MGT 602 Business Decision Analytics Assignment Solution

Intoduction MGT 602 Business Decision Analytics  Assignment Sample: 

Among all the issues faced by an organisation, decision-making poses the major challenge. It is crucial for conducting all the organisational operations. Many a time it happens that alternatives are many for a particular tasks and organisation has to choose one of them. This is quite challenging. However, this can be done by making use of analytics and decision-making tools. In this report, a problem related to organising a training seminar for skill development of employees working in an IT firm. A reflection is done on both group and individual decision-making. In this report, a discussion on current trends, benefits of training, types of training options, and factors affecting the decisions and decision-making tools is done.

Problem Statement

As the HR Manager of IB InfoTech, I am entitled to arrange for the training programs and seminars for skill development of the new as well as experienced employees. I am working with my team to determine the best training options for experienced personnel and new comers. At present, there are 50 new comers and 80 experienced people working in the firm. The management wants the training to be effective and impactful. The major constraints are time and budget as the management wants the training should end within a week and the cost of training should not exceed a budget of $35,000. For the proposal, the 4-membered HR team is working. The primary decisions to be made in this problem are:-

• Type of training
• Activity Schedule
• Venue and Experts Needed for Training
• Budget Allocation

Data Collection  

Being the head of the HR Department, I understand very well that for a sound decision-making, the team would requiredata and facts and that too very quickly. The data can be collected from both primary and secondary sources. In this case, the team has decided that they would be taking help of primary data source for data collection. Choosing the secondary data source would not be able to help much as they won’t be able to provide much information to make decision regarding budget allocation and selection of venue (Whitfield&McNett, 2014). I chose to select the primary source of data and for that purpose, I developed a questionnaire for the experts working in the firm. The questionnaire is common for both new comers as well as the experienced personnel. As there are many departments in the IB InfoTech, two persons (1 newbie and 1experienced employee) have been selected for data collection. The respondents in the questionnaire part are from engineering cell, accounts department, customer care, computer operators, and sales (Loebbecke& Picot, 2015). This would help in saving time and cost. The questions were asked to them and their response was recorded for each question.

Once the data was collected, the analysis was done with the help of MS Excel in which statistical analysis was conducted. This was important to know what employees think about training & skill development program (Lu&Xu, 2019). Also, this also helped in understanding the type of training method they want the firm to choose. It is important to note that only those training options were considered that can be organised in the premises only. Organisation does not want to send people to external locations as it would increase expenses of training.

Visualisation of Decision-Making Process & Analytics

From my perspective, there are numerous benefits of training programmes. The first and foremost importance is that training assists in ensuring a better quality of aspirants and improving the efficiency of the firm. It also helps in eliminating risks as trained employees can make efficient use of organisational resource and machinery. This would help in reducing and avoiding waste (Govindan, et.al, 2015). In addition to this, training can be a monitoring factors for workers in the company. The performance of employees in the training programme can help in monitoring and improving the performance. It leads to greater productivity and efficiency. It increases the adaptability and loyalty of staffs.

There are many factors that may affect the type of training and their effectiveness. The first job of the team is to determine those factors so to plan strategy accordingly to avoid them. There are individual factors that may impede the training program (Henry, 2014). People may not welcome the decision of the organisation to provide training. However, some of them may agree. In addition to this, human resource policy may also affect the effectiveness of the program. Providing hectic training or too much training programs can affect the primary motive of providing training (Kumari, et.al, 2019). In addition to this, there are organisational factors, such as absence of managerial support that could affect the creative training and its effectiveness. Apart from this, the trainer and training content also affect the effectiveness. Achievement of the employees also depends on the effectiveness of the training.

For organising training program, the decisions regarding the type of training is based on the collaborative decision-making approach. It creates robust functional and inter-functional bonds by promoting shared goals and allow various departments in the firm to participate in the decision-making process (Kou, et.al, 2016). Mostly, this is done by making use of sharing information, opinion, and strong managerial interaction. A meeting took place in which the HR executives and team leaders were present in which all the options and their pros and cons were discussed. In total four training options were proposed and out of which one was selected as the company wants only a week long training session. The process can be better understood with the help of the visualisation shown below:-

In the picture, there are four training types are mentioned. These are technical skills development training, e-learning, simulation employee training, and group discussions & activities.

• Group Discussion & Activities:It allows multiple people to get training simultaneously and in an environment that suits best to their department. These training helps in improving team bonding and collaboration.
• Simulation Employee Training:this type of training is computer-based and is necessary for employees to combat organisational risks. Organisation needs to provide this training when there are high risks involved in operations.
• E-learning:For organisations like IB InfoTech, it is important to have e-learning training programme as it can be organised within the premises and is budget friendly. But, it requires experts to teach the skills and checking the learning of people is not possible in such training type.
• Technical Skills Development:Business technology keeps changing and therefore, technical skills development is the quintessential training for an organisation. With the help of technical content, trainers can train the employees and make them expert in new technology and software.

From questionnaire, many responses were recorded and many aspects of training are determined. The analysis is shown below:-

1. Are workers carrying out their job effectively?

2. What kind of training do you prefer?

3. What could be the impact of training on organisation?

4. Do you prefer in-house training?

5. What should be the duration of training programme?

Inferences from the Data Analysis

• From the data analytics, it is clear that more than 65% employees believe that they are not carrying out their job effectively. This marks the importance of the training programme.
• It was also determined that 50% of people need technical training.
• Also, majority of them believe training programmes can help in reducing the employee turnover rate and they want in-house training only.
• 50% of employees want 1 week longtraining only.

Training Venue:In the survey it was determined that majority of people prefer in-house training only. Therefore, all the training sessions will take place in the conference room Training Schedule:

The timing will be 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and training will take place for 1 week.

Training Budget Allocation:

Decision-Making Tools& Outcomes:

For the most reliable decision-making for IB InfoTech’s training programme, it is desirable to make use of some decision-making tools. These would help in getting a better understanding of the issues and their solutions.

• Group Decision Support System (GDSS):It is one of the most suitable DM tool as it carries out collaborative decision making. GDSS is usually selected for getting the suggestions from the employees and heads of different department (Antunes, et.al, 2014). It also encourages gaining knowledge via service expert system. The GDSS helps in formulating the visualisation for better understanding of the issues and providing the best solution for the same (Cirillo& Valencia, 2019).
• Decision Matrix:It is the most common technique to decide the training type. In the meeting of HR Executives, a number of training types were mentioned. With the help of decision-matrix, one can make the right decisions in an effective way. The options are placed in different row of a matrix and their pros and cons are enlisted (García-Peñalvo&Conde, 2014). Based on the overall rating and people’s choice, it was decided that technical skill training should be provided to people working in the company. This training will take place for a week within the firm only. A trainer will be hired by the company to train employees.
• NVivo Data Mining Tool:This tool is best when the decision-making requires some sort of researching. This tool is best in analysing any form of data, such as photo, audio, graph, video, etc. In this case, the primary data collection is carried out that would be helpful in using NVivo Data Mining tool. This would be effective in dealing with the large amount of data and getting it analysed in no time. However, this tool needs a proper understanding and knowledge of the tools (Holden, et.al, 2016).

Conclusion

The following report helped in gaining a better insight into the decision-making process within a firm.The main issue outlined here was to fulfil the training need of an organisation. The main issue was to decide the training type, its schedule, venue, and cost allocation. For that purpose, the primary data collection was carried out and people were asked certain set of questions. By making use of MS Excel, data analysis was carried out and inferences were diagrammed in the report. It was determined that people prefer technical training of 1 week and they believe that training programmes are the best way to reduce the employee turnover. For better analysis, three decision-making tools were employed in the report.

References

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