The text aims to provide the reader with a detailed understanding of both the role and purpose of quantitative techniques in effective management and in the process of managerial decision making. This text focuses not only on the development of appropriate skills but also on the development of an understanding as to how such techniques fit into the wider management process. Above all, such techniques are meant to be of direct, practical benefit to the managers and decision makers of all organisations. By the end of the text the reader should be able to use the techniques introduced, should have an awareness of common areas of business application and should have developed sufficient confidence and understanding to commission appropriate applications of more complex techniques and contribute to the evaluation of the results of such analysis. To assist in this each chapter includes:

• a fully worked example, usually with real data, applying each technique in a business context and evaluating the implications of the analysis for management decision making; 
• short articles from the Financial Times illustrating the use of techniques in a variety of business settings; 
• Quantitative methods in action (QMDM in Action) case studies illustrating how the techniques are used in practice.