Data Analysis:

Most companies are collecting loads of data all the time but in its raw form, this data doesn’t really mean
anything. This is where data analytics comes in.
Data analytics is the process of analyzing raw data in order to draw out meaningful, actionable insights,
which are then used to inform and drive smart business decisions.
 This helps to reduce the risks inherent in decision-making by providing useful insights and statistics, often
presented in charts, images, tables, and graphs.

Example
A simple example of data analysis can be seen whenever we make a decision in our daily lives by evaluating
what has happened in the past or what will happen if we make that decision. Basically, this is the process of
analyzing the past or future and making a decision based on that analysis.

Data Analysis in Business

With the insights drawn from the data, businesses and organizations are able to develop a much deeper
understanding of their audience, their industry, and their company as a whole and, as a result, are much
better equipped to make decisions and plan ahead.
You can think of data analytics as a form of business intelligence, used to solve specific problems and
challenges within an organization. It’s all about finding patterns in a dataset which can tell you something
useful and relevant about a particular area of the business—how certain customer groups behave, for
example, or how employees engage with a particular tool.
Data analytics helps you to make sense of the past and to predict future trends and behaviors; rather than
basing your decisions and strategies on guesswork, you’re making informed choices based on what the data
is telling you.

Data Analysis uses:

Why Is Data Analysis Important?
Before we go into detail about the categories of analysis along with its methods and
techniques, you must understand the potential that analyzing data can bring to your
organization.
Informed decision-making: From a management perspective, you can benefit from
analyzing your data as it helps you make decisions based on facts and not simple intuition.
For instance, you can understand where to invest your capital, detect growth opportunities,
predict your income, or tackle uncommon situations before they become problems. Through
this, you can extract relevant insights from all areas in your organization, and with the help
of dashboard software, present the data in a professional and interactive way to different
stakeholders.
Reduce costs: Another great benefit is to reduce costs. With the help of advanced
technologies such as predictive analytics, businesses can spot improvement opportunities,
trends, and patterns in their data and plan their strategies accordingly. In time, this will help
you save money and resources on implementing the wrong strategies. And not just that, by
predicting different scenarios such as sales and demand you can also anticipate production
and supply. 
Target customers better: Customers are arguably the most crucial element in any business.
By using analytics to get a 360° vision of all aspects related to your customers, you can
understand which channels they use to communicate with you, their demographics, interests,
habits, purchasing behaviors, and more. In the long run, it will drive success to your
marketing strategies, allow you to identify new potential customers, and avoid wasting
resources on targeting the wrong people or sending the wrong message. You can also track
customer satisfaction by analyzing your client’s reviews or your customer service
department’s performance.
Decision-Making: Data analysis supports informed decision-making by providing evidence-
based insights.
Business Intelligence: It helps businesses gain a competitive edge by understanding customer
behavior, market trends, and operational efficiencies.
Research: Data analysis is crucial in scientific research to validate hypotheses, analyze
experimental results, and draw conclusions.
Risk Assessment: It helps identify risks, anticipate potential issues, and develop strategies
for risk mitigation.
Performance Evaluation: Data analysis assesses performance metrics, identifies areas for
improvement, and measures success.
Extracting Insights: Data analysis uncovers patterns, relationships, and trends hidden within
the data.
Decision Support: It provides information and insights to support informed decision-making.
Problem Solving: Data analysis helps identify problems, diagnose root causes, and develop
solutions.
Communication: It enables effective communication of findings and insights to stakeholders.
Importance of Data Analysis:
Evidence-Based Decision-Making: Data analysis reduces reliance on assumptions and
intuition by providing objective insights based on data.
Improved Efficiency: It helps optimize processes, identify inefficiencies, and enhance
productivity.
Competitive Advantage: Data analysis can uncover unique insights and trends that provide a
competitive edge.
Risk Management: By analyzing data, potential risks can be identified and mitigated
proactively.
Types of data analysis:
Types of Data Analysis:
Descriptive Analysis: Summarizes and describes the main characteristics of data.
Inferential Analysis: Makes inferences and predictions about a population based on a sample.
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA): Investigates data patterns, relationships, and outliers.
Predictive Analysis: Builds models to predict future outcomes based on historical data.
Prescriptive Analysis: Recommends actions or interventions to optimize outcomes.
Diagnostic Analysis: Identifies the causes or factors contributing to a specific outcome or
problem.
Types of Data Analysis
A half-dozen popular types of data analysis are available today, commonly employed in the
worlds of technology and business. They are: 
Descriptive Analysis
Descriptive analysis involves summarizing and describing the main features of a dataset. It
focuses on organizing and presenting the data in a meaningful way, often using measures
such as mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. It provides an overview of the data and
helps identify patterns or trends.
Inferential Analysis
Inferential analysis aims to make inferences or predictions about a larger population based
on sample data. It involves applying statistical techniques such as hypothesis testing,
confidence intervals, and regression analysis. It helps generalize findings from a sample to a
larger population.
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
EDA focuses on exploring and understanding the data without preconceived hypotheses. It
involves visualizations, summary statistics, and data profiling techniques to uncover patterns,
relationships, and interesting features. It helps generate hypotheses for further analysis.
Diagnostic Analysis
Diagnostic analysis aims to understand the cause-and-effect relationships within the data. It
investigates the factors or variables that contribute to specific outcomes or behaviors.
Techniques such as regression analysis, ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), or correlation
analysis are commonly used in diagnostic analysis.
Predictive Analysis
Predictive analysis involves using historical data to make predictions or forecasts about
future outcomes. It utilizes statistical modeling techniques, machine learning algorithms, and
time series analysis to identify patterns and build predictive models. It is often used for
forecasting sales, predicting customer behavior, or estimating risk.
Prescriptive Analysis
Prescriptive analysis goes beyond predictive analysis by recommending actions or decisions
based on the predictions. It combines historical data, optimization algorithms, and business
rules to provide actionable insights and optimize outcomes. It helps in decision-making and
resource allocation.
Descriptive analytics
Descriptive analytics is a simple, surface-level type of analysis that looks at what has
happened in the past. The two main techniques used in descriptive analytics are data
aggregation and data mining—so, the data analyst first gathers the data and presents it in a
summarized format (that’s the aggregation part) and then “mines” the data to discover
patterns.
The data is then presented in a way that can be easily understood by a wide audience (not
just data experts). It’s important to note that descriptive analytics doesn’t try to explain the
historical data or establish cause-and-effect relationships; at this stage, it’s simply a case of
determining and describing the “what”. Descriptive analytics draws on the concept of
descriptive statistics.
Diagnostic analytics
While descriptive analytics looks at the “what”, diagnostic analytics explores the “why”.
When running diagnostic analytics, data analysts will first seek to identify anomalies within
the data—that is, anything that cannot be explained by the data in front of them. For
example: If the data shows that there was a sudden drop in sales for the month of March, the
data analyst will need to investigate the cause.
To do this, they’ll embark on what’s known as the discovery phase, identifying any
additional data sources that might tell them more about why such anomalies arose. Finally,
the data analyst will try to uncover causal relationships—for example, looking at any events
that may correlate or correspond with the decrease in sales. At this stage, data analysts may
use probability theory, regression analysis, filtering, and time-series data analytics.
Learn more in our guide to diagnostic analytics.
Predictive analytics
Just as the name suggests, predictive analytics tries to predict what is likely to happen in
the future. This is where data analysts start to come up with actionable, data-driven insights
that the company can use to inform their next steps.
Predictive analytics estimates the likelihood of a future outcome based on historical data and
probability theory, and while it can never be completely accurate, it does eliminate much of
the guesswork from key business decisions.
Predictive analytics can be used to forecast all sorts of outcomes—from what products will
be most popular at a certain time, to how much the company revenue is likely to increase or
decrease in a given period. Ultimately, predictive analytics is used to increase the business’s
chances of “hitting the mark” and taking the most appropriate action.
Learn more about this in our full guide to predictive analytics.
Prescriptive analytics
Building on predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics advises on the actions and
decisions that should be taken.
In other words, prescriptive analytics shows you how you can take advantage of the
outcomes that have been predicted. When conducting prescriptive analysis, data analysts will
consider a range of possible scenarios and assess the different actions the company might
take.
Prescriptive analytics is one of the more complex types of analysis, and may involve
working with algorithms, machine learning, and computational modeling procedures.
However, the effective use of prescriptive analytics can have a huge impact on the
company’s decision-making process and, ultimately, on the bottom line.
The type of analysis you carry out will also depend on the kind of data you’re working with.
If you’re not already familiar, it’s worth learning about the four levels of data
measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
. What is the typical process that a data analyst will follow?
Step 1: Define the question(s) you want to answer
The first step is to identify why you are conducting analysis and what question or
challenge you hope to solve. At this stage, you’ll take a clearly defined problem and come
up with a relevant question or hypothesis you can test. You’ll then need to identify what
kinds of data you’ll need and where it will come from.
For example: A potential business problem might be that customers aren’t subscribing to a
paid membership after their free trial ends. Your research question could then be “What
strategies can we use to boost customer retention?”
Step 2: Collect the data
With a clear question in mind, you’re ready to start collecting your data. Data analysts will
usually gather structured data from primary or internal sources, such as CRM software or
email marketing tools.
They may also turn to secondary or external sources, such as open data sources. These
include government portals, tools like Google Trends, and data published by major
organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
Step 3: Clean the data
Once you’ve collected your data, you need to get it ready for analysis—and this
means thoroughly cleaning your dataset. Your original dataset may contain duplicates,
anomalies, or missing data which could distort how the data is interpreted, so these all need
to be removed. Data cleaning can be a time-consuming task, but it’s crucial for obtaining
accurate results.
Step 4: Analyze the data
Now for the actual analysis! How you analyze the data will depend on the question you’re
asking and the kind of data you’re working with, but some common techniques include
regression analysis, cluster analysis, and time-series analysis (to name just a few).
We’ll go over some of these techniques in the next section. This step in the process also ties
in with the four different types of analysis we looked at in section three (descriptive,
diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive).
Step 5: Visualize and share your findings
This final step in the process is where data is transformed into valuable business insights.
Depending on the type of analysis conducted, you’ll present your findings in a way that
others can understand—in the form of a chart or graph, for example.
At this stage, you’ll demonstrate what the data analysis tells you in regards to your initial
question or business challenge, and collaborate with key stakeholders on how to move
forwards. This is also a good time to highlight any limitations to your data analysis and to
consider what further analysis might be conducted.
Main Data Analysis Method and Techniques:
A. Quantitative Methods 
To put it simply, quantitative analysis refers to all methods that use numerical data or data
that can be turned into numbers (e.g. category variables like gender, age, etc.) to extract
valuable insights. It is used to extract valuable conclusions about relationships, differences,
and test hypotheses. Below we discuss some of the key quantitative methods. 
1. Cluster analysis
The action of grouping a set of data elements in a way that said elements are more similar (in
a particular sense) to each other than to those in other groups – hence the term ‘cluster.’
Since there is no target variable when clustering, the method is often used to find hidden
patterns in the data. The approach is also used to provide additional context to a trend or
dataset.
Let's look at it from an organizational perspective. In a perfect world, marketers would be
able to analyze each customer separately and give them the best-personalized service, but
let's face it, with a large customer base, it is timely impossible to do that. That's where
clustering comes in. By grouping customers into clusters based on demographics, purchasing
behaviors, monetary value, or any other factor that might be relevant for your company, you
will be able to immediately optimize your efforts and give your customers the best
experience based on their needs.
2. Cohort analysis
This type of data analysis approach uses historical data to examine and compare a
determined segment of users' behavior, which can then be grouped with others with similar
characteristics. By using this methodology, it's possible to gain a wealth of insight into
consumer needs or a firm understanding of a broader target group.
Cohort analysis can be really useful for performing analysis in marketing as it will allow you
to understand the impact of your campaigns on specific groups of customers. To exemplify,
imagine you send an email campaign encouraging customers to sign up for your site. For
this, you create two versions of the campaign with different designs, CTAs, and ad content.
Later on, you can use cohort analysis to track the performance of the campaign for a longer
period of time and understand which type of content is driving your customers to sign up,
repurchase, or engage in other ways.  
A useful tool to start performing cohort analysis method is Google Analytics. You can learn
more about the benefits and limitations of using cohorts in GA in this useful guide. In the
bottom image, you see an example of how you visualize a cohort in this tool. The segments
(devices traffic) are divided into date cohorts (usage of devices) and then analyzed week by
week to extract insights into performance.
3. Regression analysis
Regression uses historical data to understand how a dependent variable's value is affected
when one (linear regression) or more independent variables (multiple regression) change or
stay the same. By understanding each variable's relationship and how it developed in the
past, you can anticipate possible outcomes and make better decisions in the future.
Let's bring it down with an example. Imagine you did a regression analysis of your sales in
2019 and discovered that variables like product quality, store design, customer service,
marketing campaigns, and sales channels affected the overall result. Now you want to use
regression to analyze which of these variables changed or if any new ones appeared during
2020. For example, you couldn’t sell as much in your physical store due to COVID
lockdowns. Therefore, your sales could’ve either dropped in general or increased in your
online channels. Through this, you can understand which independent variables affected the
overall performance of your dependent variable, annual sales.
If you want to go deeper into this type of analysis, check out this article and learn more about
how you can benefit from regression.
4. Neural networks
The neural network forms the basis for the intelligent algorithms of machine learning. It is a
form of analytics that attempts, with minimal intervention, to understand how the human
brain would generate insights and predict values. Neural networks learn from each and every
data transaction, meaning that they evolve and advance over time.
A typical area of application for neural networks is predictive analytics. There are BI
reporting tools that have this feature implemented within them, such as the Predictive
Analytics Tool from datapine. This tool enables users to quickly and easily generate all kinds
of predictions. All you have to do is select the data to be processed based on your KPIs, and
the software automatically calculates forecasts based on historical and current data. Thanks
to its user-friendly interface, anyone in your organization can manage it; there’s no need to
be an advanced scientist. 
Here is an example of how you can use the predictive analysis tool from datapine:

5. Factor analysis
The factor analysis also called “dimension reduction” is a type of data analysis used to
describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower
number of unobserved variables called factors. The aim here is to uncover independent latent
variables, an ideal method for streamlining specific segments.
A good way to understand this data analysis method is a customer evaluation of a product.
The initial assessment is based on different variables like color, shape, wearability, current
trends, materials, comfort, the place where they bought the product, and frequency of usage.
Like this, the list can be endless, depending on what you want to track. In this case, factor
analysis comes into the picture by summarizing all of these variables into homogenous
groups, for example, by grouping the variables color, materials, quality, and trends into a
brother latent variable of design.
If you want to start analyzing data using factor analysis we recommend you take a look at
this practical guide from UCLA.
6. Data mining
A method of data analysis that is the umbrella term for engineering metrics and insights for
additional value, direction, and context. By using exploratory statistical evaluation, data
mining aims to identify dependencies, relations, patterns, and trends to generate advanced
knowledge.  When considering how to analyze data, adopting a data mining mindset is
essential to success - as such, it’s an area that is worth exploring in greater detail.
An excellent use case of data mining is datapine intelligent data alerts. With the help of
artificial intelligence and machine learning, they provide automated signals based on
particular commands or occurrences within a dataset. For example, if you’re
monitoring supply chain KPIs, you could set an intelligent alarm to trigger when invalid or
low-quality data appears. By doing so, you will be able to drill down deep into the issue and
fix it swiftly and effectively.
In the following picture, you can see how the intelligent alarms from datapine work. By
setting up ranges on daily orders, sessions, and revenues, the alarms will notify you if the
goal was not completed or if it exceeded expectations.
7. Time series analysis
As its name suggests, time series analysis is used to analyze a set of data points collected
over a specified period of time. Although analysts use this method to monitor the data points
in a specific interval of time rather than just monitoring them intermittently, the time series
analysis is not uniquely used for the purpose of collecting data over time. Instead, it allows
researchers to understand if variables changed during the duration of the study, how the
different variables are dependent, and how did it reach the end result. 
In a business context, this method is used to understand the causes of different trends and
patterns to extract valuable insights. Another way of using this method is with the help of
time series forecasting. Powered by predictive technologies, businesses can analyze various
data sets over a period of time and forecast different future events. 
A great use case to put time series analysis into perspective is seasonality effects on sales. By
using time series forecasting to analyze sales data of a specific product over time, you can
understand if sales rise over a specific period of time (e.g. swimwear during summertime, or
candy during Halloween). These insights allow you to predict demand and prepare
production accordingly.  
8. Decision Trees 
The decision tree analysis aims to act as a support tool to make smart and strategic decisions.
By visually displaying potential outcomes, consequences, and costs in a tree-like model,
researchers and company users can easily evaluate all factors involved and choose the best
course of action. Decision trees are helpful to analyze quantitative data and they allow for an
improved decision-making process by helping you spot improvement opportunities, reduce
costs, and enhance operational efficiency and production.
But how does a decision tree actually works? This method works like a flowchart that starts
with the main decision that you need to make and branches out based on the different
outcomes and consequences of each decision. Each outcome will outline its own
consequences, costs, and gains and, at the end of the analysis, you can compare each of them
and make the smartest decision. 
Businesses can use them to understand which project is more cost-effective and will bring
more earnings in the long run. For example, imagine you need to decide if you want to
update your software app or build a new app entirely.  Here you would compare the total
costs, the time needed to be invested, potential revenue, and any other factor that might
affect your decision.  In the end, you would be able to see which of these two options is more
realistic and attainable for your company or research.
9. Conjoint analysis 
Last but not least, we have the conjoint analysis. This approach is usually used in surveys to
understand how individuals value different attributes of a product or service and it is one of
the most effective methods to extract consumer preferences. When it comes to purchasing,
some clients might be more price-focused, others more features-focused, and others might
have a sustainable focus. Whatever your customer's preferences are, you can find them with
conjoint analysis. Through this, companies can define pricing strategies, packaging options,
subscription packages, and more. 
A great example of conjoint analysis is in marketing and sales. For instance, a cupcake brand
might use conjoint analysis and find that its clients prefer gluten-free options and cupcakes
with healthier toppings over super sugary ones. Thus, the cupcake brand can turn these
insights into advertisements and promotions to increase sales of this particular type of
product. And not just that, conjoint analysis can also help businesses segment their
customers based on their interests. This allows them to send different messaging that will
bring value to each of the segments. 
10. Correspondence Analysis
Also known as reciprocal averaging, correspondence analysis is a method used to analyze
the relationship between categorical variables presented within a contingency table. A
contingency table is a table that displays two (simple correspondence analysis) or more
(multiple correspondence analysis) categorical variables across rows and columns that show
the distribution of the data, which is usually answers to a survey or questionnaire on a
specific topic. 
This method starts by calculating an “expected value” which is done by multiplying row and
column averages and dividing it by the overall original value of the specific table cell. The
“expected value” is then subtracted from the original value resulting in a “residual number”
which is what allows you to extract conclusions about relationships and distribution. The
results of this analysis are later displayed using a map that represents the relationship
between the different values. The closest two values are in the map, the bigger the
relationship. Let’s put it into perspective with an example. 
Imagine you are carrying out a market research analysis about outdoor clothing brands and
how they are perceived by the public. For this analysis, you ask a group of people to match
each brand with a certain attribute which can be durability, innovation, quality materials, etc.
When calculating the residual numbers, you can see that brand A has a positive residual for
innovation but a negative one for durability. This means that brand A is not positioned as a
durable brand in the market, something that competitors could take advantage of. 
11. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS)
MDS is a method used to observe the similarities or disparities between objects which can be
colors, brands, people, geographical coordinates, and more. The objects are plotted using an
“MDS map” that positions similar objects together and disparate ones far apart. The (dis)
similarities between objects are represented using one or more dimensions that can be
observed using a numerical scale. For example, if you want to know how people feel about
the COVID-19 vaccine, you can use 1 for “don’t believe in the vaccine at all”  and 10 for
“firmly believe in the vaccine” and a scale of 2 to 9 for in between responses.  When
analyzing an MDS map the only thing that matters is the distance between the objects, the
orientation of the dimensions is arbitrary and has no meaning at all. 
Multidimensional scaling is a valuable technique for market research, especially when it
comes to evaluating product or brand positioning. For instance, if a cupcake brand wants to
know how they are positioned compared to competitors, it can define 2-3 dimensions such as
taste, ingredients, shopping experience, or more, and do a multidimensional scaling analysis
to find improvement opportunities as well as areas in which competitors are currently
leading. 
Another business example is in procurement when deciding on different suppliers. Decision
makers can generate an MDS map to see how the different prices, delivery times, technical
services, and more of the different suppliers differ and pick the one that suits their needs the
best. 
A final example proposed by a research paper on "An Improved Study of Multilevel
Semantic Network Visualization for Analyzing Sentiment Word of Movie Review Data".
Researchers picked a two-dimensional MDS map to display the distances and relationships
between different sentiments in movie reviews. They used 36 sentiment words and
distributed them based on their emotional distance as we can see in the image below where
the words "outraged" and "sweet" are on opposite sides of the map, marking the distance
between the two emotions very clearly.
B. Qualitative Methods
Qualitative data analysis methods are defined as the observation of non-numerical data that
is gathered and produced using methods of observation such as interviews, focus groups,
questionnaires, and more. As opposed to quantitative methods, qualitative data is more
subjective and highly valuable in analyzing customer retention and product development.
12. Text analysis
Text analysis, also known in the industry as text mining, works by taking large sets of textual
data and arranging them in a way that makes it easier to manage. By working through this
cleansing process in stringent detail, you will be able to extract the data that is truly relevant
to your organization and use it to develop actionable insights that will propel you forward.
Modern software accelerate the application of text analytics. Thanks to the combination of
machine learning and intelligent algorithms, you can perform advanced analytical processes
such as sentiment analysis. This technique allows you to understand the intentions and
emotions of a text, for example, if it's positive, negative, or neutral, and then give it a score
depending on certain factors and categories that are relevant to your brand. Sentiment
analysis is often used to monitor brand and product reputation and to understand how
successful your customer experience is. To learn more about the topic check out this
insightful article.
By analyzing data from various word-based sources, including product reviews, articles,
social media communications, and survey responses, you will gain invaluable insights into
your audience, as well as their needs, preferences, and pain points. This will allow you to
create campaigns, services, and communications that meet your prospects’ needs on a
personal level, growing your audience while boosting customer retention. There are various
other “sub-methods” that are an extension of text analysis. Each of them serves a more
specific purpose and we will look at them in detail next. 
13. Content Analysis
This is a straightforward and very popular method that examines the presence and frequency
of certain words, concepts, and subjects in different content formats such as text, image,
audio, or video. For example, the number of times the name of a celebrity is mentioned on
social media or online tabloids. It does this by coding text data that is later categorized and
tabulated in a way that can provide valuable insights, making it the perfect mix of
quantitative and qualitative analysis.
There are two types of content analysis. The first one is the conceptual analysis which
focuses on explicit data, for instance, the number of times a concept or word is mentioned in
a piece of content. The second one is relational analysis, which focuses on the relationship
between different concepts or words and how they are connected within a specific context. 
Content analysis is often used by marketers to measure brand reputation and customer
behavior. For example, by analyzing customer reviews. It can also be used to analyze
customer interviews and find directions for new product development. It is also important to
note, that in order to extract the maximum potential out of this analysis method, it is
necessary to have a clearly defined research question. 
14. Thematic Analysis
Very similar to content analysis, thematic analysis also helps in identifying and interpreting
patterns in qualitative data with the main difference being that the first one can also be
applied to quantitative analysis. The thematic method analyzes large pieces of text data such
as focus group transcripts or interviews and groups them into themes or categories that come
up frequently within the text. It is a great method when trying to figure out peoples view’s
and opinions about a certain topic. For example, if you are a brand that cares about
sustainability, you can do a survey of your customers to analyze their views and opinions
about sustainability and how they apply it to their lives. You can also analyze customer
service calls transcripts to find common issues and improve your service. 
Thematic analysis is a very subjective technique that relies on the researcher’s judgment.
Therefore,  to avoid biases, it has 6 steps that include familiarization, coding, generating
themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and writing up. It is also important
to note that, because it is a flexible approach, the data can be interpreted in multiple ways
and it can be hard to select what data is more important to emphasize. 
15. Narrative Analysis 
A bit more complex in nature than the two previous ones, narrative analysis is used to
explore the meaning behind the stories that people tell and most importantly, how they tell
them. By looking into the words that people use to describe a situation you can extract
valuable conclusions about their perspective on a specific topic. Common sources for
narrative data include autobiographies, family stories, opinion pieces, and testimonials,
among others. 
From a business perspective, narrative analysis can be useful to analyze customer behaviors
and feelings towards a specific product, service, feature, or others. It provides unique and
deep insights that can be extremely valuable. However, it has some drawbacks.  
The biggest weakness of this method is that the sample sizes are usually very small due to
the complexity and time-consuming nature of the collection of narrative data. Plus, the way a
subject tells a story will be significantly influenced by his or her specific experiences,
making it very hard to replicate in a subsequent study. 
16. Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is used to understand the meaning behind any type of written, verbal, or
symbolic discourse based on its political, social, or cultural context. It mixes the analysis of
languages and situations together. This means that the way the content is constructed and the
meaning behind it is significantly influenced by the culture and society it takes place in. For
example, if you are analyzing political speeches you need to consider different context
elements such as the politician's background, the current political context of the country, the
audience to which the speech is directed, and so on. 
From a business point of view, discourse analysis is a great market research tool. It allows
marketers to understand how the norms and ideas of the specific market work and how their
customers relate to those ideas. It can be very useful to build a brand mission or develop a
unique tone of voice. 
17. Grounded Theory Analysis
Traditionally, researchers decide on a method and hypothesis and start to collect the data to
prove that hypothesis. The grounded theory is the only method that doesn’t require an initial
research question or hypothesis as its value lies in the generation of new theories. With the
grounded theory method, you can go into the analysis process with an open mind and
explore the data to generate new theories through tests and revisions. In fact, it is not
necessary to collect the data and then start to analyze it. Researchers usually start to find
valuable insights as they are gathering the data. 
All of these elements make grounded theory a very valuable method as theories are fully
backed by data instead of initial assumptions. It is a great technique to analyze poorly
researched topics or find the causes behind specific company outcomes. For example,
product managers and marketers might use the grounded theory to find the causes of high
levels of customer churn and look into customer surveys and reviews to develop new
theories about the causes. 
How To Analyze Data? Top 17 Data Analysis Techniques To Apply
Now that we’ve answered the questions “what is data analysis’”, why is it important, and
covered the different data analysis types, it’s time to dig deeper into how to perform your
analysis by working through these 17 essential techniques.
1. Collaborate your needs
Before you begin analyzing or drilling down into any techniques, it’s crucial to sit down
collaboratively with all key stakeholders within your organization, decide on your primary
campaign or strategic goals, and gain a fundamental understanding of the types of insights
that will best benefit your progress or provide you with the level of vision you need to evolve
your organization.
2. Establish your questions
Once you’ve outlined your core objectives, you should consider which questions will need
answering to help you achieve your mission. This is one of the most important techniques as
it will shape the very foundations of your success.
To help you ask the right things and ensure your data works for you, you have to ask the
right data analysis questions.
3. Data democratization
After giving your data analytics methodology some real direction, and knowing which
questions need answering to extract optimum value from the information available to your
organization, you should continue with democratization.
Data democratization is an action that aims to connect data from various sources efficiently
and quickly so that anyone in your organization can access it at any given moment. You can
extract data in text, images, videos, numbers, or any other format. And then perform cross-
database analysis to achieve more advanced insights to share with the rest of the company
interactively.  
Once you have decided on your most valuable sources, you need to take all of this into a
structured format to start collecting your insights. For this purpose, datapine offers an easy
all-in-one data connectors feature to integrate all your internal and external sources and
manage them at your will. Additionally, datapine’s end-to-end solution automatically
updates your data, allowing you to save time and focus on performing the right analysis to
grow your company.

4. Think of governance 
When collecting data in a business or research context you always need to think about
security and privacy. With data breaches becoming a topic of concern for businesses, the
need to protect your client's or subject’s sensitive information becomes critical. 
To ensure that all this is taken care of, you need to think of a data governance strategy.
According to Gartner, this concept refers to “the specification of decision rights and an
accountability framework to ensure the appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation,
consumption, and control of data and analytics.” In simpler words, data governance is a
collection of processes, roles, and policies, that ensure the efficient use of data while still
achieving the main company goals. It ensures that clear roles are in place for who can access
the information and how they can access it. In time, this not only ensures that sensitive
information is protected but also allows for an efficient analysis as a whole. 
5. Clean your data
After harvesting from so many sources you will be left with a vast amount of information
that can be overwhelming to deal with. At the same time, you can be faced with incorrect
data that can be misleading to your analysis. The smartest thing you can do to avoid dealing
with this in the future is to clean the data. This is fundamental before visualizing it, as it will
ensure that the insights you extract from it are correct.
There are many things that you need to look for in the cleaning process. The most important
one is to eliminate any duplicate observations; this usually appears when using multiple
internal and external sources of information. You can also add any missing codes, fix empty
fields, and eliminate incorrectly formatted data.
Another usual form of cleaning is done with text data. As we mentioned earlier, most
companies today analyze customer reviews, social media comments, questionnaires, and
several other text inputs. In order for algorithms to detect patterns, text data needs to be
revised to avoid invalid characters or any syntax or spelling errors. 
Most importantly, the aim of cleaning is to prevent you from arriving at false conclusions
that can damage your company in the long run. By using clean data, you will also help BI
solutions to interact better with your information and create better reports for your
organization.
6. Set your KPIs
Once you’ve set your sources, cleaned your data, and established clear-cut questions you
want your insights to answer, you need to set a host of key performance indicators (KPIs)
that will help you track, measure, and shape your progress in a number of key areas.
KPIs are critical to both qualitative and quantitative analysis research. This is one of the
primary methods of data analysis you certainly shouldn’t overlook.
To help you set the best possible KPIs for your initiatives and activities, here is an example
of a relevant logistics KPI: transportation-related costs. If you want to see more go explore
our collection of key performance indicator examples.

7. Omit useless data

Having bestowed your data analysis tools and techniques with true purpose and defined your
mission, you should explore the raw data you’ve collected from all sources and use your
KPIs as a reference for chopping out any information you deem to be useless.
Trimming the informational fat is one of the most crucial methods of analysis as it will allow
you to focus your analytical efforts and squeeze every drop of value from the remaining
‘lean’ information.
Any stats, facts, figures, or metrics that don’t align with your business goals or fit with
your KPI management strategies should be eliminated from the equation.
8. Build a data management roadmap
While, at this point, this particular step is optional (you will have already gained a wealth of
insight and formed a fairly sound strategy by now), creating a data governance roadmap will
help your data analysis methods and techniques become successful on a more sustainable
basis. These roadmaps, if developed properly, are also built so they can be tweaked and
scaled over time.
Invest ample time in developing a roadmap that will help you store, manage, and handle your
data internally, and you will make your analysis techniques all the more fluid and functional
– one of the most powerful types of data analysis methods available today.
9. Integrate technology
There are many ways to analyze data, but one of the most vital aspects of analytical success
in a business context is integrating the right decision support software and technology.
Robust analysis platforms will not only allow you to pull critical data from your most
valuable sources while working with dynamic KPIs that will offer you actionable insights; it
will also present them in a digestible, visual, interactive format from one central, live
dashboard. A data methodology you can count on.
By integrating the right technology within your data analysis methodology, you’ll avoid
fragmenting your insights, saving you time and effort while allowing you to enjoy the
maximum value from your business’s most valuable insights.
For a look at the power of software for the purpose of analysis and to enhance your methods
of analyzing, glance over our selection of dashboard examples.
10. Answer your questions
By considering each of the above efforts, working with the right technology, and fostering a
cohesive internal culture where everyone buys into the different ways to analyze data as well
as the power of digital intelligence, you will swiftly start to answer your most burning
business questions. Arguably, the best way to make your data concepts accessible across the
organization is through data visualization.
11. Visualize your data
Online data visualization is a powerful tool as it lets you tell a story with your metrics,
allowing users across the organization to extract meaningful insights that aid business
evolution – and it covers all the different ways to analyze data.
The purpose of analyzing is to make your entire organization more informed and intelligent,
and with the right platform or dashboard, this is simpler than you think, as demonstrated by
our marketing dashboard.

This visual, dynamic, and interactive online dashboard is a data analysis example designed to
give Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) an overview of relevant metrics to help them
understand if they achieved their monthly goals.
In detail, this example generated with a modern dashboard creator displays interactive charts
for monthly revenues, costs, net income, and net income per customer; all of them are
compared with the previous month so that you can understand how the data fluctuated. In
addition, it shows a detailed summary of the number of users, customers, SQLs, and MQLs
per month to visualize the whole picture and extract relevant insights or trends for
your marketing reports.
The CMO dashboard is perfect for c-level management as it can help them monitor the
strategic outcome of their marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions that can benefit
the company exponentially.
12. Be careful with the interpretation
We already dedicated an entire post to data interpretation as it is a fundamental part of the
process of data analysis. It gives meaning to the analytical information and aims to drive a
concise conclusion from the analysis results. Since most of the time companies are dealing
with data from many different sources, the interpretation stage needs to be done carefully
and properly in order to avoid misinterpretations. 
To help you through the process, here we list three common practices that you need to avoid
at all costs when looking at your data:
Correlation vs. causation: The human brain is formatted to find patterns. This behavior
leads to one of the most common mistakes when performing interpretation: confusing
correlation with causation. Although these two aspects can exist simultaneously, it is not
correct to assume that because two things happened together, one provoked the other. A
piece of advice to avoid falling into this mistake is never to trust just intuition, trust the data.
If there is no objective evidence of causation, then always stick to correlation. 
Confirmation bias: This phenomenon describes the tendency to select and interpret only the
data necessary to prove one hypothesis, often ignoring the elements that might disprove it.
Even if it's not done on purpose, confirmation bias can represent a real problem, as excluding
relevant information can lead to false conclusions and, therefore, bad business decisions. To
avoid it, always try to disprove your hypothesis instead of proving it, share your analysis
with other team members, and avoid drawing any conclusions before the entire analytical
project is finalized.
Statistical significance: To put it in short words, statistical significance helps analysts
understand if a result is actually accurate or if it happened because of a sampling error or
pure chance. The level of statistical significance needed might depend on the sample size and
the industry being analyzed. In any case, ignoring the significance of a result when it might
influence decision-making can be a huge mistake.
13. Build a narrative
Now, we’re going to look at how you can bring all of these elements together in a way that
will benefit your business - starting with a little something called data storytelling.
The human brain responds incredibly well to strong stories or narratives. Once you’ve
cleansed, shaped, and visualized your most invaluable data using various BI dashboard tools,
you should strive to tell a story - one with a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end.
By doing so, you will make your analytical efforts more accessible, digestible, and universal,
empowering more people within your organization to use your discoveries to their actionable
advantage.
14. Consider autonomous technology
Autonomous technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML),
play a significant role in the advancement of understanding how to analyze data more
effectively.
Gartner predicts that by the end of this year, 80% of emerging technologies will be
developed with AI foundations. This is a testament to the ever-growing power and value of
autonomous technologies.
At the moment, these technologies are revolutionizing the analysis industry. Some examples
that we mentioned earlier are neural networks, intelligent alarms, and sentiment analysis.
15. Share the load
If you work with the right tools and dashboards, you will be able to present your metrics in a
digestible, value-driven format, allowing almost everyone in the organization to connect with
and use relevant data to their advantage.
Modern dashboards consolidate data from various sources, providing access to a wealth of
insights in one centralized location, no matter if you need to monitor recruitment metrics or
generate reports that need to be sent across numerous departments. Moreover, these cutting-
edge tools offer access to dashboards from a multitude of devices, meaning that everyone
within the business can connect with practical insights remotely - and share the load.
Once everyone is able to work with a data-driven mindset, you will catalyze the success of
your business in ways you never thought possible. And when it comes to knowing how to
analyze data, this kind of collaborative approach is essential.
16. Data analysis tools
In order to perform high-quality analysis of data, it is fundamental to use tools and software
that will ensure the best results. Here we leave you a small summary of four fundamental
categories of data analysis tools for your organization.
Business Intelligence: BI tools allow you to process significant amounts of data from
several sources in any format. Through this, you can not only analyze and monitor your data
to extract relevant insights but also create interactive reports and dashboards to visualize
your KPIs and use them for your company's good. datapine is an amazing online BI software
that is focused on delivering powerful online analysis features that are accessible to beginner
and advanced users. Like this, it offers a full-service solution that includes cutting-edge
analysis of data, KPIs visualization, live dashboards, reporting, and artificial intelligence
technologies to predict trends and minimize risk.
Statistical analysis: These tools are usually designed for scientists, statisticians, market
researchers, and mathematicians, as they allow them to perform complex statistical analyses
with methods like regression analysis, predictive analysis, and statistical modeling. A good
tool to perform this type of analysis is R-Studio as it offers a powerful data modeling and
hypothesis testing feature that can cover both academic and general data analysis. This tool
is one of the favorite ones in the industry, due to its capability for data cleaning, data
reduction, and performing advanced analysis with several statistical methods. Another
relevant tool to mention is SPSS from IBM. The software offers advanced statistical analysis
for users of all skill levels. Thanks to a vast library of machine learning algorithms, text
analysis, and a hypothesis testing approach it can help your company find relevant insights to
drive better decisions. SPSS also works as a cloud service that enables you to run it
anywhere.
SQL Consoles: SQL is a programming language often used to handle structured data in
relational databases. Tools like these are popular among data scientists as they are extremely
effective in unlocking these databases' value. Undoubtedly, one of the most used SQL
software in the market is MySQL Workbench. This tool offers several features such as a
visual tool for database modeling and monitoring, complete SQL optimization,
administration tools, and visual performance dashboards to keep track of KPIs.
Data Visualization: These tools are used to represent your data through charts, graphs, and
maps that allow you to find patterns and trends in the data. datapine's already mentioned BI
platform also offers a wealth of powerful online data visualization tools with several
benefits. Some of them include: delivering compelling data-driven presentations to share
with your entire company, the ability to see your data online with any device wherever you
are, an interactive dashboard design feature that enables you to showcase your results in an
interactive and understandable way, and to perform online self-service reports that can be
used simultaneously with several other people to enhance team productivity.
17. Refine your process constantly 
Last is a step that might seem obvious to some people, but it can be easily ignored if you
think you are done. Once you have extracted the needed results, you should always take a
retrospective look at your project and think about what you can improve. As you saw
throughout this long list of techniques, data analysis is a complex process that requires
constant refinement. For this reason, you should always go one step further and keep
improving. 
Quality Criteria For Data Analysis
So far we’ve covered a list of methods and techniques that should help you perform efficient
data analysis. But how do you measure the quality and validity of your results? This is done
with the help of some science quality criteria. Here we will go into a more theoretical area
that is critical to understanding the fundamentals of statistical analysis in science. However,
you should also be aware of these steps in a business context, as they will allow you to assess
the quality of your results in the correct way. Let’s dig in. 
Internal validity: The results of a survey are internally valid if they measure what they are
supposed to measure and thus provide credible results. In other words, internal validity
measures the trustworthiness of the results and how they can be affected by factors such as
the research design, operational definitions, how the variables are measured, and more. For
instance, imagine you are doing an interview to ask people if they brush their teeth two times
a day. While most of them will answer yes, you can still notice that their answers correspond
to what is socially acceptable, which is to brush your teeth at least twice a day. In this case,
you can’t be 100% sure if respondents actually brush their teeth twice a day or if they just
say that they do, therefore, the internal validity of this interview is very low. 
External validity: Essentially, external validity refers to the extent to which the results of
your research can be applied to a broader context. It basically aims to prove that the findings
of a study can be applied in the real world. If the research can be applied to other settings,
individuals, and times, then the external validity is high. 
Reliability: If your research is reliable, it means that it can be reproduced. If your
measurement were repeated under the same conditions, it would produce similar results. This
means that your measuring instrument consistently produces reliable results. For example,
imagine a doctor building a symptoms questionnaire to detect a specific disease in a patient.
Then, various other doctors use this questionnaire but end up diagnosing the same patient
with a different condition. This means the questionnaire is not reliable in detecting the initial
disease. Another important note here is that in order for your research to be reliable, it also
needs to be objective. If the results of a study are the same, independent of who assesses
them or interprets them, the study can be considered reliable. Let’s see the objectivity criteria
in more detail now. 
Objectivity: In data science, objectivity means that the researcher needs to stay fully
objective when it comes to its analysis. The results of a study need to be affected by
objective criteria and not by the beliefs, personality, or values of the researcher. Objectivity
needs to be ensured when you are gathering the data, for example, when interviewing
individuals, the questions need to be asked in a way that doesn't influence the results. Paired
with this, objectivity also needs to be thought of when interpreting the data. If different
researchers reach the same conclusions, then the study is objective. For this last point, you
can set predefined criteria to interpret the results to ensure all researchers follow the same
steps. 
The discussed quality criteria cover mostly potential influences in a quantitative context.
Analysis in qualitative research has by default additional subjective influences that must be
controlled in a different way. Therefore, there are other quality criteria for this kind of
research such as credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. You can see
each of them more in detail on this resource. 
Data Analysis Limitations & Barriers
Analyzing data is not an easy task. As you’ve seen throughout this post, there are many steps
and techniques that you need to apply in order to extract useful information from your
research. While a well-performed analysis can bring various benefits to your organization it
doesn't come without limitations. In this section, we will discuss some of the main barriers
you might encounter when conducting an analysis. Let’s see them more in detail. 
Lack of clear goals: No matter how good your data or analysis might be if you don’t have
clear goals or a hypothesis the process might be worthless. While we mentioned some
methods that don’t require a predefined hypothesis, it is always better to enter the analytical
process with some clear guidelines of what you are expecting to get out of it, especially in a
business context in which data is utilized to support important strategic decisions. 
Objectivity: Arguably one of the biggest barriers when it comes to data analysis in research
is to stay objective. When trying to prove a hypothesis, researchers might find themselves,
intentionally or unintentionally, directing the results toward an outcome that they want. To
avoid this, always question your assumptions and avoid confusing facts with opinions. You
can also show your findings to a research partner or external person to confirm that your
results are objective. 
Data representation: A fundamental part of the analytical procedure is the way you
represent your data. You can use various graphs and charts to represent your findings, but
not all of them will work for all purposes. Choosing the wrong visual can not only damage
your analysis but can mislead your audience, therefore, it is important to understand when to
use each type of data depending on your analytical goals. Our complete guide on the types of
graphs and charts lists 20 different visuals with examples of when to use them. 
Flawed correlation: Misleading statistics can significantly damage your research. We’ve
already pointed out a few interpretation issues previously in the post, but it is an important
barrier that we can't avoid addressing here as well. Flawed correlations occur when two
variables appear related to each other but they are not. Confusing correlations with causation
can lead to a wrong interpretation of results which can lead to building wrong strategies and
loss of resources, therefore, it is very important to identify the different interpretation
mistakes and avoid them. 
Sample size: A very common barrier to a reliable and efficient analysis process is the
sample size. In order for the results to be trustworthy, the sample size should be
representative of what you are analyzing. For example, imagine you have a company of 1000
employees and you ask the question “do you like working here?” to 50 employees of which
49 say yes, which means 95%. Now, imagine you ask the same question to the 1000
employees and 950 say yes, which also means 95%. Saying that 95% of employees like
working in the company when the sample size was only 50 is not a representative or
trustworthy conclusion. The significance of the results is way more accurate when surveying
a bigger sample size.   
Privacy concerns: In some cases, data collection can be subjected to privacy regulations.
Businesses gather all kinds of information from their customers from purchasing behaviors
to addresses and phone numbers. If this falls into the wrong hands due to a breach, it can
affect the security and confidentiality of your clients. To avoid this issue, you need to collect
only the data that is needed for your research and, if you are using sensitive facts, make it
anonymous so customers are protected. The misuse of customer data can severely damage a
business's reputation, so it is important to keep an eye on privacy. 
Lack of communication between teams: When it comes to performing data analysis on a
business level, it is very likely that each department and team will have different goals and
strategies. However, they are all working for the same common goal of helping the business
run smoothly and keep growing. When teams are not connected and communicating with
each other, it can directly affect the way general strategies are built. To avoid these issues,
tools such as data dashboards enable teams to stay connected through data in a visually
appealing way. 
Innumeracy: Businesses are working with data more and more every day. While there are
many BI tools available to perform effective analysis, data literacy is still a constant barrier.
Not all employees know how to apply analysis techniques or extract insights from them. To
prevent this from happening, you can implement different training opportunities that will
prepare every relevant user to deal with data. 

Data Analyst
A data analyst will extract raw data, organize it, and then analyze it, transforming it from
incomprehensible numbers into coherent, intelligible information. Having interpreted the
data, the data analyst will then pass on their findings in the form of suggestions or
recommendations about what the company’s next steps should be.
Types of Data Analysts
Depending on your interests and skill set, you can pursue several types of Data Analyst roles.
Some common types of Data Analysts include:
Business/Data Analyst
A Business/Data Analyst is responsible for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting complex
data sets to help companies make informed decisions. They work closely with stakeholders
to identify business requirements and design supporting data models. They may also develop
reports and dashboards to present data insights to decision-makers.
Marketing Analyst
A Marketing Analyst uses data to help companies understand their customers and develop
marketing strategies. They analyze customer behavior, demographic data, and market trends
to help companies effectively target their marketing efforts. They may also build marketing
performance metrics to track the success of marketing campaigns.
Financial Analyst
A Financial Analyst uses data to help companies make financial decisions. They may
analyze financial data such as revenue, expenses, and profitability to help companies identify
areas for improvement or growth. They may also develop economic models to forecast
future performance and inform strategic planning.
Healthcare Analyst
A Healthcare Analyst uses data to help healthcare organizations improve patient outcomes
and reduce costs. They may analyze healthcare data such as patient records, clinical trials,
and insurance claims to identify trends and patterns. They may also develop predictive
models to help healthcare providers make more informed decisions.
Data Scientist
A Data Scientist is responsible for designing and developing complex algorithms and models
to solve data-driven problems. They work with large, complex data sets and use advanced
analytical techniques to extract insights and develop predictive models. They may also work
with other Data Analysts to develop data-driven solutions for businesses.

Tasks and responsibilities of data analyst

As you can see, the role of the data analyst means different things to different companies.
However, there are some common threads that you’ll find among most data analyst job
descriptions. Based on real job ads, here are some of the typical tasks and responsibilities of
a data analyst:
Manage the delivery of user satisfaction surveys and report on results using data
visualization software
Work with business line owners to develop requirements, define success metrics, manage
and execute analytical projects, and evaluate results
Monitor practices, processes, and systems to identify opportunities for improvement
Proactively communicate and collaborate with stakeholders, business units, technical teams
and support teams to define concepts and analyze needs and functional requirements
Translate important questions into concrete analytical tasks
Gather new data to answer client questions, collating and organizing data from multiple
sources
Apply analytical techniques and tools to extract and present new insights to clients using
reports and/or interactive dashboards
Relay complex concepts and data into visualizations
Collaborate with data scientists and other team members to find the best product solutions
Design, build, test and maintain backend code
Establish data processes, define data quality criteria, and implement data quality processes
Take ownership of the codebase, including suggestions for improvements and refactoring
Build data validation models and tools to ensure data being recorded is accurate
Work as part of a team to evaluate and analyze key data that will be used to shape future
business strategies
What skills do you need to become a data analyst?
In addition to being well-versed in the tools and techniques we’ve explored so far, data
analysts are also expected to demonstrate certain skills and abilities, which they’ll often learn
while studying a course at a data analytics school. Here are some of the most important
hard and soft skills you’ll need to become a data analyst:
Hard skills
Mathematical and statistical ability
Data analysts spend a large portion of their time working with numbers, so it goes without
saying that you’ll need a mathematical brain!
Knowledge of programming languages such as SQL, Oracle, and Python
As we’ve seen, data analysts rely on a number of programming languages to carry out their
work. This may seem daunting at first, but it’s nothing that can’t be learned over time.
An analytical mindset
It’s not enough to just crunch the numbers and share your findings; data analysts need to be
able to understand what’s going on and to dig deeper if necessary. It’s all in the name—an
analytical mindset is a must!
Soft skills
Keen problem-solving skills
Data analysts have a wide variety of tools and techniques at their disposal, and a key part of
the job is knowing what to use when.
Remember: data analytics is all about answering questions and solving business challenges,
and that requires some keen problem-solving skills.
Excellent communication skills
Once you’ve harvested your data for valuable insights, it’s important to share your findings
in a way that benefits the business.
Data analysts work in close collaboration with key business stakeholders, and may be
responsible for sharing and presenting their insights to the entire company. So, if you’re
thinking about becoming a data analyst, it’s important to make sure that you’re comfortable
with this aspect of the job.
Data analytics tools
Now let’s take a look at some of the tools that a data analyst might work with.
If you’re looking to become a data analyst, you’ll need to be proficient in at least some of the
tools listed below—but, if you’ve never even heard of them, don’t let that deter you! Like
most things, getting to grips with the tools of the trade is all part of the learning curve.
Here are the top ones:
Microsoft Excel
Excel is a software program that enables you to organize, format, and calculate data using
formulas within a spreadsheet system.
Around for decades, this tool may be used by data analysts to run basic queries and to create
pivot tables, graphs, and charts. Excel also features a macro programming language called
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
You can learn the ropes with our guide to the top data analysis features in Microsoft
Excel.
Tableau
Tableau is a popular business intelligence and data analytics software which is primarily
used as a tool for data visualization.
Data analysts use Tableau to simplify raw data into visual dashboards, worksheets, maps,
and charts. This helps to make the data accessible and easy to understand, allowing data
analysts to effectively share their insights and recommendations.
SAS
SAS is a command-driven software package used for carrying out advanced statistical
analysis and data visualization.
Offering a wide variety of statistical methods and algorithms, customizable options for
analysis and output, and publication-quality graphics, SAS is one of the most widely used
software packages in the industry.
RapidMiner
This is a software package used for data mining (uncovering patterns), text mining,
predictive analytics, and machine learning.
Used by both data analysts and data scientists alike, RapidMiner comes with a wide range of
features—including data modeling, validation, and automation.
Power BI
Power BI is a business analytics solution that lets you visualize your data and share insights
across your organization.
Similar to Tableau, Power BI is primarily used for data visualization. While Tableau is built
for data analysts, Power BI is a more general business intelligence tool.
General-Purpose Data Analysis Tools:
Microsoft Excel
Google Sheets
Tableau
Power BI
QlikView
IBM SPSS
SAS
MATLAB
R
Python (with libraries like NumPy, Pandas, and SciPy)
Business Intelligence (BI) Tools:
Looker
Domo
MicroStrategy
Sisense
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Yellowfin BI
Pentaho
TIBCO Spotfire
Zoho Analytics
Data Visualization Tools:
Tableau
Power BI
QlikView
Google Data Studio
D3.js
Plotly
ggplot2 (R)
Matplotlib (Python)
Infogram
Statistical Analysis Tools:
IBM SPSS
SAS
Stata
JMP
Minitab
R
Python (with libraries like SciPy and Statsmodels)
Text Analytics and Natural Language Processing (NLP) Tools:
RapidMiner
KNIME
GATE
NLTK (Python)
spaCy (Python)
Stanford NLP
IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding
Big Data Analytics Tools:
Apache Hadoop
Apache Spark
Apache Flink
Hive
Pig
Apache Kafka
Amazon EMR
Google BigQuery
Microsoft Azure HDInsight
Machine Learning and Data Science Tools:
TensorFlow
scikit-learn (Python)
PyTorch
Keras
H2O.ai
KNIME
RapidMiner
DataRobot
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning
Geographic Information System (GIS) Tools:
ArcGIS
QGIS
MapInfo Pro
Google Earth Pro
GRASS GIS
PostGIS
Data Wrangling and Cleaning Tools:
OpenRefine
Trifacta Wrangler
Talend Data Preparation
Alteryx
Dataiku
RapidMiner
Python (with libraries like Pandas and Dplyr)
Cloud-Based Data Analytics Platforms:
Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataprep)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Redshift, Athena, Glue)
Microsoft Azure (Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Analytics)
What tools do data analysts use?
Data analysts use a wide range of tools to analyze and manipulate data. Here are some of the
most common tools used by data analysts:
Microsoft Excel
SQL
Python
R
Tableau
Power BI
Hadoop
Spark
SAS
MATLAB
Google Analytics
Adobe Analytics