Regrettably, Professor Jayavel Sounderpandian passed away before the revision of the text commenced. He had been a consistent champion of the book, first as a loyal user and later as a productive co-author. His many contributions and contagious enthusiasm will be sorely missed. In the seventh edition of Complete Business Statistics, we focus on many improvements in the text, driven largely by recommendations from dedicated users and others who teach business statistics. In their reviews, these professors suggested ways to improve the book by maintaining the Excel feature while incorporating MINITAB, as well as by adding new content and pedagogy, and by updating the source material. Additionally, there is increased emphasis on good applications of statistics, and a wealth of excellent real-world problems has been incorporated in this edition. The book continues to attempt to instill a deep understanding of statistical methods and concepts with its readers.

The seventh edition, like its predecessors, retains its global emphasis, maintaining its position of being at the vanguard of international issues in business. The economies of countries around the world are becoming increasingly intertwined. Events in Asia and the Middle East have direct impact on Wall Street, and the Russian economy's move toward capitalism has immediate effects on Europe as well as on the United States. The publishing industry, in which large international conglomerates have acquired entire companies; the financial industry, in which stocks are now traded around the clock at markets all over the world; and the retail industry, which now offers consumer products that have been manufactured at a multitude of different locations throughout the world—all testify to the ubiquitous globalization of the world economy. A large proportion of the problems and examples in this new edition are concerned with international issues. We hope that instructors welcome this approach as it increasingly reflects that context of almost all business issues.

A number of people have contributed greatly to the development of this seventh edition and we are grateful to all of them. Major reviewers of the text are:

C. Lanier Benkard, Stanford University
Robert Fountain, Portland State University
Lewis A. Litteral, University of Richmond
Tom Page, Michigan State University
Richard Paulson, St. Cloud State University
Simchas Pollack, St. John's University
Patrick A. Thompson, University of Florida
Cindy van Es, Cornell University

We would like to thank them, as well as the authors of the supplements that have been developed to accompany the text. Lou Patille, Keller Graduate School of Management, updated the Instructor's Manual and the Student Problem Solving Guide. Alan Cannon, University of Texas–Arlington, updated the Test Bank, and Lloyd Jaisingh, Morehead State University, created data files and updated the PowerPoint Presentation Slides. P. Sundararaghavan, University of Toledo, provided an accuracy check of the page proofs. Also, a special thanks to David Doane, Ronald Tracy, and Kieran Mathieson, all of Oakland University, who permitted us to include their statistical package, Visual Statistics, on the CD-ROM that accompanies this text.

We are indebted to the dedicated personnel at McGraw-Hill/Irwin. We are thankful to Scott Isenberg, executive editor, for his strategic guidance in updating this text to its seventh edition. We appreciate the many contributions of Wanda Zeman, senior developmental editor, who managed the project well, kept the schedule on time and the cost within budget. We are thankful to the production team at McGraw-Hill /Irwin for the high-quality editing, typesetting, and printing. Special thanks are due to Saeideh Fallah Fini for her excellent work on computer applications.

Amir D. Aczel

Boston University