(11009) Business Decision Making - at the University of Canberra

Many university graduates aim to become managers, either of their own business, or as part of the management team of other entities. A critical attribute of management is the ability to incorporate financial and non-financial data in a range of decisions, such as pricing products, setting budgets, and evaluating performance. However, many decision makers have not studied accounting or information systems. This unit aims to address this gap by showing students how to identify, obtain, manipulate and analyse data to make informed business decisions. The nature of information used to inform decisions continues to change, in that big data, artificial intelligence or automation processes, alongside other competing data sources, may contribute to the information available to managers. Decision makers must be able to weigh up competing information sources, as well as their intuition, to make business decisions in an uncertain environment.

✔ Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

• Apply cost classifications and cost behaviour to a range of decisions, including budgeting;
• Interpret the impact a range of transactions and events will have on financial reports;
• Develop spreadsheet models to support simple decision making in a variety of contexts;
• Apply a systems approach to facilitate decision making;
• Apply cost-benefit analysis concepts to various business decision making contexts; and
• Evaluate the impact of different sources of information on business decisions and how those decisions impact on internal and external stakeholders.