The Complete Idiot's Guide to Business Statistics

by Baker, Ph.D., Sunny

• ISBN13: 9780028639871
• ISBN10: 0028639871
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: PENGUIN PUTNAM INC

Summary

If statistics intimidate you, if you don't know a standard deviation from a standard deduction, this book uses an almost-no-math approach to helping you understand and put together business reports. It is a step-by-step guide to choosing, using, and interpreting statistics for business. Instead of teaching you arithmetic, symbols, and calculations, it teaches you how to decide what data is necessary for a report.

Author Biography

Sunny Baker, Ph.D. teaches graduate-level research and statistics courses along with information technology for the University of Redlands. She has also taught at the University of Southern California and San Jose State University. A former general manager at Microsoft and director of marketing at Intel, Sunny has authored or co-authored more than 20 books including the best-selling The Complete Idiot's Guide to Project Management.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Charting Your Future	1	(70)
Statistics and Business Go Hand in Hand	3	(8)
Understand why knowing statistics is important for your business success
Understanding and Organizing Business Data	11	(10)
Discover the types of data used in business and statistics
Visualizing Profit and Performance	21	(18)
Learn about the charts, graphs, and tables used in descriptive statistics
Predicting Profits with Measures of Central Tendency	39	(8)
Know how to recognize a mean from a mode from a median
Improving Quality with Measures of Dispersion	47	(10)
Go from central measures to variance and the standard deviation
Solving Problems with Curves and z-Scores	57	(14)
Know when curves are normal and how associated z-scores help answer business questions
Part 2: Facing Probability and Forecasting	71	(44)
Playing the Probability Game	73	(18)
Discover the importance of probability in business and statistics
Forecasting Your Business Results	91	(12)
Learn statistical ways to look at your future results
Making Decisions That Count	103	(12)
Develop decision techniques that can handle big problems
Part 3 Using Business Research and Inference	115	(60)
Using Research in Your Business	117	(12)
Describe the basic reasons for quality research in your company
Eliminating the Bias in Your Research	129	(8)
Understand the importance of random samples in business research
Being Confident About Your Sample	137	(12)
Make sure your sample represents the population in question
Testing Your Hypothesis	149	(14)
Know when your test results are significant
Learning from Contingency Tables	163	(12)
Discover how to use tables and the chi-square statistic to answer questions of relationship
Part 4: Seeing the Industry Relationships	175	(50)
Recognizing the Relationships of Business Variables	177	(16)
Know when variables are correlated and how they can be predicted with linear regression
Estimating the Probability of Success with the t-Test	193	(12)
Learn how to use the t-test to study small samples
Are These Customers the Same or Different?	205	(10)
Compare means to ascertain the similarity and difference between two groups
Getting Results from ANOVA	215	(10)
Compare the means of several populations
Part 5: Going on from Here	225	(78)
Interpreting Business Data Correctly	227	(12)
Avoid statistical pitfalls and understand the correct use of statistical tests
Using Statistics Programs for Your Company	239	(14)
Discover how computer software programs can make statistics fast and easy
Advancing Your Business with Statistics	253	(50)
Review all you've Learned and find out how to learn more
Appendixes
A Answer Key	261	(6)
B Statistics Formulas	267	(6)
C Sample Statistical Tables	273	(12)
D Glossary	285	(18)
Index	303