Using Excel for Business Decisions

Porter, Stephenson & Convery

This book encourages business students to develop the important Excel skills they will need to succeed in the business world. Each chapter introduces important Excel concepts and methods in the context of a business consultant teaching her new assistants, you the students. Purchase of this book also provides access to an extensive set of Excel training videos.

In each chapter, students are introduced to a client dilemma that can be addressed using the Excel skills learned. Collectively, these dilemmas provide a “real world” business context that emphasizes the importance of Excels skills and the need to develop decision-making skills to succeed in business. The scenarios throughout the book map to the courses in as typical business curriculum: economics, supply chain management, marketing and advertising, human resources and recruiting, real estate and economics, personal finance, finance and investing, and business statistics and accounting.

Each chapter contains the following resources:
• A discussion of Excel basics and background
• A set of training videos that demonstrate important Excel tools and functions
• A business project, including background and motivation, a data set, and instructions
• A set of critical thinking questions that can be assigned to students or discussed in class
• A set of online questions focused on the Excel skills covered in the chapter

Instructors can choose to use the book and all of its projects in a stand-alone Introduction to Business course or use selected projects in different courses across the business curriculum. The book can also be used for online business education, allowing students to complete the work at their own pace within one course or to tie together concepts and skills from multiple courses. The chapters move students quickly and efficiently through Excel basics, formatting, setting up an effective workbook, creating tables, using graphs, learning common Excel functions, using Lookup and Reference functions, Pivot Tables, and more.

 

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