With Tableau, Students Help Businesses

IN HIS CLASSES, ANGELO DITILLO, AWARDED FOR INNOVATION IN TEACHING, HAS INTRODUCED TABLEAU, A PLATFORM WHICH ENABLES SOPHISTICATED DATA ANALYSIS AND HELPS COMPANIES OUTLINE THEIR STRATEGIES


A well-known (real) chain of large-scale retail stores, one with thousands of employees and multimillion-dollar turnover, must rethink its organization and its online sales strategy following the lockdown. Not that there is a lack of internal resources to do so, but a little extra help doesn't hurt. For the occasion, therefore,  the approximately 90 students of the Performance management and control systems course, directed by Angelo Ditillo as part of the MSc in Administration, Finance and Control, divided up into small groups to carry out an effective and valuable role as consultants. A fundamental experience in their education, made possible by an innovation that Ditillo, associate professor in the Bocconi Department of Accounting, introduced in his lessons, one which earned him one of the teaching innovation awards assigned by University. 

"The issue of performance measurement and control systems is increasingly complex", explains Ditillo, "also due to the enormous amount of data available today and the new data analytics and business intelligence tools we have. The problem I asked myself was how to give them a place where they can use these tools ”. Ditillo solved the problem by adopting a platform, Tableau, which transforms the way data is used to solve problems and which is also used by many companies and organizations. "Thanks to this platform, students explore data and understand how to improve company performance and in which area to intervene to do so. The case I presented in the 'courtroom' during the lockdown is a real case. The students, divided into groups, had a retailer in front of them who had to improve profitability and they had the task of identifying in which areas to intervene ”, says the teacher. “In a certain way, it is also about stimulating their critical thinking and teaching them to relate to the data itself”. 

An important aspect, in addition to practicing, is that knowledge of Tableau in good for the CV, given its frequent use by the same companies. "It is a very intuitive platform and the fact of having to work remotely did not cause any problems," explains Martina Vigoni, a student of the AFC. "I did an internship in a company, and they used Tableau themselves. If at the beginning we found ourselves a bit perplexed", continues Martina," due to the complexity of the project, now we realize the added value it represents. I now feel ready to solve real problems ”. 

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Richard Greenslade