Statistics in Business Qnt/275

Statistics in Business

Joseph Metzler

QNT/275

July 13, 2015

Mourad Tighiouart

Businesses need tons of aspects to stay alive and running; and one of these aspects are how to use and when to use statistics within a business. So, what is statistics? Statistics is “a property of data, be it a number such as an average or a graph that displays information,” according to Stine and Foster (2014). Basically, it is a bunch of data that gives you needed information, whether it be through graphs and charts, or an average of numbers clumped together. It is important to note that there are different types and levels of statistics. You can have two different types of data, being categorical (qualitative) and quantitative data, according to Stine and Foster (2014). Categorical data is data that has no order to it; you are not able to order the data from let’s say, least to greatest, and etc. You are able to group this data by characteristics. This would include colors, sex, names, religious/political views, blood type, etc. Quantitative data is data that is able to have an order to it. This data can be ordered form least to greatest, greatest to least, numerical order, etc. This would include heights, age, salary, weight, shoe size, etc. Along with these two types of statistics, there are different levels in which it can be measured: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio (Statistics Solutions n.d.). The nominal measurement level is when numbers are used to classify data into different sections. The ordinal level is when data is used to show an order relationship between the numbers of items. The interval level is where data is classified in an order, but can also show the distance between the intervals of data determined on a scaling system. Lastly, the ratio level is very similar to the interval level, but the value of zero is allowed in the data set. This level is commonly used to differentiate sizing.

Statistics can have a big role on business decision-making....