Graduate / My Western Ivey MSc Business Analytics Application Essay [3]

Question 1: Explain to the Admissions Committee your decision to pursue the Ivey Business Analytics. Why are you an ideal candidate and how would the program help you achieve your goals.

I am an ideal candidate

Growing up in a country like Nigeria where multinational organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (popularly known as KPMG), Accenture, McKinsey, Shell, Chevron a are dominating Nigeria while domestic companies are barely thriving to be successful and carve a niche for themselves. This could be attributed to the fact that these international organizations have realized the importance of data and business analytics as a contributing factor towards growth and development while domestic companies are lagging behind in understanding and grasping the importance of data and business analytics and therefore have not embraced it.

In the course of obtaining my degree in Economics, I realized that all companies ranging from sole proprietorship to multinational organizations have to potential to become successful. Some of these companies fail to carry out research either in the process of starting up or expanding a business which leads to business failure. Mandatory research should be carried out to discover market trends, consumer demographics, and business competition among other factors in order to be able to predict and create successful business strategies. Business analysts are limited in supply while the demand for business analysts by organizations has exceeded its supply which led me to the decision to fulfill a business need by obtaining a master's in business analytics.

I am an ideal candidate for the Ivey Business Analytics program because I have been able to gain quantitative and qualitative knowledge through my degree in Economics about how business and economic decisions are based on several factors which requires data to be acquired and analyzed and factors could range from consumer loyalty, consumer spending patterns, product performance analysis for businesses and inflation rate, foreign exchange rate, minimum wage rate for an economy.

My short term career goal is to go into management consulting and help organizations understand the importance of business analytics and create a success, growth and sustainability strategy with the use of data and business analytics. The Ivey Masters in Business Analytics will be able to provide me with the knowledge, understanding and training involved with data and business analytics and fully equip me for the challenges of the business world which is why I chose the program. I especially look forward to the Ivey Analytics Lab because it provides a platform for real life and hands on experience regarding what business analytics entails in the business world. I also look forward to learning about big data analytics, programming and other courses which would be able to give me an edge in the labor market, help in the fulfillment of my short term career goal and also in the growth of my career. Finally, the Ivey Business Analytics program will be able to equip me as an individual with the ability to provide solutions to problems relating to data and business analytics.

Graduate / Ivey MSc Business Analytics - understanding of quantitative analysis tools and technical skills [2]

Question 2: The Ivey MSc. Business Analytics relies heavily on incoming students comfort with and understanding of various quantitative analysis tools and technical skills. Please explain to the Admissions committee how you have worked with developed or demonstrated an understanding of similar tools and skills and how they will help you succeed in the program.

I'm equipped with the proper knowledge

The relationship between inflation and output (gross domestic product) in Nigeria between 1970 quarter 1 and 2014 quarter 4 was the focus of my project research work while I was I my final year in the university. In the course of analyzing my data which was a time series data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletins, I began by creating a model specification and stating my hypotheses that a negative relationship is expected between inflation rate and output growth. Utilizing Excel and E-views software, I evaluated the data using the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Ng-Perron unit root tests while I estimated the data with the Ordinary least squares (OLS) method. The result of the analyzed data conformed to my stated hypotheses and I recommended the formulation of proper policies relating to savings, investments, interest rate, and employment rate among others as they are affected by inflation rate which in turn affects the growth of output. During the course of my research work, I came to the realization of how decision making in the business world and economy is heavily affected by statistics and data analysis.

Coming from a quantitative background like Economics and taking core courses like Statistics, Econometrics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics among other courses has definitely equipped me with the knowledge and understanding of how decision making can be affected to a large extent by data analysis. I came to understand the process by which data can be acquired from various sources, hypotheses development and also how to analyze data. I understood how trends can be monitored, predicted and subsequently used for making decisions pertaining to both the short run and long run within organizations and the economy as a whole. Skills relating to trend analysis and prediction could definitely help me in the course of the Ivey Business Analytics program. Furthermore, I was able to gain brief knowledge on how SPSS can be used for analyzing data especially data acquired through the use of questionnaires. In conclusion, my knowledge in statistics, data acquisition, trend analysis and prediction could serve me well in the course of the Ivey Business Analytics program.