A Framework for Evaluating the Business Analytics Maturity of University Programmes

The impact that business analytics (BA) has on companies’ performance will cause, in the near future, a significant increase in the demand for specialists in the field. Universities will play an important role in covering the deficit of professionals already reported by companies, provided that their offer is tailored to real market demands and their students are prepared to acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills. This paper proposes a framework for assessing the maturity level of BA in economic university programmes, based on the knowledge and technical skills needed by BA professionals. This maturity framework is applied to Romanian economic study programs to assess their analytical level and to identify their possible development directions. The educational programmes offer is then confronted with the real demand on the Romanian labour market, highlighting the types of jobs needed in the BA field and the related requirements for each of the analytical levels of the proposed model.