From the course: Introduction to Business Analytics (2020)

Finding insights in data

From the course: Introduction to Business Analytics (2020)

Start my 1-month free trial

Finding insights in data

“

- Data analysis might seem like a daunting skill to learn, but with the tools readily available to you it's easier than ever before to mine your data for insights. There are tools like Excel and Tableau that have made this process super easy, but on the other end of the spectrum there are coding languages like R and Python where you can create advanced calculations. If you're wanting to create an advanced model I suggest you hire a data scientist, but if you're just looking to find some insightful trends, well you can conduct this analysis on your own. The mechanism that allows you to quickly create analysis is called a pivot table. While Excel is mainly seen as a spreadsheet tool this functionality is built into the platform. All you need to do is highlight the data you want to analyze and then click Insert PivotChart. Once you select Insert PivotChart a new tab will appear where you can build out the analysis you need to conduct. On the right of your Excel workbook you will see PivotChart Fields, this is where you can create analysis with just the click of a mouse. Underneath the search bar are your fields. These are the columns you can use to manipulate the data. For example, let's look at sales by year. All you have to do is click and drag sales into the values box, and year into the axis. This will automatically generate a bar chart. To change this into a line graph, which is a more appropriate way to visualize this data, right click the chart and select Change Chart Type, then simply select Line Graph. Now this is a very basic form of analysis, but don't underestimate the power of this tool. A pivot table enables you to explore your data on your own without an analyst or a data scientist. Tools like Tableau and Power BI take pivot charts to the next level. These kinds of data visualization tools enable you to dig even deeper into your data by customizing pivot charts on a whole new level. You can change the color, create table calculations, and you have many more types of visualizations to choose from. A few years back I used pivot charts in Excel to study customer satisfaction for a large transportation company. These insights helped them think much more strategically about how to address goodwill for their customers. We found that certain customer types accounted for the majority of complaints. These trouble customers incurred a large hidden cost that management hadn't really taken into consideration when calculating margin. The bottom line here, data analysis is not something to be afraid of, or intimidated by. Number crunching has become so much easier, but what's remained constant is the need to ask the right question. Speaking of that, do you have any burning questions you want answered about your data? With the tools outlined in this video data analysis will no longer be such a daunting task.

Contents