What is Business Statistics?

The main objective of Business Statistics is to make inferences (e.g., prediction, making
decisions) about certain characteristics of a population based on information contained in a
random sample from the entire population. The condition for randomness is essential to make
sure the sample is representative of the population.
Business Statistics is the science of good' decision making in the face of uncertainty and is used
in many disciplines, such as financial analysis, econometrics, auditing, production and
operations, and marketing research. It provides knowledge and skills to interpret and use
statistical techniques in a variety of business applications. A typical Business Statistics course is
intended for business majors, and covers statistical study, descriptive statistics (collection,
description, analysis, and summary of data), probability, and the binomial and normal
distributions, test of hypotheses and confidence intervals, linear regression, and correlation.
Statistics is a science of making decisions with respect to the characteristics of a group of
persons or objects on the basis of numerical information obtained from a randomly selected
sample of the group. Statisticians refer to this numerical observation as realization of a random
sample. However, notice that one cannot see a random sample. A random sample is only a
sample of a finite outcomes of a random process.

Business statistics is the science of good decision making in the face of

uncertainty and is used in many disciplines such as financial analysis, econometrics,
auditing, production and operations including services improvement, and marketing
research. These sources feature regular repetitive publication of series of data. This
makes the topic of time series especially important for business statistics. It is also a
branch of applied statistics working mostly on data collected as a by-product of
doing business or by government agencies. It provides knowledge and skills to
interpret and use statistical techniques in a variety of business applications. A typical
business statistics course is intended for business majors, and covers statistical
study, descriptive statistics (collection, description, analysis, and summary of data),
probability, and the binomial and normal distributions, test of hypotheses and
confidence intervals, linear regression, and correlation.

Statistics encompasses the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. Statistics

originated as a study of the techniques for collecting and interpreting information.
The term was first used in the middle of the 18th century by Gottfried Achenwall, a
professor at Gottingen, to explain the physical, moral, and political condition of
states.

The idea that statistics branched off from mathematics is a widely held
misconception. Some place an undue emphasis on the relationship, but the two
disciplines are very different.
The purpose of descriptive statistics is to communicate information, while inferential
statistics is used to reach conclusions and deductions that possibly explain the data.
Both of these together make up applied statistics. There is also a discipline called
mathematical statistics, which is concerned with the theoretical basis of the subject.
The word statistics is the plural of statistic (singular), which refers to the result of
applying a statistical algorithm to a set of data, as in economic statistics, crime
statistics, etc.

The word statistics is ultimately derived from the New Latin term statisticum
collegium ("council of state") and the Italian word statista ("statesman" or
"politician"). The German Statistik, first introduced by Gottfried Achenwall (1749),
originally designated the analysis of data about the state, signifying the "science of
state" (then called political arithmetic in English). It acquired the meaning of the
collection and classification of data generally in the early 19th century. It was
introduced into English by Sir John Sinclair.
Thus, the original principal purpose of Statistik was data to be used by governmental
and (often centralized) administrative bodies. The collection of data about states and
localities continues, largely through national and international statistical services. In
particular, censuses provide regular information about the population.