Statistics in Business
Tania Correia
QNT 295
April 6, 2015
Jeff Jung

Statistics in Business
Statistics can be defined as the way we look at, understand, and interpret “data” using math. By collecting the data, or information, we can analyze certain portions of this information to allow us to come to a conclusion or guesstimate of what may happen next or even to get an answer to a specific question. It all depends on the purpose of gathering the data.
There are four different levels that we can measure statistics. The first would be the nominal level of measurement. It is the lowest of the four ways to characterize data. Nominal data deals with names, categories, or labels, leaving it to be a qualitative type of data. The second level would be, ordinal level of measurement. Data at this level can be ordered, but no differences between the data can be taken that are meaningful. As with the nominal level, data at the ordinal level should not be used in calculations. The third level would be the interval level. This level of measurement deals with data that can be ordered, and in which differences between the data does make sense. Data at this level does not have a starting point. The fourth and highest level of measurement is the ratio level. Data at the ratio level possess all of the features of the interval level, in addition to a zero value. At the ratio level of measurement, not only can sums and differences be calculated, but also ratios. One measurement can be divided by any nonzero measurement, and a meaningful number will be the end result.
Two examples of how statistics was/is used would be in gathering the information for the housing market and also product development. In the housing market, people gather data about the types of people, the amount of income, the type of jobs they have to evaluate whether or not the housing market will go up or down, however this cannot be determined because there are always other factors that are not always taken into consideration or unforeseen when gathering information and making your predictions. In the second example, the product development, every company uses this. They are able to answer the questions, “What does the consumer want?”, “Will they buy it?” “How much will they be willing to pay?” The company may ask themselves these questions and then do studies or test phases to see how well their theory works when put into real life. They are able to “perfect” the product by gathering data from different groups of people/objects/circumstances, etc. in order to make their product perform at peak levels as well as satisfy the consumer’s needs.