Practical application of forecasting and statistics

Member price: £335 + VAT

Non-member price: £395 + VAT

Timing: 9.30am-4.30pm

Overview

There is an increasing need for businesses to get to know their data more deeply, and uncover patterns and trends via analysis. Businesses need to find more accurate ways to forecast future activities, and do this more frequently.

This practical one day course examines datasets with a statistical lens which provides us with valuable insights and uncovers business opportunities that would otherwise be missed.

This course uses Microsoft Excel for the live exercises.

• Overview of statistical analysis and functions in Excel
• Find the line of best fit and uncover patterns and trends
• Produce accurate forecasts for future business and decompose a time series model with seasonality
• Performing correlation and regression analysis to understand which variables have a stronger influence over an outcome
• Data sampling techniques and forming distributions
• Applying Histograms and other statistical charts to your analysis
• Further useful analytical techniques and models to take away and implement

Who should attend

It is recommended that you attend the Data Analysis Intermediate and Advanced courses prior to this course.

This one day course is for anyone wanting to learn the practical aspects of forecasting and add the application of statistical analytics to their data reporting. This course will be of interest to:

• Finance professionals
  • Accountants
  • Junior Accountants
  • Auditors
• Analysts
• Spreadsheet authors
• Decision Makers

What you will learn

• Uncover patterns and trends within your datasets for further analysis
• Confidently use statistical functions in Excel for greater power
• Increase confidence with your forecasting techniques and enable more effective decision making
• Understand statistical information and be able to interpret the results
• Identify the most appropriate regression techniques for your business and create insights
• Easily manage and use statistical models in Excel for a variety of purposes

Information for Online Live dates

Please read the following guidance carefully, which only applies if you are attending this course online:

• In addition to the Online Classroom, you will need to have your own version of Excel open to complete the exercises
• It does prove to be challenging to follow-on with the exercises using only 1 screen as you will need to be regularly switching between open windows. We recommend to either:
  • Extend from a computer to a 2nd screen - please refer to this link for guidance on how to correctly setup a second monitor https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4340331/windows-10-set-up-dual-monitors or
  • Use 2 computers, or
  • Use a tablet for the online classroom and a computer for the Excel
• Please note that our courses are based on Excel for Windows and it is recommended that you are using at least Excel 2010 or a later version. MAC users are welcome but please note that there may be some tools and functionality that will differ from what is being presented. The presenter will accommodate for MAC versions on the course.

Questions?

BPP | Tel: 0330 060 3303 | Email: ldicas@bpp.com