Wharton Expands Data and Analytics Training

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Big data is changing the way businesses operate, and top B-schools are starting to take note.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wharton‘s recent shift toward making data a central part of their curriculum, including by adding a new MBA major. By giving their students more training in big data, the school hopes to keep pace with the growing number of jobs that involve these skills.

In the near future, Wharton intends to add courses and bring on new faculty to bulk up their program in data and analytics. According to management and psychology professor Adam Grant, the goal is to “create a hub where evidence-based management is the norm rather than the exception.”

There are a couple reasons for Wharton choosing to home in on big data as a cornerstone of the MBA program’s future.

One is the recent proliferation of data-oriented jobs, a trend that looks like it will only continue.

Data is now an important part of the plan for large web-oriented companies like Amazon, which drives up demand for people with data and analytics experience. Thus, MBA students are increasingly setting their sights on jobs in tech rather than finance.

More generally, though, data is becoming a must-know management topic across all industries. As Wharton dean Geoffrey Garrett told the Wall Street Journal, managers in the twenty-first century need to be “able to talk to the geeks” because data science is at the core about “[making] better decisions.”

Although the latest announcement reflects a more focused commitment from Wharton to make data science an integral part of the MBA curriculum, the school has been moving toward a greater emphasis on analytics for a while now.

As early as 2008, Wharton started giving its students the chance to do projects in customer decision-making with companies like Procter & Gamble. Since 2014, it has hosted an annual business analytics conference with support from Google, Facebook and many others.

Last year, the school even began offering a new online Business Analytics specialization through Coursera. Required courses for completing the specialization are Customer Analytics, Operations Analytics, People Analytics, Accounting Analytics and a capstone project.

While many schools are expanding their analytics offerings and even creating new degrees to keep up with the rise of big data, Wharton may be unique in the extent to which it’s aiming to make analytics an integral part of its B-school curriculum.

If Wharton is on your radar, keep an eye out for more announcements in this vein in the future. The school is currently working to hire faculty, introduce courses, and foster partnerships related to the new focus on data, so there are likely to be more interesting developments in the cards.

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