MBAs: the importance of teaching data visualization to future decision makers

Data visualization applications span numerous domains and have the potential to increase transparency and improve decision-making. But what exactly is data visualization?

What is data visualization?

Data visualization is the graphical representation of data to communicate information effectively and intuitively. It involves transforming raw data into visual formats such as charts, graphs, maps, and infographics. By visually encoding massive amounts of data, complex patterns, trends, and insights can be quickly understood, enabling informed decision-making and facilitating better comprehension of information.

Why is teaching data visualization important?

Put simply, data visualization helps people better understand data, no matter their level of expertise. Helping people better understand will help them make data-driven decisions. By visualizing complex data, it becomes easier to understand and communicate information to a wider audience, including policymakers and the general public. This facilitates informed discussions, promotes data literacy, and empowers individuals to participate in important societal debates.

Decision-makers need to be able to analyse huge amounts of data and make impactful decisions. From business analytics to scientific research, visualizing data helps identify correlations, and emerging patterns, enabling organisations to make data-driven decisions more efficiently. Data visualization can therefore play a crucial role in areas such as public health, disaster response, and environmental conservation.

Learning about data visualization is also important to be aware of its potential shortcomings because data visualization is only as good as the data used and the person interpreting its graphic representation. Biased or inaccurate information can lead to misinterpretation, core messages can be oversimplified or even overlooked. Deeper analysis of graphs and charts might also be necessary to ensure whether you are looking at causation or merely correlation.

How does EDHEC’s Global MBA teach data visualization?

EDHEC’s Global MBA is highly personalisable and includes multiple electives and specialisation options for example a Digital Innovation Track. A whole elective module is dedicated to data visualization not least because there is “a growing demand for data skills in the job market. Numerous recruiters in the Consulting, Digital Marketing and Finance fields point out to us that the leaders of tomorrow have to understand data.” emphasized Sandra Richez, Global MBA Programme Director.

Learn more about EDHEC's Global MBA

In the Data Visualization elective, participants will be confronted with large amounts of data and the challenge of dealing with it. The course teaches them to understand, apply and practice the main approaches to data-driven decision-making using cutting-edge tools for data visualization. MBAs are encouraged to participate in the annual Student Dataviz Challenge to put their newly learned data visualisation skills into practice. “Prof. Fornes taught us not only data visualization techniques, but also best practices. The key concept he instilled in us was the need to invest more time in thoughtful planning of our visualizations and data, rather than solely focusing on the technical aspects.” said Aleksandr Nalepkov, Global MBA participant and one of the three winners of this year’s challenge.

Putting theory into practice for a good cause: the European Dataviz Challenge

Teaming up with Unicef, Tableau and Mazars, EDHEC organizes the yearly European Dataviz Challenge, designed to promote the importance of data visualization, encourage the development of data-based decision making in future leaders.  

This year, students from 16 top European business schools and universities harnessed the power of data visualization including Católica Lisbon, Dublin City University, INSEAD, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Hamburg, and EDHEC Business School to support Unicef’s mission.

The top 10 entries are selected by the judging panel and pitch their projects in the final to win a range of prizes including the opportunity to interview with UNICEF for an internship. Judging criteria for the data visualizations are creativity, design, analytical depth, and an overall score.

Data visualization to support Unicef’s mission

For the 2023 edition of the Student Dataviz Challenge, participants prepared vizzes to show educational trends, child mortality, water scarcity and more. Their works can be viewed on the Tableau Public website.

EDHEC Global MBA participant  Aleksandr Nalepkov, who scored an impressive second place among the ten finalists, used Unicef’s data and the Tableau data visualization tool to give deeper insight into child mortality after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

According to Aleksandr, complementary courses he enjoyed over the past year during the Global MBA programme at EHDEC, in addition to what he learned in the data visualization elective, lead him to victory. He said: “I was happy to score the second place. In addition to our data visualization teacher, I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Daly, who provided us with presentation skills, and Bertrand Petyt, who dedicated three hours to teaching us storytelling techniques. The ideas shared by Prof. Daly and Mr. Petyt were further expanded upon by my colleague Ashwin Nair, who not only led extracurricular activities on storytelling but also provided me with essential tips for delivering my pitch. Considering I wasn't initially in the top ten, I believe that my presentation had a positive impact”.