Background: Business intelligence is an umbrella term for various types of data analytics involving online analytical processing $($OLAP$),$ statistical data mining, and artificial intelligence. OLAP software is often used for descriptive analytics that depict past performance and history to answer: $$What happened?$$ OLAP systems usually have interactive dashboards that allow users to drill down and summarize the data for different types of comparisons and analyses. Diagnostic analytics often use statistical data mining to attempt to determine the reason for a particular outcome to answer: $$Why did it happen?$$ Predictive analytics can use statistical projections from past data patterns combined with current information to predict: $$What is likely to happen?$$ Prescriptive analytics can use simulations to examine various variables leading to different scenarios to determine: $$What should we do$?$ Artificial intelligence $($AI$)$ systems can identify patterns in the data that are useful for descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics.$$

Discussion: The purpose of this discussion is to provide examples of descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics for the company you chose in Week $1$ and to explain how data analytics can improve tactical and strategic decision$-$making.

Use the business you chose in Week $1$ for this discussion board. If the company is publicly traded on the U$.$S$.$ stock market, use its latest annual earnings report to create some descriptive analytics that compare actual numerical data from the annual report to analyze past performance. If your company is not publicly traded, use information from the latest annual letter issued by the president or CEO. Interpret what the comparison you depicted reveals about the business.

Provide an example of diagnostic analytics that is specific to your company. $($You do not have to include actual data.$)$ Identify whether this particular analysis would impact operational, tactical, or strategic decision$-$making.

Using an example of predictive analytics for your company, determine how these analytics could impact specific business decisions.$$

Describe a type of prescriptive analytics that helps your company choose between alternative courses of action.$$

Include in$-$text citations in your posting and provide references in APA format at the end. Ensure you include a link to the data source for your descriptive analytics.

Target is the company i chose week $1.$