Students enrolled in Georgia Tech’s Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) program specialize in one of three tracks: analytical tools, business analytics, or computational data analytics. Lizhen Xu, associate professor of information technology management in Tech’s Scheller College of Business, leads the business analytics track.

In addition to serving in the MSA program, Xu also co-directed Scheller’s Business Analytics Center from 2019-22. He teaches Data Analytics for Business (MGT 6203), a core course for the MSA business analytics track. His class introduces students to analytical methodologies commonly used in business school research, while also exploring advanced topics such as econometrics—statistical methods employed by economists—and causal analysis.

“Causal analysis is important because we want to understand not just what happens, but why it happens: the underlying mechanism for the data we're observing. This is quite different from a pure engineering approach, which simply focuses on how to make things happen,” Xu says. The strength of the MSA program is its interdisciplinary aspect: Students take classes in engineering, business analytics, and computing, so by the time they graduate, they understand both how things work as well as why.

Named in 2022 to the Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors by Poets & Quants, Xu became interested in business analytics after realizing how useful understanding data could be for telling stories. He realized if a person can rigorously tease out the mechanism underneath the observed data, they will be able to zero in on the fundamental drivers to predict and even affect what is going to happen. Hence, Xu’s work focuses on microeconomic theories, structural econometric models, and advanced data analytics that aim to explain the subtle mechanisms behind business phenomena that are closely related to information technology and artificial intelligence.

“My research applies quantitative methodologies to real business contexts, collaborating with companies and analyzing their data to investigate questions they are interested in,” Xu says. “For example, I’ll look at consumer analytics—the consumer digital footprint—to try and understand the consumer decision-making process, and to develop suggestions for companies looking to better serve their customers and increase sales and profits. “I’m on the quantitative modeling side, developing models to analyze data, in terms of methodologies. They’re highly technical, but I’m able to explain them to our MSA students who take my classes, because I know them inside and out from my own research.”

Though an authority on business analytic methodologies, Xu acknowledges and appreciates the wealth of expertise Georgia Tech has in his many colleagues. It’s a testament to the value of professional diversity not lost on him.

“I’m able to work with many exceptional colleagues across campus: both those who have similar research interests and those who take different approaches to these problems. And that’s very inspiring, and I really enjoy it. It’s a wonderful kind of diversity,” Xu says.

The business analytics track allows students to build on the interdisciplinary core curriculum to gain a deeper practical understanding of the use of data science and analytics in business and industry, with a focus on understanding, framing, and solving problems in marketing, operations, finance, strategy, supply chain, management of information technology, human resources, accounting, etc.