IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orited/v25y2025i2p169-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Case Article—Prescriptive Analytics for Entrepreneurial Growth: Data-Driven Strategic Decision Making at iParty Bangkok Co., Ltd

Author

Listed:
  • Dong (Michelle) Li

    (Mathematics, Analytics, Science and Technology Division, Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02457)

  • Dessislava Pachamanova

    (Mathematics, Analytics, Science and Technology Division, Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02457)

  • Phattharanan Siricharoensang

    (iParty Bangkok Co., Ltd., Bangkok 10110, Thailand)

Abstract

This case centers around the dilemma faced by the female owner of a balloon decoration business: whether to outsource transportation of balloon arrangements to third-party providers or handle the transportation of some orders in house. The case illustrates a path to answering the strategic business question through solving a sequence of vehicle routing problems (VRPs) of increasing complexity. The focus of the case is not only on solving VRPs, but also on teaching a practical framework for (1) framing a business problem as a prescriptive analytics problem; (2) researching appropriate concepts, prior publications, and tools; (3) setting up an optimization problem formulation, estimating the necessary inputs, and obtaining a solution; (4) deciding on the appropriate level of formulation complexity needed; and (5) mapping the results from the models to a response to the original business question. Realistic data and Excel models and are provided. The case is appropriate for use in courses in optimization, operations research, and business analytics at either the advanced undergraduate or master’s/MBA level.

Suggested Citation

  • Dong (Michelle) Li & Dessislava Pachamanova & Phattharanan Siricharoensang, 2025. "Case Article—Prescriptive Analytics for Entrepreneurial Growth: Data-Driven Strategic Decision Making at iParty Bangkok Co., Ltd," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 169-174, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orited:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:169-174
    DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0028ca
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0028ca
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/ited.2023.0028ca?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orited:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:169-174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.