Introduction to Business I: Strategic Economics and Data-Driven Decision-Making
Course Subject: Accounting
Course Code: BUSGEN 111
Instructor: Matt Glickman and Collin Wallace
Course Quarter: Winter 2025
This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the critical factors driving business success, integrating strategy and economics with data-driven decision-making. You will investigate how effective business strategies harmonize with customer dynamics, market forces, and organizational structures, while also learning to transform raw data into actionable insights. Through a blend of theoretical concepts and practical applications, you will develop the skills to create value, optimize pricing, and enhance organizational performance. By examining foundational economic principles alongside advanced analytical techniques, this course equips you with the tools needed to understand why some firms succeed while others fail in today’s complex and data-rich business environment.
The curriculum progresses from foundational concepts to advanced techniques, focusing on:
- Understanding how firms create and capture value through products and services.
- Analyzing the interplay between price, demand, and consumer behavior to enhance profitability.
- Developing pricing strategies that align with a firm’s overall product portfolio.
- Exploring the intricacies of organizational design and leadership’s role in fostering productivity.
- Addressing challenges of scaling a business with an emphasis on cost management and sustainable growth.
- Building mathematical models to visualize decision components and their relationships.
- Incorporating probability and statistics to quantify uncertainty in decision-making contexts..
- Exploring causality, regression analysis, and optimization to understand complex variable relationships.
- Introducing simulation techniques and scenario analysis to analyze complex business situations.
This course offers a blend of engaging content, including videos, graphics, interactive activities, real-world case studies, and practical exercises, deepening your understanding and application of these concepts. This course provides a holistic view of what it takes to design and lead successful firms, equipping you with the tools to apply these principles in real-world business scenarios.
Matt Glickman
Matt Glickman (MBA, MA, Education 1993) is the William F. Meehan III Lecturer for 2024–2025. Matt is the founder and president of Promise Venture Studio, a non-profit organization whose mission is to spur social entrepreneurship in early childhood development. He also advises or serves on the board of several technology startups and nonprofit educational organizations.
Learn more about Matt Glickman
Collin Wallace
Collin Wallace is a serial entrepreneur in the food and beverage space, and the CEO/Co-founder of ZeroStorefront. ZeroStorefront is the #1 Growth marketing software for restaurants. Purpose-built to measure marketing campaigns, segment customers and automate communications. Prior to ZeroStorefront, Wallace was the Head of Innovation at GrubHub.