Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

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In our post where we talked to Professor Krass he discussed how many more organizations are looking to analytics to help with their decision-making. He talked about how "the variety of questions that can be (and are being) asked, and the problems that can be (and are being) solved, are almost infinite."

So, while it would be impossible to look at all the different questions a management analytics professional could consider, Professor Krass has provided an example of some of the possible questions which may be considered within a bank when looking at their credit card offerings.

An example from the banking industry

Image of credit cardsTo give an example of the range of questions you might encounter within the same organization and related to the same product type, consider credit card offerings by a major bank.

  • You might work on identifying the best prospect group for a new credit card product, and on evaluating the results of a multi-channel marketing campaign aimed at that prospect group – a very tactical question.
  • Or you might work on understanding the optimal combination of features this credit card product should have in order to be attractive to potential customers, be profitable for the bank, and fit in well within the portfolio of other credit card products the bank already offers. 
  • Or a bank may be approached by an airline to offer branded credit cards. You might be assigned to a strategic analytics group looking at a variety of questions, such as: should the bank do it?  How will this new product affect other products offered by the bank?  To what extent will it cannibalize other products? What would happen if we say no and someone else say yes?

Every question listed above has its own analytical challenges, but the basic approach will be the same.

You would have to look around and think about what analysis might be useful for the problem at hand and what data would this analysis require.  Is this data available, or does it have to be collected (or, sometimes, just guessed at through simulations)?  

Then, you’d have to structure the data properly and decide how you’d want to analyze it, making sure that the models you are using are valid and so on. In the process, you may have to do some data modeling, coding, use of analytical and visualization packages, and think about the most effective way to present your findings.


The Master of Management Analytics is designed to give students the advanced data management, analytics and communication skills needed to become an analytics professional.

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