Forecasting is one of the most important activities that form the basis for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions in all business organizations. Recently, neural networks have emerged as an important tool for business forecasting. There are considerable interests and applications in forecasting using neural networks. Neural Networks in Business Forecasting provides for researchers and practitioners some recent advances in applying neural networks to business forecasting. A number of case studies demonstrating the innovative or successful applications of neural networks to many areas of business as well as methods to improve neural network forecasting performance are presented.

Causal Mapping for Research in Information Technology provides an introduction to causal mapping for IS researchers and practitioners and goes further to provide IS researchers and practitioners everything they need to use causal mapping for both research and application.

The rapid pace of technological innovation and the effects of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution have resulted in dramatic changes on a global scale, from the empowerment of the individual to the spawning of global markets. From the business perspective, the widespread deployment of Information Technology (IT) has resulted in many organisational changes and the development and use of new management and business processes. An important challenge for today's manufacturing organisations is to be able to anticipate the impact of investments in new (frequently IT-based) manufacturing technologies and programmes. Ideally, management needs to be able to identify and articulate the many ways in which investment decisions influence their organisation - in terms of performance across a range of measures. Furthermore, in today's manufacturing environment, it is increasingly necessary that a close relationship exists between manufacturing decision making and corporate business strategy, so that manufacturing decisions complement and are fully aligned with the organisation's strategic objectives.
Strategic Decision Making in Modern Manufacturing introduces and explains the AMBIT (Advanced Manufacturing Business ImplemenTation) approach, which has been developed to bridge the gap between strategic management considerations and the operational effects of technology investment decisions on the manufacturing organisation, so that the likely impact of new manufacturing technology and/or programme implementations can be evaluated, anticipated and accurately predicted. The AMBIT approach focuses specifically on the non-financial aspects of such investment decisions andoffers an approach that allows a manager, or more frequently a management team, to understand the impacts of a new technology or a new programme on the manufacturing organisation in terms of manufacturing performance.
The prediction of future trends and patterns is a very imprecise and ambiguous activity at the best of times. Yet despite such ambiguity, managers need to be forward looking. They need appropriate tools and approaches to help them anticipate the future. Thus, whilst the pages of organisational history may be filled with anecdotes about organisations that failed to "predict" the future, it is the challenge of today's organisations to evade such a fate. The AMBIT approach delineated in this book has been specifically developed to anticipate the future by analysing the impact of managerial decisions.

Strategic Alignment Process and Decision Support Systems: Theory and Case Studies presents a visualization of the nature, scope, objectives and difficulties of the overall decision making process. This book focuses on the discussion and solution of strategic decision making processes in a way that gives assistance and insight to readers in this important area of business administration. Covering important topics such as new economy, e-business, project maturity and knowledge data discovery, this book also provides educational material, including many exercises and cases for undergraduate, graduate or MBA students.

The objective of this book is to present this analytical framework and to illustrate how it can be used in the investigation of economic decisions under risk. In a sense, the economics of risk is a difficult subject: it involves understanding human decisions in the absence of perfect information. How do we make decisions when we do not know some of events affecting us? The complexities of our uncertain world and of how humans obtain and process information make this difficult. In spite of these difficulties, much progress has been made. First, probability theory is the corner stone of risk assessment. This allows us to measure risk in a fashion that can be communicated among decision makers or researchers. Second, risk preferences are now better understood. This provides useful insights into the economic rationality of decision making under uncertainty. Third, over the last decades, good insights have been developed about the value of information. This helps better understand the role of information in human decision making and this book provides a systematic treatment of these issues in the context of both private and public decisions under uncertainty.
* Balanced treatment of conceptual models and applied analysis
* Considers both private and public decisions under uncertainty
* Website presents application exercises in EXCEL

This is a practical guide to evaluating and addressing the challenges of a distressed business - whether due to being overleveraged, poorly managed, or is underperforming. The authors provide practical advice, based on their involvement collectively in more than 150 financially stressed businesses, on how to maximize the value of a troubled business.

""There are never any shortcuts to success, but it is possible to follow the paths of those who have blazed a trail in their own fields of endeavor. Jan has created great success in the area of entrepreneurship.

If you wish to become an entrepreneur, you will find much in the pages of Jan's "Go Start Something" that will guide you to success. However, anyone can benefit from these 18 chapters of experience and learn from the examples Jan describes.

I believe the stories of succeeding against great odds, sacrificing personal comfort to put everything into your business, living according to your vision, putting in a full day's work day in and day out, and enjoying your life every moment can provide great inspiration. One of the most powerful forces in the world is the will of men and women who believe in themselves, who dare to hope and aim high, who go confidently after the things they want from life. Jan went after his dream and accomplished it, you can also achieve great success if you follow his Rules for Entrepreneurship. Go Start Something."" PROFESSOR JIM GIBBONS, PHD, Northwood University

Decision making tools are essential for the successful outcome of any organization. Recent advances in predictive analytics have aided in identifying particular points of leverage where critical decisions can be made. Emerging Methods in Predictive Analytics: Risk Management and Decision Making provides an interdisciplinary approach to predictive analytics; bringing together the fields of business, statistics, and information technology for effective decision making. Managers, business professionals, and decision makers in diverse fields will find the applications and cases presented in this text essential in providing new avenues for risk assessment, management, and predicting the future outcomes of their decisions.

A pioneering neuroscientist reveals how brain science can transform how we think about leadership, team-building, decision-making, innovation, marketing, and more. Leadership is a set of abilities with which a lucky few are born. They're the natural relationship builders, master negotiators and persuaders, and agile and strategic thinkers. The good news for the rest of us is that those abilities can be developed. In The Leader's Brain: Enhance Your Leadership, Build Stronger Teams, Make Better Decisions, and Inspire Greater Innovation with Neuroscience, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative director Michael Platt explains how. Over two decades as a professor and practitioner in neuroscience, psychology, and marketing, Platt's pioneering research has deepened our understanding of how key areas of the brain work-and how that understanding can be applied in business settings. Neuroscience is providing answers to many of leadership's most vexing challenges. In The Leader's Brain, Platt explains: Why two managers, when presented with the same set of information, make very different decisions;Why some companies (Apple) build strong social and emotional connections with their customers and others do not (Samsung); How some of the most significant events in sports history, like the "Miracle on Ice," contain insights for how to build a team; Why even some of the most visionary business leaders can make disastrous decisions, and how to fix that. The Leader's Brain relates findings like these, and many more, to help enhance leadership in an ever-shifting world entering a "new normal." In this fast-reading and engaging guide, you'll gain actionable insights you can put into practice as a leader. You will also learn what's going on in your team's brains when they are working in sync with one another, how you can tweak your message delivery to make sure others hear you, how to encourage greater creativity and innovation, and much more.

While many social, economic, and political changes have occurred recently in internet public procurement and its decision support systems, there is still a lot of opportunity for improvement. Public Sector Transformation Processes and Internet Public Procurement: Decision Support Systems brings together research on different perspectives from academics and practitioners on the methods, theories, and practices involved in the growth and expansion of decision support systems as it relates to the public sector transformation process and internet public procurement.

This book covers several new areas in the growing field of analytics with some innovative applications in different business contexts, and consists of selected presentations at the 6th IIMA International Conference on Advanced Data Analysis, Business Analytics and Intelligence. The book is conceptually divided in seven parts. The first part gives expository briefs on some topics of current academic and practitioner interests, such as data streams, binary prediction and reliability shock models. In the second part, the contributions look at artificial intelligence applications with chapters related to explainable AI, personalized search and recommendation, and customer retention management. The third part deals with credit risk analytics, with chapters on optimization of credit limits and mitigation of agricultural lending risks. In its fourth part, the book explores analytics and data mining in the retail context. In the fifth part, the book presents some applications of analytics to operations management. This part has chapters related to improvement of furnace operations, forecasting food indices and analytics for improving student learning outcomes. The sixth part has contributions related to adaptive designs in clinical trials, stochastic comparisons of systems with heterogeneous components and stacking of models. The seventh and final part contains chapters related to finance and economics topics, such as role of infrastructure and taxation on economic growth of countries and connectedness of markets with heterogenous agents, The different themes ensure that the book would be of great value to practitioners, post-graduate students, research scholars and faculty teaching advanced business analytics courses.

Success. It's a goal that many seek to achieve. They see the limos, the fans, the front cover of major magazines as the ultimate prize. But is success really what it's cracked up to be? Sadly enough, it isn't. Successful people around the world are hiding from the glory, dodging greedy relatives, shunning star-struck commuters. Why? Because their peace of mind is under attack. How can they regain their time, their sanity, their normalcy? Failure. This humorous, ground-breaking "how-to" book will help all to see clearer that the simpler things in like are not that bad. And to achieve it one must fail, but fail in style.

Managing and Leading others in the workplace today can be a very challenging experience. With everything changing so quickly and dramatically, the ability to make the right decisions at the right time and for the right reasons is critically important. Employees need and want effective, management/leadership.

Asset management is becoming increasingly important to an organization's strategy, given its effects on cost, production, and quality. No matter the sector, important decisions are made based on techniques and theories that are thought to optimize results; asset management models and techniques could help maximize effectiveness while reducing risk. Optimum Decision Making in Asset Management posits that effective decision making can be augmented by asset management based on mathematical techniques and models. Resolving the problems associated with minimizing uncertainty, this publication outlines a myriad of methodologies, procedures, case studies, and management tools that can help any organization achieve world-class maintenance. This book is ideal for managers, manufacturing engineers, programmers, academics, and advanced management students.

The book presents the proceedings of the 4th EAI International Conference on Management of Manufacturing Systems (MMS 2019), which took place in Krynica Zdroj, Poland, on October 8-10, 2019. The conference covered Management of Manufacturing Systems with support for Industry 4.0, Logistics and Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Applications, Cooperation management and its effective applications. Topics include RFID Applications, Economic Impacts in Logistics, ICT Support for Industry 4.0, Industrial and Smart Logistics, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Applications, and much more.

The Value TRAI is a four part classification which has been developed to enable any business entity, process, project or job to be broken down into its component value elements. This then provides a framework for the identification, prioritisation, evaluation and management of business risks. In addition to the value TRAI this book introduces a series of simple tools which address business risks: both threats and opportunities.The Author, Chris Duggleby, has spent over thirty years managing chemicals businesses around the world working with several internationally respected partners. His recent work focused on the management of Joint Ventures and the design of Management of Change processes for transformation projects. His first-hand knowledge of managing industrial business risks has been used in the design of the tools and processes described in this book.Using a standardised set of easy to apply risk management tools is fundamental to the introduction of an enterprise wide risk management system. This book, supported by the www.bizchangers.com website, describes these tools and how to apply them.