4 Conclusion

You have started to familiarise yourself with the spreadsheet software Excel, which is widely used in workplaces, and useful in many different fields and contexts, such as business, medicine, marketing, tax and auditing, accounting and finance.

You have also studied the basics of data analysis. The focus here was on the several ways to visualise and summarise data using tools available in Microsoft Excel, such as frequency tables, histograms, and scatter diagrams or plots. The main objective of data analysis and statistical modelling is to help make more evidence-based decisions. The various data visualisation tools studied in this session are only the first step toward starting the decision-making process using data.

A second OpenLearn course on data analysis, Data analysis: hypothesis testing, is now also available should you wish to take your studies further.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B126 Business data analytics and decision making.