OPIM 5894 Analytical Consulting for Financial Services
Fall 2013 Hartford (Flex Schedule)
Instructor:
Suresh Nair, Ph.D., Professor
Class Times: Friday sessions 5:00PM-9:00PM
Saturday sessions 9:00AM-5:00PM
Office:
BUS 387
Phone: (860) 486-1727
Office Hrs:
By appointment
Fax: (860) 486-4839
e-mail:
suresh.nair@business.uconn.edu
Course website:
http://users.business.uconn.edu/snair/opim5894.html
Prerequisite: OPIM 5641 Business Decision Modeling
Course Description: Analytical consulting is where business analytics and project management meet.
Whether you work as an external consultant or an internal staff member, much of the work you do
will involve data analytics and project management skills. This is particularly true in financial
services, where there is increasing convergence between operations, marketing and finance in
industries such as banking, credit cards, brokerage, insurance, mortgages, etc. Because of the
number of customers and the repeat nature of interactions over the customer’s lifetime, the
situation in financial services is different from the typical single encounter service operations.
Usually there is a lot of data available for analysis and decision making, and a wide variety of tools
and techniques are applicable – from deterministic to stochastic modeling, from analytical methods
to simulation. This course will expose students to a wide array of real consulting situations in
business analytics operations and financial services, and will teach students methods of addressing
these problems using spreadsheets, simulation, and optimization methods. While consulting
encompasses many specific tasks and requires broad functional knowledge, there is an increased
need and appreciation of the usefulness of analytical consulting.
Cases and Notes:
One Harvard Business School case.
Class Notes
Grading:
Team case write-up, presentations and exercises
Individual homework
Final exam
Class participation
25%
25%
40%
10%
Team HBS case write-ups: We have only one case this time. Each team will submit a 3-4 page
report on the case on the day the case is discussed. Everyone is expected to participate in
these discussions and contribute their ideas.
1
Coverage of Topics
Class
Day
Date
1 Friday 18-Oct
Topic
Introduction to consulting in financial services
Service Capacity Planning in Financial Services
2 Friday 25-Oct
Creativity, Critical thinking and Critical analysis in Consulting and Breakout Exercise
Breakout Exercise and Presentation, Waiting Lines HW due
3
Sat
26-Oct
AM
Simulating Alternative Recommendations in Financial Services
4
Sat
26-Oct
PM
Breakout Exercise and Presentation
GFC case discussion
5 Friday 1-Nov
Optimizing Financial Services, Simulation HW due
6 Friday 8-Nov
Conjoint Analysis for New Product Development in Financial Services
Breakout Exercise and Presentation, Optimization HW due
7
Sat
9-Nov
AM
Stochastic modeling using dynamic programming
Elementary VBA coding for dynamic programming
8
Sat
9-Nov
PM
Modeling Real Options in Financial Services using Dynamic Programming
Breakout Exercise and Presentation
9 Friday 15-Nov
Using Real Options in Financial Services, Dynamic Programming HW due
Final Exam
2
Suggested Questions for Case
Global Financial Corporation:
1. Your task is to come up with suggestions about how Mr. Rodriguez can improve the system at
GF. You might start by finding bottlenecks in the system. In particular, look at the work load
and capacity for each unit in the processing system. Then make suggestions about what might
be done to alleviate these bottlenecks. [Hint: Use weighted average times for service, for
example 390 hrs in Region 1 E&A. For arrivals, for example in Region 1 E&A, there are 78
applications coming in 410 hrs, meaning the mean arrival rate is 78/410 applications/hr, or
0.19 apps/hr. The service rate for Region 1 would be 78/390, or 0.2 apps/hr. For Interest Rate
determination, use M=1 but 205 hours/quarter instead of 410 (since fractional M cannot be
used in the spreadsheet). Since no more information is given, you can assume both arrivals and
service are Poisson. When work is done in teams, the processing times given are for the two
(or more) people working together (like a cashier and bagger in a grocery checkout counter)].
You can do the calculations separately for each step in each region. The number of servers in
each step in each region should be used in the calculation, for example M=1 in E&A Region 1 as
presently configured, since the two people working there are working as one team. No need
for doing any simulation for this case, just use the multi-queues spreadsheet.
2. Suggest a web/online strategy for the firm.
Homework
See course website http://users.business.uconn.edu/snair/opim5894.html
3