Quantitative Literacy for Undergraduate Business Students in the 21st Century

The current business environment is awash in vast amounts of data that ongoing transactions continually generate. Leading-edge corporations are using business analytics to achieve competitive advantage. However, educators are not adequately preparing business school students in quantitative methods to meet this challenge. For more than half a century, business schools have relied mostly on a course in calculus and a course in statistics to meet the needs of their students despite an information-based business climate that has changed significantly. The authors propose that educators prepare students in the areas of mathematical modeling and risk management and quantitative skills, teaching them in the context of meaningful business problems.