Introduction
Remember Sherlock Holmes? the great detective who often goes on adventures gathering ancient artifacts, piece together clues, and solve puzzles to reveal truth. Likewise, analysts play the role of detectives by embarking on their quest of analyzing customer data, identifying trends, and finding what the audience desires.
Businesses rely on data to analyze their market performance, much like detectives rely on clues. This data can be gathered from various sources, such as customer interactions, websites, and other data sources. Business analytics uses data to investigate the performance of businesses by generating insights and data-driven decisions.
Responsibilities of Business Intelligence Analyst
Investigation of past data to produce insights
Analyzing business problems and managing business intelligence
Designing, developing, testing, and deploying dashboards
Visualization of KPIs
Collaborating with teams
We use four types of analytics to solve various business problems. These are:
Descriptive: To describe the present and past data
Diagnostic: To answer why something happened
Predictive: To predict or forecast the unknown
Prescriptive: To maximize or minimize an already determined objective
(We will understand them in more detail in another blog)
Which analytics to use when?👇🏻
| Type of Analytics | Questions Answered |
| Descriptive | What happened? How many? How often? |
| Diagnostic | Why did it happen? |
| Predictive | What could happen? What will happen next? |
| Prescriptive | What is the best outcome? What if? |
Project management in Business Analytics!
A project is a time-limited effort that is aimed at producing a result (product, service, etc.). As a business analyst, we handle various projects such as developing web dashboards, improving solutions, forecasting, building strategies, etc. We often work in a team under a project manager but might need to take on both roles in smaller projects. Understanding project management is important for freshers or novices in business analytics to ensure project success.
The Project Charter for Business Analytics Projects
A project charter is a brief document that outlines the project's initiation; it helps in project planning and resource allocation. The main purposes of a project charter are to authorize the project, secure the sponsor's commitment, align the project with the company's objectives, and provide a clear understanding of the project.
| Project Charter Component | Description | Business Analytics Example |
| Introduction | Briefly answers "What is the project?" Includes project name, sponsor name, and business analyst name. | The purpose of this project is to forecast produce sales for next year for a local farmer. |
| Opportunity | Describes why the project is being done and the expected benefit. | The project helps the farmer determine how much of each crop to grow to meet demand without excess stock. |
| Goals | Project goals using the S.M.A.R.T. criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-based. | 1. Expand produce tent to two other locations by April 1. 2. Increase profits by 15% by May 1. 3. Reduce wasted produce by 50% by end of year. |
| Scope | Defines the end result of the project and the actions needed to achieve it. | Identify best-selling produce to grow and determine quantities to meet the farm's annual goals. |
| Business Case | Justifies the project from a business perspective, including data on market demand, social need, etc. | Market demand: The city's population grew by 10% in the last 6 months; the farm ran out of produce too early last year. |
| Constraints | Factors that could impact project completion such as time, budget, and resources. | Schedule: Completion needed by Q3 for seed purchasing. Resources: One business analyst available. |
| Assumptions | Educated guesses about aspects of the project not yet confirmed. | Weather patterns next year will be similar to this year. |
| Deliverables | Known characteristics of what will be delivered. | A list of seeds and their quantities for purchase. |
| Sponsor Signature and Date | Indicates the sponsor's commitment and agreement to the project details. |
Need of data literacy
Business analytics projects demand data literacy to make sure that people are able to understand and use a significant amount of the raw information provided. Professionals are often dealing with large datasets and complex analytics in these projects. Data literacy allows members of the team to work with data, identify patterns in that body of information, and derive action from what is found. This is beneficial not just in making the analysis more accurate but also in being able to convey findings within an understandable language for stakeholders. If built with data language barriers, (even) sophisticated analytics tools and methodologies can address the wrong hypotheses, nullifying a project's intrinsic worth and strategic significance.
In addition, data literacy nurtures a culture of making decisions based on knowledge in organizations. Data-literate team members can verify the accuracy and integrity of data, question assumptions, and back up their recommendations with evidence. As a result, projects yield more impactful outcomes and expand business capabilities by supporting them with solid data as opposed to additional speculation or gut instincts. Put simply, data literacy is what links an analyst from raw data to business insights and is therefore a fundamental skill in business analytics.
To learn about data literacy checkout👉🏻 https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/data-literacy-basics?trail_id=build-your-data-literacy