Businesses take their past experiences into consideration when needing to make an important decision about their futures. A thriving business often uses statistics in order to model profits, determine customer segments, and find new growth opportunities. The use of statistics can help them to make the best choices, even when the outcome seems uncertain. In order to better predict customer behavior, business experts can look at historical trends to model the future. Management can look at past stats to keep track of the quality of manufactured goods and the rate of productivity among employees, allowing everything to run smoothly and efficiently. Using statistics can help with a number of daily tasks and make a business more successful. The resources below will make modeling the future just a little bit easier so that you can be on your way to owning or managing a successful business.

Statistics for Beginners

Before diving into the world of business statistics, it is important to make sure you understand exactly how statistical modeling can help your business. There are different areas in which statistics are useful, depending on what your company needs at the moment. The resources below can give you a better idea of what statistics can do for a business, as well as help to narrow down the type of statistics you might like to calculate.

• What is Business Statistics? – This site, written by Monash University, has a detailed explanation of everything statistics can do for a business.
• Thinking Statistically – This resource guides readers into a new way of thinking statistically, along with practical examples of how it applies.
• How to Study Statistics– Learn some of the basic framework that good statisticians use when interpreting numbers, including how to get into the right mindset.
• Advice for Beginners – This helps students of business statistics learn some of the common mistakes and gain an idea of where to start.
• Types of Data – Figure out what type of data your business needs to organize in order to form new statistics.

Educational Resources

If you have never taken a business statistics course, the concept of modeling numbers can be intimidating and frustrating. However, with the proper guidance, it can be much simpler and more enjoyable. There are a number of online tutorials to assist you in organizing the data that you already have into a more easily accessible format for quick reference.

• Normal Distributions – Learn how to predict where your data will fall according to the normal distribution curve which can be useful for determining the likelihood of a future profit.
• Data Variability – Sometimes the numbers can vary in very specific ways and this site details some of the common variations.
• Basic Probability Concepts – Probability is important for predicting what will happen next according to previous statistics, an important aspect of using statistics successfully.
• Statistical Simulations – This source provides animated examples and interactive questions on basic statistics concepts.
• Measurements – Murdoch University details some of the calculations that are commonly used as well as instructions on how to calculate them.
• Formulas – Keep this list of formulas handy to ensure the right equation.
• Statistics for Dummies – Learn a simpler approach to the complex formulas and equations that are important.

Online Textbooks

Supplement tutorials with further reading on the topic of business statistics. Plenty of textbooks are available online for easy access to more in-depth explanations and examples. Understand how the concepts work on a much higher level by reading study materials such as the ones listed below. Many also provide practice problems to help you learn to calculate statistics easily and efficiently.

• Seeing Statistics – This textbook is a great resource for beginners who wish to advance into more difficult concepts.
• E-books – This link provides a list of e-books to suit whatever statistical need you have. Whether you need information for beginners, practice problems, or advanced equations, this list has a book to cover the topic.
• Glossary – This site provides a detailed glossary on the most common statistics terms.
• Electronic Statistics – This textbook covers every aspect of statistics for quick learning and direct application.
• Textbooks for Purchase – This link provides a list of textbooks that are available for purchase.

Quizzes

Before moving on to create statistics for your own business, try to test what you have learned with some online quizzes. It is better to learn if you are making any mistakes through these quizzes than to create statistics for your business incorrectly. All of the quizzes below have an answer key available so that you can check your work to see if you are on your way to becoming a successful statistician.

• Descriptive Statistics – Test your knowledge of the basics of descriptive statistics.
• Probability Concepts – Make sure you understand the basics of probability and what it might mean for your business.
• Data Collection – This quiz will help you to see if you understand the best methods for collecting data from your business.
• Definitions – Use these flashcards to see if you really understand all of the terminology.
• Basic Statistics Quizzes – The University of Sydney provides quizzes on every topic of statistics to make sure you understand the information on an introductory level.
• Formulas – Test your knowledge of formulas with these flashcards and quizzes.

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