BA Unit 1 & 2
BA Unit 1 & 2
Write a note on skills required to be a business data analyst and what are
their roles and responsibilities
A Business Data Analyst is a person who studies data and helps a business make better
decisions. They look at numbers, reports, and trends to understand what is happening in the
business. Then, they give useful suggestions to improve sales, customer service, marketing,
and overall performance.
Think of them like problem-solvers who use data to guide the business in the right direction.
To become a successful business data analyst, a person needs the following important skills:
1. Analytical Thinking
3. Technical Skills
4. Communication Skills
5. Problem-Solving Ability
6. Critical Thinking
Thinks deeply and asks questions like:
o Why is this happening?
o What can we do better?
o What does the data really show?
7. Attention to Detail
8. Teamwork
Works with different departments like marketing, sales, IT, and finance.
Understands their data needs and helps them with insights.
A Business Data Analyst has many important tasks in a company. Some of the key
responsibilities are:
1. Collecting Data
5. Helping in Decision-Making
6. Forecasting
Conclusion
A Business Data Analyst plays a very important role in the success of any company. They
turn raw data into useful information and help in making smart decisions. To be a good
analyst, a person needs a mix of technical, analytical, and communication skills.
With the growing importance of data in today’s world, the demand for skilled business data
analysts is increasing in almost every industry.
They act like a bridge between the management (business team) and the technical team (IT
team). Their main job is to understand the business needs, analyze data, and suggest
better ways to do work or solve problems.
Business Analysts help identify the real problems a business is facing. They don’t just look
at surface-level issues but find the root cause and suggest the best solutions.
Example: If profits are going down, the analyst may find that customer satisfaction is low
because of late delivery.
Example: Instead of guessing which product will sell, the analyst looks at customer data to
suggest the right product.
Business Analysts help in making processes faster, better, and cost-effective. They remove
unnecessary steps and make the work easier and more productive.
Example: Automating a manual process to save time and reduce human errors.
Business Analysts connect business and technical teams. They understand what the
business wants and explain it clearly to the IT or development team.
This avoids confusion and ensures everyone is working in the same direction.
In today’s world, companies are using more technology. Business Analysts help businesses
adopt new systems, software, and tools to stay modern and competitive.
Example: Helping a company shift from offline sales to an online e-commerce platform.
Before implementing any change, Business Analysts do proper research and testing. This
reduces the chance of failure and saves time and money.
Example: Testing a new billing system on a small scale before using it for all customers.
The business analysis process includes several important steps. These steps help the analyst
understand the business problems and give useful solutions.
First, the analyst understands what issue the business is facing or what new thing it
wants to achieve.
Example: Sales are decreasing, or the company wants to launch a new app.
2. Gather Information
The analyst collects information from different people like managers, employees,
customers, etc.
Methods: Interviews, surveys, meetings, or documents.
Clearly write down what the business needs to fix the problem.
These are called business requirements.
Example: Improve product quality, create a customer feedback system, etc.
If a new software, system, or app is needed, the analyst explains the requirements to
the IT team.
Helps in designing and testing the solution.
Before using the final solution in real life, test it on a small scale.
Make sure it works properly and solves the problem.
📌 Conclusion:
A Business Analyst helps a company grow by finding smart solutions to business problems.
They follow a step-by-step process to understand problems, collect data, define requirements,
and suggest changes. This process is very important for business success and development.
In business, data plays a very important role. But just having data is not enough. Companies
need to understand the data, learn from it, predict what might happen, and decide what
to do next.
� Meaning:
This type of analysis looks at historical data like sales, revenue, customer visits, website
traffic, etc., and shows a summary.
📊 Example:
🔍 Purpose:
🛠� Tools Used:
Excel
Google Sheets
Dashboards
Graphs and Charts
✅ Simple Example:
If a clothing store wants to know how many shirts it sold in January, it will use descriptive
analysis.
� Meaning:
After knowing what happened, the next step is to understand why it happened.
This is where diagnostic analysis is used.
📊 Example:
🔍 Purpose:
🛠� Tools Used:
✅ Simple Example:
If sales dropped in March, diagnostic analysis might show that it happened because there was
less marketing, or a product was out of stock.
� Meaning:
📊 Example:
🔍 Purpose:
🛠� Tools Used:
Machine Learning
Data Mining
Programming languages (like Python or R)
Forecasting models
✅ Simple Example:
If sales have been growing by 10% every month, predictive analysis can tell that next
month’s sales might also increase by 10%.
� Meaning:
📊 Example:
🔍 Purpose:
To help in decision-making
To find the best solution to a problem
🛠� Tools Used:
✅ Simple Example:
Giving discounts,
Launching a loyalty program,
Or changing the supplier for cheaper materials.
📊 Comparison Table:
Type of Question
Focus Based On Example
Analysis Answered
Descriptive Historical Sales report of last
What happened? Past
Analysis Data month
Diagnostic Cause of Deep Data Sales dropped due to
Why did it happen?
Analysis Problem Study late deliveries
Predictive What might happen Future Patterns in Predicting next quarter’s
Analysis next? Trends Data revenue
Prescriptive What should we do All Data Suggesting best
Best Action
Analysis about it? Types marketing strategy
📝 Conclusion:
Each type plays an important role in business growth and smart decision-making.
📘 What is R Software?
It is widely used by data analysts, statisticians, and business analysts for analyzing large
datasets, building models, and creating graphs or charts.
💡 In Simple Words:
R helps users understand data, find patterns, and make useful visualizations. It is like a
powerful calculator that can handle big data, perform deep analysis, and create smart graphs
or reports.
🔹 Features of R Software:
✅ Advantages of R Software:
Advantage Description
Free and Open Source No cost, and can be customized.
Powerful for Statistics Best tool for mathematical and statistical analysis.
Strong Graphical
Can create high-quality plots and visualizations.
Capabilities
Regular Updates New packages and functions are added regularly.
Trusted by companies for data analysis and decision-
Used in Industries
making.
Supports Machine Learning Used for predictive modeling, clustering, classification, etc.
❌ Disadvantages of R Software:
Disadvantage Description
Beginners may find it difficult to learn because it uses
Steep Learning Curve
coding.
Not as fast as some tools like Python or SAS for very
Slower with Very Big Data
large datasets.
Poor GUI (Graphical User Mostly works through command line (no drag and
Interface) drop features).
Disadvantage Description
Less Suitable for Web or App It is mainly for data analysis, not for building apps or
Development websites.
May consume a lot of RAM when working with huge
Memory Management Issues
data files.
📝 Conclusion:
R is a powerful and reliable software for data analysis and statistics. It is widely used by
business analysts, data scientists, and researchers. Though it requires learning to code, its
powerful features, free availability, and wide usage in industry make it one of the best
tools for analyzing and visualizing data.
👨💻 1. Data Scientist
A Data Scientist uses math, statistics, coding, and machine learning to find patterns in
data and make predictions.
Create models to predict future events (e.g., will a customer buy this product?)
Use tools like Python, R, and Machine Learning
Deal with complex problems using data
🔹 Example:
Predicting next month’s sales using customer buying history and trends.
🔹 Main Focus:
🛠� 2. Data Engineer
🔹 Who is a Data Engineer?
A Data Engineer builds and manages the systems and pipelines that collect, store, and
organize data so others (like Data Scientists and Analysts) can use it easily.
🔹 Example:
Making sure all customer data from the website is stored safely in a database and ready for
analysis.
🔹 Main Focus:
A Business Data Analyst uses data to help the business make better decisions. They analyze
trends, prepare reports, and give suggestions to improve the business.
🔹 Example:
Analyzing why product sales dropped and suggesting changes in pricing or marketing.
🔹 Main Focus:
�📊 Comparison Table:
Role Focus Skills Used Example Task
Business Solving business Excel, Reports, Find out why sales dropped
Analyst problems Communication last quarter
Analytics means using data, facts, and numbers to understand a situation, find patterns, and
make better decisions.
For example, using sales data to know which product is selling best and why.
Analytics has evolved over time through different phases. Let’s understand it step-by-step:
With the launch of spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel, data analysis became easier.
Business Intelligence (BI) tools started appearing to support decision-making.
Graphs, dashboards, and reports became more common.
The internet led to a huge increase in data – customer clicks, social media, online
shopping.
Big Data became popular – meaning businesses started analyzing very large
volumes of data.
Tools like SQL, R, Python, Hadoop, and Tableau were introduced.
Companies started using data for predictions and business strategy.
Now, companies use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to
analyze data.
Prescriptive analytics is used to recommend actions.
Real-time analytics, chatbots, and automation are used in many businesses.
✅ Conclusion:
Analytics has grown from simple paper-based calculations to advanced technologies like
AI and Machine Learning. Today, it plays a very important role in helping businesses
make smart, fast, and data-driven decisions.
🔹 In Simple Words:
A data warehouse is like a big storage room where all the company’s data (from sales,
marketing, finance, etc.) is collected and kept in an organized way. This helps in analyzing
the data easily.
📘 What is ETL?
E – Extract
T – Transform
L – Load
This is the process used to move data into a data warehouse from different sources.
✅ Example of ETL:
📝 Conclusion
A Data Warehouse helps businesses store and analyze large data from different
sources.
It has features like subject-orientation, integration, time-variant data, and non-
volatility.
It comes in types like EDW, ODS, and Data Mart.
The ETL process is used to move data into the warehouse: Extract, Transform,
Load.
In a star schema:
There is one central table called the Fact Table, which stores numerical data like
sales, profit, or quantity.
Around it are Dimension Tables, which contain descriptive details like product
name, customer info, date, or location.
It is called a "star" schema because the structure looks like a star, with the fact table at the
center and dimension tables around it.
Uses:
Advantage Explanation
Easy for BI Tools Works well with tools like Power BI, Tableau
Example Use:
Data Mining means using techniques to find patterns, trends, and useful
information from large amounts of data.
It helps businesses predict future outcomes and make better decisions.
📊 Key Differences:
✅ In Summary:
� In Simple Words:
Big Data means a lot of data coming in very fast and in different forms, which needs
special tools and techniques to store, manage, and analyze.
Hadoop
Spark
NoSQL Databases (like MongoDB, Cassandra)
Python, R
✅ Conclusion:
Big Data is all about managing and analyzing large and complex data that helps
businesses make better decisions. It plays a major role in today’s world of digital marketing,
e-commerce, finance, healthcare, and more.
Stores analyze customer bills to see which items are often bought together.
o Example: Bread + Butter, Chips + Cold Drink
They use this data to:
o Place items near each other
o Create combo offers
🎯 Purpose: To help doctors predict diseases early and provide better treatment.
Telecom companies analyze usage data to find which customers are likely to stop
using their service (called "churn").
They may offer discounts or better plans to such customers.
✅ Conclusion:
Data mining is used everywhere – from shopping and banking to healthcare and social
media. It helps find hidden patterns in large data sets, so businesses can make smart
decisions, predict customer needs, and improve services.
12. Explain the trends of data mining and its application in difference fields
like health,retail,insurance,telecommunication.
1. Big Data Mining – Mining large and complex data sets from different sources (like
social media, sensors, apps).
2. Real-Time Data Mining – Analyzing data instantly as it is created (used in fraud
detection, live recommendations).
3. Cloud-Based Data Mining – Using cloud platforms like AWS, Azure to mine data
faster and cheaper.
4. Visual Data Mining – Showing results in charts and dashboards for better
understanding.
5. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – AI is used to predict patterns and automate
decisions.
6. Privacy and Security – Focus on protecting personal and sensitive data during
mining.
🏥 Applications of Data Mining in Healthcare
1. Market Basket Analysis – Finds which products are usually bought together (e.g.,
milk + bread).
2. Customer Segmentation – Groups customers based on their shopping behavior.
3. Sales Forecasting – Predicts future product demand based on past sales.
4. Personalized Recommendations – Suggests products based on what the customer
likes.
5. Inventory Management – Helps stores manage stock and avoid overstocking or
shortage.
1. Churn Prediction – Finds out which customers may stop using the service soon.
2. Usage Pattern Analysis – Tracks how often users call, use data, or recharge.
3. Network Optimization – Improves signal quality and speed using user location data.
4. Fraud Detection – Detects misuse of services like fake calls or SIM cloning.
5. Customer Support Improvement – Analyzes feedback and complaints to improve
services.
13. What are the various techniques of data mining?Explain its Advantages
and challenges?
1�⃣ Classification
2�⃣ Clustering
3�⃣ Regression
📝 In Simple Words:
✅ In Simple Words:
🎯 Example to Remember: