GT00303 Business Statistics Semester II 2008/2009
Chapter 1
Introduction of Business Statistics
An important decision-making tool in business and is used in virtually every area of business.
Among the more common meaning of the word are:
1) the science of gathering, analyzing, interpreting and presenting data
2) a branch of mathematics
3) a course of study
4) facts and figures
5) a death
6) sample measurement
7) type of distribution used to analyze data
Statistics are broadly used in business, including:
1) the discipline of accounting
2) decision sciences
3) economics
4) finance
5) management
6) management information systems
7) marketing
8) production
The study can be subdivided into two main areas:
1) Descriptive statistics – results from gathering data from a body, group, or population and reaching conclusion only about that group
2) Inferential statistics – are generated from the process of gathering sample data from a group, body, or population and reaching conclusions about the larger group from which the sample was drawn
Population defines as a collection of persons, objects or items of interest. When researchers gather data from the whole population for a given measurement of interest, they call it a census. A sample is a portion of the whole and if properly taken, is representative of the whole.
A descriptive measure of the population is called a parameter. Parameters are usually denoted by Greek letters. Examples of parameters are population mea ...