Big Data for Business Decisions

The digital world is nowadays generating an unimaginable amount of data. With this so called Big Data, companies have more exact measurements for parameters that could not be measured before. The more data is available to a business the more information it has to go off when making major business decisions. Already a lot of ‘scientific’ work can be found and variety of (online) courses are available dealing with Big Data and how to transform this into information. However, what is in it in for businesses? This course aims to provide you with insight in concepts around Big Data and how it plays a role in business decisions of firms in the food supply chain. Various types of big data along the food supply chain that we are working with in the Business Economics group are delt with in this course.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• Identify the concepts of big data and the big data landscape in the food supply chain
• Recognize opportunities and challenges of big data along the food supply chain
• Explain the effects of big data in business decisions and research
• Identify different data analytical methods to turn data into insights and use the results to make business decisions
• Discuss the ethical issues in the big data landscape on data ownership and the governance of data sharing in the food supply chain
• Design a data driven business model that utilizes big data in business decision for a company in the food supply chain

Assumed Knowledge:
Some basic knowledge of business economics and some technical background, e.g. food technology, animal sciences or plant sciences will be helpful in understanding the topics of this course.
Knowledge on programming/modelling is not required for this course. All scripts for the models will be provided during the computer practicals.