Business Analytics with Excel

Introduction to Business Analytics

Engage and Think

Imagine you walk into your favorite coffee shop,

where you notice the barista pulling up sales data on
their tablet. They're using this information to decide
how many batches of your favorite seasonal drink to
prepare for the day. Based on past sales data from
similar days, they adjust ingredient orders to ensure
they meet demand without overstocking, optimizing
both cost and customer satisfaction.

How do you think the coffee shop could use data to

ensure your favorite drink is always available when
you want it without wasting resources?
 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

List the types of business analytics with real-world examples

to understand its application in different business contexts
Identify applications of business analytics to highlight its
relevance in the decision-making process
List the capabilities and features of Excel as a business
analytics tool
Introduction to Analytics
 What Is Analytics?

It is a scientific process used to examine raw data to draw meaningful and logical
conclusions. In today's data-driven world, it plays a vital role in various domains, such as:

Sports Finance

Business Government
 Study of Analytics

Analytics often involves a study of historical data to look for

the potential trends to:

Understand the effects of certain decisions

Evaluate the performance of the business

The study of historical data sets the stage for practical applications in business contexts.
 What Is Business Analytics?

It specifically focuses on interpreting and applying data-driven trends to

improve business decision-making.

Business analytics is the process

of collecting, cleaning, analyzing,
and interpreting data to identify
trends, patterns,
and insights.
Business Analytics: Example

Scenario:
The operations head of a multinational tire
company faces challenges with quality control,
noticing an uptick in production defects.
To tackle this, they need a thorough analysis of
defects categorized by unique defect codes during
manufacturing at various plants worldwide.
Data such as Operator Name, Machine, Plant
Name, and Defect Code is carefully recorded for
this purpose.
 Business Analytics: Example

Through an in-depth business analysis of defect logs, the

operations head is empowered to:

Detect Analyze Optimize

Develop a real-time dashboard Utilize analytics to track and

Apply insights to improve
to detect and categorize visualize defect trends,
quality control procedures.
defects. identifying high-risk areas.
Quick Check

Which of the following best describes the concept of

analytics for an aspiring data analyst?

A. The process of collecting large sets of data without

examining them.
B. The exclusive use of statistical methods to predict
future trends.
C. The discovery, interpretation, and communication
of meaningful patterns in data.
D. The creation of visual representations of data
without analysis.
Types of Business Analytics
 Types of Business Analytics

There are four distinct types of business analytics:

Descriptive Predictive
Explains what has happened Depicts what could happen

Diagnostic Prescriptive
Determines why it happened Talks about what should happen
Descriptive Analytics

It is known as the simplest

class of analytics.

It allows breaking a big chunk of data

into smaller pieces, extracting relevant
information from the data.

It provides a brief synopsis of what

happened.
 Descriptive Analytics: Example

It can help a telecom company identify the most popular data plan
among teenagers.

Descriptive analytics answers what has happened?

 Diagnostic Analytics

It aims to uncover the root causes of specific outcomes or trends by exploring

relationships between variables and identifying contributing factors.

It involves analyzing data to determine why certain events occurred.

 Diagnostic Analytics: Example

It can help a telecom company analyze why the latest data plan
release saw decreased sales.

Diagnostic analytics answers why did it happen?

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics help condense data.

It uses different statistical, data modeling,

and data mining techniques to study the
latest and past trends.

It allows business analysts or data

scientists to make predictions.
 Predictive Analytics: Example

It can help a telecom company forecast the potential rise in demand

for 5G services in the next quarter.

Predictive analytics answers what is likely to happen?

 Prescriptive Analytics

It improves decision-making by identifying the optimal option

among various options.

It goes beyond predicting future outcomes by also suggesting actions to benefit from the
predictions and showing the implications of each decision.
 Prescriptive Analytics: Example

It can recommend a telecom company a targeted upgrade offer

to increase retention of high-value customers.

Prescriptive analytics answers what should we do about it?

Quick Check

Which type of analytics helps a phone company decide

what special deals to offer customers, so they don't
switch to another company?
A. Predictive analytics
B. Descriptive analytics
C. Diagnostic analytics
D. Prescriptive analytics
Applications of Business Analytics
 Applications of Business Analytics

The core areas where analytics drives business success are:

Financial analytics Performance analytics

Customer analytics Risk analytics

 Financial Analytics

It is a crucial tool for driving competitive advantage by enabling deeper

financial insight and forecasting.

Explore and Forecast

It helps financial executives explore different ways to answer specific finance-related

questions and forecast future financial situations.

Greater Value

It helps investors choose the best possible investment opportunities.

Multiple Views

It helps the companies take multiple views of their data and derive insights to take the
necessary action.
 Financial Analytics: Example

In telecom, financial analytics assess profit margins and costs, guiding strategic
infrastructure investments aligned with consumer demand to enhance profitability.
 Performance Analytics

It uses data and technology to analyze business performance and identify areas for
improvement.

Plan strategies

Meet service level Pinpoint areas of

agreements Performance improvement
Analytics

Manage daily Create budgets for

operations business
 Performance Analytics: Example

It can track network uptime and signal strength, leading to data-driven maintenance and upgrades,
keeping the telecom network robust and customers consistently connected.
 Customer Analytics

It is a process that helps organizations make critical decisions and deliver

offers that are anticipated.

It allows organizations to take

necessary decisions based on
customer insights.

It uses market segmentation,

predictive analytics, data modeling,
and visualization.

It plays a pivotal role in the

prediction of customer behavior.
 Customer Analytics: Example

It leverages behavioral data to predict trends, enabling telecoms to offer timely promotions, anticipate
demand for services, and build strong customer relationships.

Platform as a
Service
 Risk Analytics

It is a crucial part of business strategy as risk management affects the success of the business.

It foresees future uncertainties to evaluate

a project’s success or failure.

It helps organizations manage and

mitigate risks.

It allows decision-makers to make wise

decisions and take corrective actions.
 Risk Analytics: Example

In telecom, risk analytics can evaluate threats ranging from network failures to cybersecurity, ensuring
proactive risk management and safeguarding both the company and its customer base.
Quick Check

is the practice of using data and

technology to study how your business is performing
to continuously make it better.
A. Performance analytics
B. Financial analytics
C. Risk analytics
D. Customer analytics
Excel
 What Is Excel?

Excel is a powerful spreadsheet software developed by Microsoft, used in various

industries for data analysis, management, and visualization.

It is extensively used for:

Business analysis Data storage

Reporting Educational purposes

 Excel Capabilities

It offers intuitive analytic

It has extensive analytic capabilities
features to model and analyze
to perform statistical analysis.
a company’s data.

It comes with an in-memory

It is the tool of choice to start
technology compatible with
your data analytics journey.
millions of bytes of data.

It has the added advantage of It performs the necessary analysis

visibility, a flat learning curve, and without being dependent on
good reporting functionalities. specialized solutions.
 Excel as a Business Analytics Tool

Enhances data analysis

Makes exploring data and
and insights with its
deriving results easy
AI capabilities

Serves as a widely
Performs powerful data
accessible BI tool for
analytics processes with
diverse organizational
few clicks
needs

Empowers robust data

analytics through
advanced functions and
formulas
Demo: Excel Walkthrough

Duration: 10 Minutes

Demonstrate how to navigate Excel using keyboard shortcuts

 Racetrack of Skills

Conditional formatting
Data cleaning and and important functions
preparation Analyzing data with pivot
table

Analytics with Excel

Dashboarding
PQ

Macros and power query

Data analysis using

statistics
Quick Check

Which of the following are Excel capabilities?

A. Performs analysis without a specialized solution

B. Generates data on its own
C. Offers intuitive analytic features
D. Distinguishes the type of analytics performs
 Guided Practice

Overview Duration: 25 minutes

The objective of this exercise is to analyze the sales data of an e-commerce store to enhance business
strategies. The focus is on identifying popular product categories and regional preferences to refine
marketing and inventory strategies.
 Key Takeaways

Analytics is a scientific process that examines raw data to draw

meaningful and logical conclusions. It is used across industries to
derive crucial business decisions.
Analytics has been divided into four different types, namely:
• Descriptive, which explains what has happened
• Diagnostic, which identifies why it did happen
• Predictive, which determines what could happen
• Prescriptive, which talks about what should happen
Business analytics can be divided into several types, such as customer
analytics, financial analytics, performance analytics, and risk analytics.
 Additional Resources

• Data analysis in Excel: The Best Guide –Simplilearn Tutorials

• Basic tasks in Excel - Microsoft Support
• Installation guide for Excel
Q&A