MS-BA applied project sponsorship

The Master of Science in Business Analytics (MS-BA) program is jointly offered by the top-ranked Departments of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management in the W. P. Carey School of Business.

The on-campus MS-BA is a full-time, 9-month program featuring instruction by world class information systems, supply chain management, and marketing faculty. Students gain experience in advanced descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive data analysis methods while using the most current tools, packages, and platforms for data analysis. All MS-BA students are required to complete a 15-week industry-sponsored applied project as part of the program.

Industry clients who are interested in sponsoring a project can contact us throughout the year. We work with clients from August to November to finalize project definitions and NDAs. A client can submit more than one project proposal. Teams of 3-4 students work on the projects from January through April. Each project includes a kick-off session, weekly syncs with the client, a mid-term presentation, a final presentation, a final report, and other associated deliverables as required.

Sponsorship fee

There is no fee associated with sponsoring an applied project. We believe the applied projects are mutually beneficial, with students gaining valuable experience in applying analytics to real-world data and clients receiving valuable insights from student analysis.

Project confidentiality

We take several measures to ensure complete project confidentiality, beginning with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Additionally, while MS-BA students will need access to required data to solve the problem at hand, the client is in complete control of data security and confidentiality at all times. Clients can choose to anonymize PII data as they see fit, and restrict data access to their servers, and/or to their onsite locations.

Access to the data, analyses, discussions, and presentations related to the project is restricted at all times to the student team working on the project, the MS-BA advising faculty, and the client.

No work resulting from the project is published or shared, unless the client wishes to do so.

Intellectual property ownership

All IP, results, and deliverables resulting from the applied projects are turned over to the client, and are owned by the client.

Sponsorship requirements

Clients are required to provide:

• A problem definition for a project that can be accomplished using some form of descriptive, predictive, or prescriptive analytics by a team of 3-4 students over a 15-week period. The problem definition must include the problem statement, key deliverables, any required methods/tools, data description, and contact information for legal and project liaisons.
• Access to required data within the agreed-upon timeline to do the analysis.
• Access to any required software, tools, or platforms within the agreed-upon timeline to do the analysis.
• Access to legal liaisons who will work with the ASU legal team for the NDAs.
• Access to project liaisons who will be available throughout the project execution phase, to answer domain-related and data-related questions, as well as to provide required guidance to keep the project on track.

Sponsorship timeline

While we welcome sponsorship conversations throughout the year, the following timelines must be met in fall, for a spring start on applied projects.

Next steps

If you are interested in sponsoring an applied project, and would like more information, please contact Patrina Yang, program manager for the Center for AI and data analytics. Or, if you are ready to sponsor an applied project, please complete the MS-BA applied project sponsorship form, and email it to Patrina.Yang@asu.edu.

What our clients are saying

Ports America

Tianbing Qian, Senior Vice President & Chief Digital Information Officer, and Tracy Powers, Director of Business Intelligence and IT Governance, of Ports America discuss their experience with MS-BA Applied Projects.

City of Phoenix

Aaron Cook, Deputy City Auditor IT, and Lisa Faison, Lead Business Systems Analyst, of the City of Phoenix talk about student projects.

APL Logistics

Thomas Tran, Business Intelligence Manager, and Satish Vadlamani, Lead Logistics Engineer, from APL chat about their applied project.

Our past clients include