time: Clients agree to meet with their team six to eight times during the project.

Data: Clients provide UCLA data access for the sole purpose of solving the related strategic problem. Access is necessary for project completion, when all data is returned to client.

A Comprehensive Process and Analysis

Teams, balanced in their skills, work with faculty and the client from the experimental design phase to deep analysis to model building, and then communicate their results and recommendations.

Time commitment: Four to six video conference calls over 10 weeks​

Data commitment: Medium-to-large data set to be analyzed and reported on

Analytics Tools and Techniques Employed:

• Advanced Data Management​
• Hypothesis Testing[AF1] ​
• Economics, Marketing and Finance​
• Prescriptive Models​
• Correlation vs. Causation​
• Difference in Differences​
• Discrete Choice Models​
• Game Theory​
• Market Entry​
• Growth Strategy
• Product Experimentation​
• Pricing Models​
• Machine Learning​
• Text Analytics​
• IP Optimization​
• Clustering​
• Supply Chain Design​
• Inventory Management​
• Scheduling​
• Personalization​
• Production Planning

Sample Projects

Let’s Connect

Email cheryl asahi if you have any questions or are interested in the AAP.

The Applied Analytics Project (AAP) serves as a capstone to the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) curriculum and represents an opportunity to merge theory and principles with up-to-the-minute business practice. The hands-on AAP helps prepare our students for a career in quantitative analysis and data science by testing their ability to solve complex analytical business problems in real-world settings. MSBA candidates also hone their communication skills and delve deeply into an area of interest beyond the classroom. The UCLA Anderson MSBA program takes pride in this important partnership with the analytics community and invites you to take a closer look at the benefits available to both corporate clients and students.

Program Structure

The process.

Our students will begin by gathering all of the information necessary to understand the organization and the analytics question at hand. In the same period, the client organization will be gathering and organizing any data that the team will analyze. They will work with you and their faculty advisor to determine which business analytics approach is best suited to your problem, and they will then apply that method to analyze your data.

Finally, the team will report on their findings and any newly developed analytical practices.

The outputs of this exercise may include

• New statistical insights previously unavailable to the company
• New metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Process optimization recommendations and models
• Predictive and prescriptive analytics approaches
• Data management recommendations
• People and process recommendations to support your data science practice
• Requirements
• Quantitative data of reasonable quality and in sufficient quantity to serve as a project
• Two client contacts who will serve as primary and secondary project contacts for the team
• Regular progress calls with the team during the active phase of the project (October–December)
• All parties sign standard UCLA Anderson nondisclosure agreement

How to Apply

Please submit your application online at our program website. We will review your applications and schedule a short application review call to clarify any questions and to confirm your interest.

Student teams will then review the lead list and a bid-and-match process will be used to match teams with projects.

This project description will set the scope of the project and align all parties’ expectations. It will include:

• A short background and review of related research
• The scope of the project
• The data required and planned data sources

Students will complete secondary research over the summer and will present a refined scope to the company and their advisor at the beginning of the following quarter. The goal is to have all required data assembled during the summer and made available to students at the start of fall quarter. Throughout the fall quarter, students and client will hold conference calls at least once every two weeks.

In early November, students will submit a midpoint report on the project, and the final report will be completed in early December.

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Business Analysis capstone project from Coursera.

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Made as a part of business analytics specialization on coursera from Wharton School. Project involves developing a strategy and formulating measures to evaluate the effects of proposed strategies.

• Data Science, MS

In a world overflowing with information, there's a growing demand for skilled data science professionals. Seattle University's Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) will provide you with the technical and analytical skills you need to excel in one of the world's fastest-growing industries.

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Request information

About this program, gain in-demand skills and become a leader in the era of big data.

The Seattle University Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) is focused on the study of data-driven decision making. Our interdisciplinary program from the Department of Mathematics combines the developmental aspects of statistics and computer science to bring data analysis and modeling to bear on real-world problems.

The MSDS is 45 credits and can be completed in 6-7 academic quarters, with evening courses suited to working professionals.

Connected to Seattle’s Top Employers

Recent decades have seen a rapid expansion in data collection, and the magnitude of that data impacts every industry. Seattle is one of the intellectual centers of this emerging field, and there's a growing demand in our region for professionals with advanced training in data science.

Seattle University's MS in Data Science connects students with local industry partners, and these associations provide our students with experiential learning opportunities, access to industry events and connections to current data science professionals. As part of your capstone project, you'll work in small teams to define and carry out a data science project in collaboration with an industry partner, furthering your connections with potential employers.

• How to Apply
• Graduate Admissions

Graduate Data Science Degree At A Glance

Learn how this degree from the Department of Mathematics  will contribute to your career goals. Then, explore course requirements and see how impactful a Seattle University degree can be.

Pursuing a graduate degree in data science from Seattle University entails a deep dive into analytics, machine learning and emerging technologies. The program sharpens your skills in data manipulation, interpretation and algorithmic understanding. Our dynamic curriculum is developed in collaboration with industry partners, ensuring the knowledge and skills you gain in the program are in high demand and relevant to current industry needs. Expect a focus on real-world applications, preparing you for impactful contributions in data-driven decision making across any sector. The MSDS program offers a pragmatic and transformative educational experience, setting you on a path to excel in the fast-evolving field of data science.

At graduation, students with a master's degree in data science will be able to:

• Apply appropriate analytical and computational methods to solve real-world problems effectively.
• Communicate technical information effectively to a specific audience via speech, writing and data visualization.
• Identify and propose well-reasoned means of addressing moral or ethical challenges in the practice of data science.
• Exhibit constructive and inclusive collaboration and teamwork skills.
• Demonstrate (by means of a capstone project) deep contextual experience of goal setting and delivery of recommendations in at least one specific domain.

What You’ll Learn

Explore the classes you’ll take as a student here.

• Course Curriculum

23%+ Projected Job Growth for M.S. in Data Science

SU prepares you to work in one of the fastest growing job industries (2022-23)

Prepared for Success in Seattle’s Global Tech Industry

Industry-Sponsored Capstone Project

The MSDS degree culminates in a two-quarter capstone experience. Through the Project Center, you'll work in small teams to define and carry out a data analysis project from beginning to end to address a real-world challenge for an industry partner.

Flexibility for Working Professionals

Designed to accommodate both full-time students and working professionals, you can enroll in the MS in Data Science program full- or part-time. Our courses are taught in the evenings to maximize flexibility. 

More Than Technical Skills: Justice and Ethics

A graduate degree from Seattle University doesn’t just prepare you for a constantly changing world—we help you shape it for the better. Consistent with the mission of Seattle University to empower leaders for a just and humane world, the program places an emphasis on ethical and legal issues in data science. 

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HIMT Program Director Guides Students Through Capstone Project

Elizabeth “Betty” Rockendorf, MS, RHIA, CHTS-IM, CHPS, is a program director for the University of Wisconsin Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management and Technology (HIMT) at UW-Parkside . Like many in the 100 percent online program, Betty’s own experience with higher education began as a nontraditional student.  

Betty began her career out of high school, working as a legal secretary. She worked in various secretarial roles until her 30s, when she decided to enroll in college. With no online learning options at the time, she drove 80 miles roundtrip between her home and UW-Green Bay to attend classes. She landed a job on campus, which allowed her to work and go to school in the same location while completing her Bachelor’s degree in business administration and management.

As a woman in the STEM field , Betty has had an extensive career in health information management. Her first role in healthcare was as a medical transcriptionist for the Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. During her tenure, she advanced to Supervisor of Transcription and would later become the medical center’s director of health information management and privacy officer. 

Betty has been an instructor at UW-Parkside for eight years and teaches five courses in the online HIMT program, which is accredited through the Commission on Accreditation of Health Informatics and Information Management programs (CAHIIM) . Some of her courses include: 

• HIMT400: Healthcare Information and Technology—Data
• HIMT410: Healthcare Systems: Implementation and Integration
• HIMT450: Healthcare Information and Technology—Standards

RELATED: An Inside Look at a UW HIMT Course: Data Communications and Networks in Healthcare

Betty says she’s most proud of her contributions to the capstone and pre-capstone courses, where she coordinates all of the capstone placements. The capstone project gives students hands-on experience by allowing them to work with real-world clients. Some have even received job offers and earned promotions upon completing the capstone.  

Whether you’re already working in healthcare or are new to the field, Betty works closely with students to ensure they have a positive experience. As a member of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) , she also connects with her professional network to help students find capstone sites.

“It’s been a very rewarding experience to be the capstone coordinator and instructor because, [with] our program being online, we have students in all these different states,” she said. “So I get to meet and talk with a lot of people as I work to set up these capstone internships.”

To date, more than 280 students in the course have partnered with capstone sites across 26 states.

In the following Q&A, we spoke with Betty to learn more about what students can expect from the capstone project. 

What’s the most common question or concern that students have regarding the capstone?

People are nervous and anxious about it because they feel like they’re being thrown out there into the world, and they are. The goal of the UW HIMT program is to build up student skills and confidence so they can demonstrate the competencies they have learned. I can give them some pointers about what to expect, but everybody’s capstone is a little different, so there isn’t one set “This is what everybody’s going to go through.” 

The reason it’s different is because the people are all different. Some have already been working in healthcare, and they might even be working in a health information management department. I’ve got other people who’ve never stepped foot in an HIM department, and so they really don’t know what to expect. 

Everybody has a different capstone supervisor, too, at the facility. Some people are very involved with the student, and then others assign them to different staff members. That differs a little bit too, but I’m always here to help. So get to know your capstone supervisor, decide on a project that you’re going to work on, and then we usually meet after that. 

A couple weeks into the semester, we’ll have a Zoom meeting with the capstone supervisor, the student, and myself. We talk about any questions or anything that’s come up. I would say, for almost 99 percent of the time, the students are pleasantly surprised because, again, health information management professionals—we’ve all been there. We’ve all been that student. 

So they really take these students under their wing, and they really want to see them succeed. And so they’re very helpful. I think once the student sees that, then the anxiety goes away, and they start to feel a little more confident. 

RELATED: Students Without Prior Healthcare Experience Can Thrive in the UW HIMT Program

When should I start preparing for my capstone project?

I am available if people have questions early on. I’m happy to schedule a time to meet with them and talk with them because that helps with their anxiety. Some students are just looking for advice too. 

If they have absolutely no healthcare experience at all, they might be asking me, “Would you suggest that I try to get a job in healthcare or that I try to do some volunteer work at a local hospital?” The answer is “yes.” If you have no healthcare experience, it is very beneficial to look for volunteer opportunities early in the academic program.  

I like to hear those kinds of questions, because I do think that’s a good idea for them to get started early on. By their second semester, at least start thinking about it. 

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What types of capstone projects have students completed in the past?

Before the electronic health record, there were all the paper files and paper charts, and there still is paper in healthcare. It’s not all electronic, because they still use a lot of scanners to scan paper documents in so that they can get it into the electronic version. 

For a lot of people, when they get to the capstone, that’s something that really surprises them. I’ve had several students now who have been involved in huge projects to purge paper records. And you can’t just dispose of them because you must comply with retention laws and regulations. Depending on what kind of a facility it is, they have different retention standards.

I’ve had students that have been involved in some of these big cleanup projects, and one was just last semester. He was working for the State of Wisconsin, Department of Corrections (DOC), Division of Management Services-Bureau of Records Management. They had warehouses full of paper medical records that needed to be scanned in. That’s one agency that has to keep them for a long time, so he was involved in this large-scale scanning project, and it was very interesting.

We’ve had a few students who have been involved in delivering education to staff, like HIPAA privacy and security education. Those are always nice because it gives the student a chance to teach what they’ve learned. 

Others have developed dashboard documents for HIM managers, conducted process improvement activities, created back-up plans if the electronic health record is out of service, analyzed denials from payors, audited medical coding, and contributed to a data governance plan. Students have researched and recommended plans for outsourcing operations such as release of information, or assessed the feasibility of having staff work remotely. 

The list is endless, and placement is based on each student’s interests, among other factors.  

RELATED: See a List of Other Capstone Projects HIMT Students Have Completed 

What if my project doesn’t go as planned or something unexpected happens?

Maybe the capstone placement isn’t a good fit, and the person doesn’t really hit it off well with the site supervisor for whatever reason. In today’s world, everybody is so busy. It seems in a lot of places, people are expected to do more with less staff. 

If we identify that early enough that there’s still time for me to find them another placement, I can do that. If they really aren’t enjoying their capstone placement, I can usually find them something else.

So they’re told to talk about contingency planning. If they start a project and that project just isn’t working out, or maybe the organization finds out that the funding isn’t there for a particular project to move forward, we’re very flexible because we can pick a different project. 

I’ve also had organizations say, “I have a project, but I don’t know if it’s going to meet the required number of hours because the capstone is 80 hours.” My rule of thumb is to spend 40 hours working on a project, and then spend 40 hours doing some job shadowing, attending meetings, and learning what you can about the whole department or the organization. 

If something isn’t working, I have meetings and get involved and see if we can make it work because it’s a last resort to have to switch to a different capstone altogether.

RELATED: Exploring Non-Clinical Roles in Health Information Management and Healthcare Administration

What’s the number one thing you want students to know about the capstone?

The number one thing is that it’s a wonderful hands-on experience for the students. They’ve taken all these courses, and it all culminates in that final semester when they’re taking the capstone.

Especially for the students that are new to healthcare, it’s such a wonderful opportunity for them to meet the people personally, do some job shadowing, and observe all the various roles in HIM, because there’s a lot. They get to ask questions, and they get to try to determine what path they would like to take after graduation.

The field is so broad and there’s so many roles that they could do, and it’s hard for a student to say, “Well, I want to do this or I want to do that.” But after the capstone, if they’ve had a chance to really experience some of those things, they get a definite feel for what they like. And then they can say, “That’s what I want to do.” That sets them out on the path to do it. 

I tell them to ask questions of the person. If they like what the clinical documentation improvement specialist is doing, just ask that person, “How did you get to this point?” And they’ll walk you through. They may have started at an entry-level position, then moved on to the next step, and perhaps somewhere along the way they had an opportunity to work on a project that led them in a different direction. 

It shows people a real-life pathway. We can see that on a career map that’s available through AHIMA, but it’s always nice to talk to somebody who’s really walked the walk. And they know just what it took to get where they are.  

Interested in learning more about the online University of Wisconsin Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management and Technology ? Contact an enrollment adviser at 608-800-6762 or [email protected] .

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Business Analytics Practicum Projects Equip Students for Real-World Scenarios

Poole students gain invaluable opportunities to use their skills in a global marketplace increasingly reliant on analytics to help guide companies’ success.

Seth Freeman didn’t realize how crucial clear communication is in the workplace until he was involved with a project through Poole’s Business Analytics Initiative (BAI) practicum program.

The project quickly convinced him.

In the practicum last fall, before the accounting major graduated in December, his team addressed a business challenge for Labcorp, a life sciences and healthcare company. 

“What I took away was about working with an actual client, trying to understand what they needed, clarifying what we asked for, and following up on our request so they knew what we needed,” Freeman says. “It showed me the true nature of that kind of work and gave me good experience in a real-world scenario.” 

Those real-world scenarios give students invaluable, semester-long opportunities to use their skills in a global marketplace increasingly reliant on analytics to help guide companies’ success. Students apply knowledge they’ve gained in the classroom to take on the challenges in the practicums. 

The business analytics practicum courses offer Poole-employer partnerships for students in the undergraduate Business Analytics Honors Program and the two Master of Management programs ( Marketing Analytics and Risk and Analytics ) and the Business Analytics Graduate Certificate Program (comprising primarily Jenkins MBA students). 

In Freeman’s practicum, his team conducted a cost analysis with data Labcorp provided. 

“A lot of figuring out how to break down the problem Labcorp presented us and creating a solution were based on processes the honors program classes taught us,” Freeman says. He used what he’d learned in courses on databases, data organization and analytics.   

In another practicum through the Business Analytics Honors Program, Garrett Auriene’s team created a forecasting model for the retailer Sonic Automotive.

“A class that focused on prediction and forecast modeling really carried over to the practicum,” says Auriene, who learned to manipulate data with software tools.

Terry Song completed the business analytics graduate certificate program, part of Poole’s Jenkins MBA, and the practicum last fall. He worked on a team to develop a forecasting model related to some of Volvo Group’s freight carriers and distribution centers.  

The certificate program provided “a seamless transition from foundational knowledge to practical application in solving real-world data science problems,” Song says. He’s a staff systems engineer at Parker Hannifin, a motion-and-control-systems manufacturer in Cary, North Carolina.

Song, a student in the online MBA program, cites several MBA analytics classes that were useful in the Volvo Group project. “These courses equip students with a robust foundation of knowledge and tools necessary to tackle real-world analytics challenges in the context of the practicum project,” he says.

These courses equip students with a robust foundation of knowledge and tools necessary to tackle real-world analytics challenges in the context of the practicum project.

Students’ success in the practicums comes in part from employer resources.

Amit Prakash, who was in Poole’s business analytics honors program, led the practicum project for his team with Envestnet, which developed a framework for customer profiling.  

The company provided a list of its project requirements and any technical support students needed. “That really helped us tailor a deliverable to them,” says Prakash, a 2023 business administration and computer science major.

Poole’s employer partners have skin in the game because of the value they get from the practicums. 

“I’m a big believer in university-industry relationships,” says Matt Mallard, head of transport flow optimization for Volvo Group North America, based in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“I’m interested in what students can accomplish for us that I can’t accomplish with my team, mainly because of time — we can’t get to those things. And with some projects, we don’t have the needed expertise in house,” Mallard says. 

For several semesters, Poole students have worked with Volvo Group on predictive analytics projects. The model students have developed will help Mallard’s team with the sales and operations planning process related to supply chain logistics flows. 

“We’re far enough along to have a model we can put into production and use soon. I’m anticipating this should become an integral part of that process,” says Mallard, who is enrolled in Poole’s business analytics graduate certificate program himself.

“Students have been really engaged in the work. They have good questions,” he says. “The projects are moving forward in a good way.” 

Poole graduates use their BAI practicum experience to move their careers forward, too. 

In his practicum, Prakash assigned tasks to peers based on their areas of specialty: economics, IT, finance. “I learned a lot about what project management looks like, what I need to improve on and what I do best,” says Prakash, an associate web developer at Prometheus Group, a software company based in Raleigh.  

Auriene uses business analytics daily as a database engineer with First Citizens Bank. 

In the practicum, “You get real working experience, working with company data…It was very helpful for transitioning into the full-time role I have now and the perfect preparation for me, working with database management and learning about forecasting,” Auriene says.   

Freeman, an audit intern with accounting firm PwC in Raleigh, will enroll in Poole’s Master of Accounting program this summer. 

“The business analytics practicum and honors program will be vastly helpful in my long-term career approach. I’m prepared for what may happen in the accounting industry because I’ve been exposed to data analytics,” he says.  

That gives Freeman an edge in a competitive field.

“In talking with upper-level management in my accounting firm, they understand the importance of analytics,” he says. “It’s a good tool for the future.” 

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Poole college's women in technology leadership and management panel covers range of topics, poole college hosts business analytics roundtable, bai roundtable facilitates networking, exposes marketing analytics students to emerging trends .

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Hvac services m&a update – june 2024.

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Fervent Consolidation Efforts Spur HVAC Services Sector M&A Activity

The characteristically fragmentated Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Services merger and acquisition (M&A) market has witnessed a rise in transaction volume through year-to-date (YTD) 2024 as sector players expand service offerings and geographic footprint. Driven by smaller acquisitions of private businesses, tuck-ins have materialized at a pace mirroring 2021, when deal flow in the broader M&A market was at an all-time high. Private and public strategics have continued to employ inorganic strategies to accelerate growth. Of note, Sila Heating & Air Conditioning has spurred a rise in private strategic deals. Sila, a provider of residential HVAC, plumbing, and electrical services in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, has made 27 acquisitions since receiving a minority stake investment from Morgan Stanley Capital Partners (MSCP) in May 2021 (undisclosed). The company announced three acquisitions in April, consisting of T-Mark Plumbing, Essential Power Systems, and Glasco Heating & Air Conditioning. Terms for the deals were undisclosed. Additionally, public strategics have demonstrated an appetite for M&A, leveraging strong cash positions on balance sheets to make acquisitions. Leading building services provider, Limbach Holdings (Nasdaq:LMB), has pursued inorganic growth to bolster its Owner Direct Relationships (ODR) segment, a high margin business less impacted by macroeconomic trends. “By expanding and evolving our service offerings, we believe that we can grow market share with existing customers and position Limbach for recurring revenue streams from these ODRs while flexing with our customer needs between operating and capital project budgets. All this equals a business with attractive organic and acquisition growth opportunities, less volatility, and more consistent execution,” Mike McCann, President and CEO of Limbach, said on the Q1 earnings call. 1 The HVAC Services M&A market is expected to continue its upwards trajectory in 2024 as public and private players target complementary service offerings and geographic synergies.

The current market environment is favorably tilted towards service providers that have critical mass (i.e. EBITDA in excess of $10 million) and a hefty orientation toward preventive maintenance and repairs (i.e. recurring revenue). These types of deals are the most financeable, a critical component for current market activity. Ted Polk Managing Director, Co-head of Industrials, Capstone Partners

Defensible Demand for Maintenance and Repair Reinforces HVAC Services M&A Market

Technologically advanced industrial applications for HVAC parts and systems have proliferated across the broader sector, bolstering the necessity for continued service, maintenance, and repair, as outlined in Capstone Partners’ April 2024 HVAC Equipment Sector M&A Update . This demand has facilitated a robust 12.3% year-over-year (YOY) growth in HVAC Services deals with 64 deals announced or completed in YTD 2024 compared to 57 deals in the prior year period. Notably, public strategics have reignited their interest in the HVAC Services sector. Public buyer deal volume has rebounded from three deals in YTD 2023 to 11 in YTD 2024 as portfolio and geographic diversification and recurring revenue generation remain top of mind. Private equity add-ons have continued to account for the second largest share (21.9%) of deal activity but have registered a 30% decline YOY, with 14 deals announced or completed in YTD 2024. Despite dampened add-on activity, private equity firms have increasingly deployed growth capital investments to support private strategic acquisitions in the HVAC Services sector.

Equity Capital Investments and Partnerships Offer Additional Support to Sector Growth

Growth equity investments into late-stage private companies have tracked 2019 levels as growth investments through 2023 totaled $155 billion—surpassing 2019’s full-year total of $145 billion, according to Capstone Partners’ Equity Capital Markets June 2024 Update. Early projections estimate that 2024 growth capital is set to reach $177 billion as investments into these companies totaled $44 billion in Q1 2024. Higher financing costs, reduced lending, and valuation disconnects have persisted, resulting in acquirors targeting alternative avenues for growth. These trends have acted as tailwinds for deal activity in the HVAC Services sector as growth capital investments and partnerships have managed to aid companies in accelerating their business plans and acquisition strategies.

Notably, middle market private equity firm Tenex Capital Management announced an investment in R.F. Fager, a distributor of roofing, plumbing, and HVAC supplies (April, undisclosed). Additionally, Trinity Hunt Partners announced that its commercial HVAC platform, NexCore, partnered with commercial HVAC systems services provider Sylvester & Cockrum (S&C) in May (undisclosed). The partnership with S&C is expected to drive NexCore’s momentum in the Commercial HVAC Services space, building off the platform’s initial investment in Alliance Group (April 2023, undisclosed). “It has been gratifying to experience the traction NexCore has gained thus far, as we have thoughtfully positioned ourselves in the industry as a strategic partner who provides opportunities for sustained growth with a do no harm approach,” said NexCore CEO, Steve Knowles, in a press release. 2 The shift among sector participants to act as strategic partners has allowed for continuous deal activity in the space despite persistent macroeconomic headwinds.

Crete United’s Acquisition Activity Highlights Extensive Consolidation in the Services Market

Leading provider of HVAC, electrical, plumbing and building automation services, Crete United, has undergone a significant expansion since Ridgemont Equity Partners assumed a controlling interest in the company (June 2022, undisclosed). Crete has deployed a focused M&A strategy, supported by an organic growth engine, which has spurred the acquisition of eight companies in 2023 and two more in YTD 2024. These deals bring Crete’s total add-on acquisition count to more than 40 businesses with annual revenues exceeding $680 million and on pace to top $1 billion annually over the next few years, according to a press release. 3 Crete generated ~40% revenue growth in 2023 and rebranded from Crete Mechanical Group to Crete United in early 2024 to expand into the Building Services market—a move which supports Crete’s upstream diversification strategy. Notably, the acquisition of Pro Star Energy Solutions (March 2024, undisclosed) signaled Crete’s diversification into the Data Center end market with Pro Star serving five of the largest 15 U.S. data centers, according to a deal press release. 4 Its building automation solutions have helped propel Crete’s new strategic vision. This includes eIQ, a web-based tool used to remotely monitor comfort and performance, and Catalyst, a complete rooftop unit (RTU) retrofit solution for HVAC systems. Several additional key developments in Crete’s business are highlighted below.

Private Equity Reaffirms Affinity for HVAC Services M&A

Private equity firms have demonstrated a continued interest in the HVAC Services M&A market YTD through a variety of investment vehicles. These vehicles have included growth funding to support private businesses’ M&A strategies, platform acquisitions of leading participants with scale, and add-on transactions to bolster existing portfolio companies. Several notable transactions illustrating sponsors’ influence and activity in the HVAC Services M&A market are outlined below.

• Refrigeration Design & Service Acquires Dahms Refrigeration Services (May, Undisclosed) – Refrigeration Design & Service, a commercial and industrial mission critical mechanical services company, completed the acquisition of Dahms Refrigeration Services (DRS) in May for an undisclosed sum. Pennsylvania-based DRS is an industrial and commercial refrigeration contracting company serving various sectors, including Cold Storage Warehouses, Dairy Processing, and Food Preparation. Through the transaction, Refrigeration Design & Service gains a skilled labor force specializing in refrigeration maintenance and service, while expanding its geographic reach and reinforcing its Mid-Atlantic market leading position. The acquisition was supported by Refrigeration Design & Service’s corporate parent, The Kelvin Group, an industrial refrigeration services business backed by private equity firm Southfield Capital.
• Point 41 Capital Partners Acquires Interstate AC Service, Kimbro Mechanical, and Open Source Controls (January, Undisclosed) – In January, middle market private equity firm Point 41 Capital Partners acquired the combined operations of Interstate AC Service, Kimbro Mechanical, and Open Source Controls. Terms of the transaction were undisclosed. The acquisition strengthens Point 41’s portfolio of HVAC, plumbing, and building automation solutions and diversifies its markets in the Industrial, Education, Warehouse, Government, Healthcare, and Data Center segments.

"We have significant experience building market-leading technician-driven services companies. Commercial services remains a highly fragmented sector, and we quickly identified Interstate as a consolidator of choice. Interstate's experienced management team, diverse service capabilities, high-quality customer service and exceptional company culture will enable us to scale the platform," said Jordan Wadsworth, Managing Partner of Point 41, according to a press release. 5

• Saw Mill Capital-Backed Climate Pros Acquires HD Energy (January, Undisclosed) – Climate Pros, a Saw Mill Capital portfolio company, acquired HD Energy for an undisclosed sum in January. Montreal-based HD Energy provides refrigeration, HVAC asset optimization, and remote energy performance monitoring services to grocery and retail customers. HD Energy will bring complementary capabilities to Watchtower, Climate Pros’ technology platform. Watchtower uses advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide customers with predictive maintenance solutions, improving asset up-time, performance, and sustainability. The addition of HD Energy to this platform will create a comprehensive HVAC and refrigeration optimization platform.

To discuss the financing for HVAC Services M&A, provide an update on your business, or learn about Capstone's wide range of advisory services and HVAC Services sector knowledge, please contact us .

Neve Adler, Analyst, was the lead Market Intelligence contributor to this article.

Seeking Alpha, "Limbach Holdings, Inc. (LMB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript," https://seekingalpha.com/article/4691308-limbach-holdings-inc-lmb-q1-2024-earnings-call-transcript , accessed May 16, 2024.

Trinity hunt partners, " trinity hunt partners’ commercial hvac platform, nexcore, partners with sylvester & cockrum," https://www.trinityhunt.com/news/trinity-hunt-partners-commercial-hvac-platform-nexcore , accessed may 16, 2024., business north carolina, “ridgemont-backed crete united sets up for growth from charlotte,” https://businessnc.com/ridgemont-backed-crete-united-sets-up-hq-in-charlotte/ , accessed may 16, 2024., ridgemont equity partners, “crete united acquires prostar energy solutions to elevate energy efficiency as a core offering,” https://www.ridgemontep.com/press-releases/crete-united-acquires-prostar-energy-solutions-to-elevate-energy-efficiency-as-a-core-offering/ , accessed may 16, 2024., prweb, “point 41 partners with interstate ac service, kimbro mechanical and open source controls,” https://www.prweb.com/releases/point-41-partners-with-interstate-ac-service-kimbro-mechanical-and-open-source-controls-302029893.html , accessed may 16, 2024., related transactions.

has been acquired by

HAS DIVESTED

• Energy, Power & Infrastructure

HAS BEEN ACQUIRED BY

• Building Products & Construction Services

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Hvac equipment sector m&a update – april 2024, hvac services market update – november 2023, hvac equipment market update – october 2023, insights for middle market leaders.

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