IMT

INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY, GHAZIABAD

ERASMUS - 2010

Course: Quantitative Techniques for Business Decisions
Program(s): PGDM/MBA
Instructor(s): Dr. Gunjan Malhotra


Course Background:
Quantitative Techniques for Business Decisions course is aimed for students whose careers
will require an in-depth understanding of decision making processes and their implications
for overall firm performance. The course benefits students who require a deep understanding
of how decision making models impact competitive performance. The intent of the course is
to help students to understand operations models and taking a decision under uncertainty that
offer the potential to change the competitive balance in a wide range of industries. The word
operations here broadly can be defined as the set of activities involved in launching new
products and delivering products and services. We consider businesses from a wide range of
industries. Students acquire frameworks that enable them to analyze the operational demands
of different competitive settings and taking decisions under uncertainty, which is very
common in business. The course will help the students in terms of conceptual clarity,
quantitative modeling and familiarize them with related software.
Learning outcomes:
On completing the course you will be able to:
Use optimization techniques in business decision making.
Develop skills in structuring and analyzing business problems statistically.
Formulate answers to common business decision problems.
Utilize software for optimisation issues.

Course requirements:
Students will be introduced to the main themes and topics in the class. These are reinforced,
extended and developed through the discussion of practical examples and problem solving
exercises and also by discussing the questions in the various textbook. These questions are
intended to check your understanding of the lecture content and their ability to explain the
key concepts involved. Various relevant cases will be discussed in the class. When cases are
assigned, you should be ready with the discussion issues. For each case, you should: a)
identify the major problem, b) give your recommendation to resolve this problem (both short
and long term), and when appropriate d) provide supporting analysis (both qualitative and
quantitative) for your recommendations. Answering the questions provided for each case
should help in this effort. The class will be divided into a number of groups. For all cases,
each group will submit case analysis report and power point presentation one day before
scheduled class. At all times students are expected to supplement their learning by reading
the prescribed textbook(s) and newspaper or web articles.

Each group is expected to take up a problem related to Quantitative techniques for Business
decisions. You are expected to solve the problem based on tools and techniques discussed in
the class and submit your report. Each group will be required to give a presentation.
Evaluation for this assignment will be done based on individual as well as group
performance. Class participation will be based on the value you add to the class through your
questions, statement, and comments. It is the quality of these that is more important than the
quantity.

Pedagogy:
The pedagogy would consist of a combination of interactive lecture sessions, case studies
discussion, and project presentation. The class lecture will follow the assigned reading
materials closely. The lectures, mostly PPT based, focus on elaboration of key concepts and
principles, and extensive illustration of their applications by way of topical examples. The
lectures will be supplemented with a few case studies to apply the theoretical concepts for
understanding practical situations.

Assessment:
Assessment is based on end term examination, quizzes, term paper and presentations. The
nature of the presentations and examinations will be announced in class. The assessment
methods are intended to achieve the learning outcomes for the class. Details of the marking
scheme are as follows.
Quiz: 20%
Presentations: 5% (Group of four)
Term Paper: 25%
End Term Exam: 50%

ESSENTIAL TEXT:
Quantitative analysis for management by Render B., Stair R. M., Hanna M. E., Pearson
Education
This will be accompanied by specially prepared handouts.
The following books are also useful for individual sections of the course:
Reference books:
1. Operation Research by A. N. Natrajan, P. Balasubharmani, A Tamilarasi, Pearson
education.
2. Quantitative methods for Business by Anderson, Sweeney and Williams; Thomson
Publications
3. Operations Research by Handy A. Taha Prentice - Hall India.
4. Quantitative Techniques in Management by ND Vohra; Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing
Company Limited.
5. Principles of Operations Research for Management by Frank S.Budnick, Dennis
McLeavey and Richard Mohena; AITBS Publishers & Distributors.
6. Introduction to Operations Research by Frederick S. Hiller and Gerald J . Lieberman;
McGraw Hill International Editions.
7. Operation research applications and algorithms by Wayne L. Winston, Thomson
publication.
8. Quantitative Methods in Management, Ullmann, J .E., Schaum Series.
9. Data analysis & Decision Making by Albright, Winston, Zappe. Second edition,
Thomson Learning

Software Package:
Microsoft Excel/ TORA to solve most of the problems involved in the course.

Session Outline (one hour each session):
SESSION 1, 2
Formulation of Linear Programming Problems (LPP) Maximisation

SESSION 3
Formulation of Linear Programming Problems (LPP) Minimisation

SESSION 4, 5
Graphical Solution, Infeasibility, Unbounded, alternative optima

SESSION 6 & 7
LPP by Simplex Algorithm Maximisation & Minimisation

SESSION 8
Sensitivity analysis : Types of sensitivity, change of objective function

SESSION 9
Sensitivity analysis : Change of resource

SESSION 10
Sensitivity analysis : Change of cost coefficients

SESSION 11, 12, 13
Transportation Model
o Least Cost Method
o Vogels Approximation (Max, Min, unbalanced)
o Optimization techniques- u-v method or MODI
o Using Transportation through Ms Excel
SESSION 14
Assignment Model
o Hungarian Method: Maximisation & Minimisation
o Using Assignment techniques through Ms Excel

SESSION 15 & 16
Decision Theory
o Decision under uncertainity
o Decision under risk
o Decision Trees

SESSION 17 & 18
Theory of Games
o Game Models: Two person zero sum game, 2x2 and 3x3.
o Solutions of 2xn and mx2 games.
o Solutions of mxn games

SESSION 19 & 20
Forecasting time series models.

Useful Websites for the course:
The following URLs are provided as illustrations of the managerial applications and
conceptual understanding of various statistical techniques. The students are encouraged to go
through or review these websites for greater detail on any of the specific issues regarding
calculations, methodology or findings:
http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/stat-data/Topics.htm
http://www.palisade.com.au/stattools/
http://calculators.stat.ucla.edu/powercalc/
http://www.conceptstew.co.uk/PAGES/s4t5content.html
http://home4u.hongkong.com/education/university/csglui/soft.htm
http://www.statserv.com/softwares.html
http://www.willyancey.com.html
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html
http://www.sportsci.org/resource/stats/index.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
http://home.clara.net/sisa/index.htm
http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/index.html

Topics for presentation
The project topics will be announced in the class as per the requirement of the subject.