Supply Chain Analytics Specialization

Welcome to Supply Chain Analytics - an exciting area that is in high demand!

In this introductory course to Supply Chain Analytics, I will take you on a journey to this fascinating area where supply chain management meets data analytics. You will learn real life examples on how analytics can be applied to various domains of a supply chain, from selling, to logistics, production and sourcing, to generate a significant social / economic impact. You will also learn job market trend, job requirement and preparation. Lastly, you will master a job intelligence tool to find preferred job(s) by region, industry and company. Upon completing this course, you will 1. Understand why analytics is critical to supply chain management and its financial / economic impact. 2. See the pain points of a supply chain and how analytics may relieve them. 3. Learn supply chain analytics job opportunities, and use a job intelligence tool to make data-driven career decisions. I hope you enjoy the course!

By the end of 2019, it is clear that American Airlines (AAL), the world’s largest airline group and a SP500 company, is in trouble. With the growth rate of its stock price ranked at the bottom of all major US airlines and going in the opposite direction from the SP500 index, AAL needs to find out what is going on, and how to turn the company and its stock price around.

Addressing the challenge faced by AAL may well be a large-scale management consulting project. To start, business intelligence and competitive analysis (or competitive intelligence for short) is required to discover the problems and opportunities for the company which lay the foundation for the turning-around strategies. In this course, you will gain the knowledge and skills to combine data, analytics models and visualization tools for effective and efficient competitive intelligence. Upon completion of the course, you should be able to conduct competitive intelligence on companies of your choice as a management consultant. Note: To gain hands-on experiences in competitive intelligence via data analytics, you need to get into action. To this end, this course utilizes an external website (free) for you to practice the skills learned.

Welcome to Demand Analytics - one of the most sought-after skills in supply chain management and marketing!

Through the real-life story and data of a leading cookware manufacturer in North America, you will learn the data analytics skills for demand planning and forecasting. Upon the completion of this course, you will be able to 1. Improve the forecasting accuracy by building and validating demand prediction models. 2. Better stimulate and influence demand by identifying the drivers (e.g., time, seasonality, price, and other environmental factors) for demand and quantifying their impact. AK is a leading cookware manufacturer in North America. Its newly launched top-line product was gaining momentum in the marketplace. However, a price adjustment at the peak season stimulated a significant demand surge which took AK completely by surprise and resulted in huge backorders. AK faced the risk of losing the market momentum due to the upset customers and the high cost associated with over-time production and expedited shipping. Accurate demand forecast is essential for increasing revenue and reducing cost. Identifying the drivers for demand and assessing their impact on demand can help companies better influence and stimulate demand. I hope you enjoy the course!

Inventory analytics is the corner stone of supply chain analytics. A company in trade industries may have 30-50% of their assets tied up in inventory. An effective inventory management can improve revenue by increasing product variety and availability, and reduce cost and speed up cash cycle by reducing excessive inventory and waste.

Through real-life examples (e.g., Amazon vs. Macy’s), you will learn hands-on tools and skills to discover and solve inventory problems by data analytics. Upon completion, you can answer the following questions: 1. For which industries is inventory important? 2. How may inventory drive a company’s financial performance? 3. How do I know that I have an inventory problem? 4. How to classify inventory and manage it accordingly? Note: This course is for beginners and thus focuses more on discovering inventory problems than solving them. It is my belief that discovering a problem and knowing which directions to go is at least equally important as solving the problem. We are planning to launch new courses or expand this course to cover more sophisticated inventory solutions in the future - thank you.