how to become world class business analyst
TRANSCRIPT
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How to become world class analyst Practical guide
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Who is a business analyst?
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Business analyst is a “gold-digger” looking fro how and where the profit of the organization can be improved. He also makes sure that the new business that you are building make economical sense
Photo by The Magic Tuba Pixie CC: flickr
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Business analyst is the entry level in many companies or departments
Business Analyst Associate Senior
Associate (PM) Director Partner
Consulting companies
Business Analyst Associate Investment
Manager Investment
Director Partner
PE / VC
Business Analyst
VP of Strategy / CEO
Strategic Departments
Business Analyst Controller Controlling
Director
Controlling Departments
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To become a business analyst it is good to have strong foundation in terms of skills, education and computer literacy
Skills and characteristics Education Computer literacy
Analytical Skills Languages Computer literacy at least at
average level Independent thinking Discipline Application of 80/20 rule
Business / Economics Econometrics / Quantitative
Methods / Statistics Mathematics Physics Computer Science Medicine
Excel Power Point VBA Access SPSS SQL
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Analyze performance
Analyze new investment opportunity
There is number of problems you may tackle as a business analyst
Find savings
Check performance against planned targets
Analyze new business ideas presented by others
Find new business ideas
Estimate market size
Analyze consumer research results
Participate in the creation of the strategy /plan
Create KPI, dashboards and scorecards
Crete reporting system
Support management in decisions
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If you want to become word class analyst you have to master number of things that we will talk in this presentations
Simplify complex issues to simple
models
Master techniques used to improve
results of the company
Master Excel
Become brutally efficient Talk with slides
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What we will show in this presentation is a part of extensive on-line course where I also show how to solve particular cases in Excel
Click to check my course
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Simplify complex issues to simple models
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Quite often your are overwhelmed by the number of things that influence the phenomena you want to analyze. Imagine that you have to estimate typical family spending's. You can take into account countless number of factors…..
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…or you can limit yourself to the most important one i.e. number of kids, size of house, main repetitive spending like food. On the next slides I will show you some techniques that will help you do the selection
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Issue tree
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Issue tree is a concept that will help you guess in a structured manner the problems, reasons causing those problems and on the basis of this decide what should be analyzed
Area of analysis
Area 1
Problem 1
Problem 2
Possible Reason 1
Possible Reason 2
Possible Reason 3
Possible Reason 4
Possible reasons Suspected problems Analysis to be performed
Analysis 1
Analysis 2
Analysis 3
Analysis 4
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Have a look at an issue tree example for a chicken meat producer. We guess that he has 3 problems in Logistics
Area of analysis
Transport
High costs of transport per ton of goods
Big level of waste and breakage in transport
Possible reasons Suspected problems Analysis to be performed
Low usage of resources
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Then for those problems we try to guess the reasons causing them
Area of analysis
Transport
High costs of transport per ton of goods
Big level of waste and breakage in transport
Possible reasons Suspected problems Analysis to be performed
Badly designed routes
Too big fuel usage
No shipments on the way back
Low usage of resources
Badly designed method of packaging which makes the product prone to damage
Speed not adjusted to the product
Badly organized work and schedule of deliveries
Limitation on delivery time of finished goods
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Finally we come up with analyzes we have to carry to prove or disprove these hypotheses (that certain reason is causing certain problem
Area of analysis
Transport
High costs of transport per ton of goods
Big level of waste and breakage in transport
Possible reasons Suspected problems Analysis to be performed
Analysis of correlation between type of packaging and percentage of damaged
Analysis of time spent on the way and kilometers covered in that time
Analysis of designed routes, their length and the influence of possible changes
Analysis of fuel usage and kilometers covered by vehicles
Analysis of load carried on the way back
Badly designed routes
Too big fuel usage
No shipments on the way back
Low usage of resources
Badly designed method of packaging which makes the product prone to damage
Speed not adjusted to the product
Badly organized work and schedule of deliveries
Limitation on delivery time of finished goods
Analysis of level of overtime, daily organization of drivers work
Analysis of Clients’ preferences on delivery time
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Bottom-up approach
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One of the way to simplify complex is to apply bottom-up approach where you go from single (typical) consumer to market research
First you should imagine the typical users
Then you should try to guess his consumption level
By estimating the number of typical users you and their consumption level you get the rough size of the market
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…sometimes it makes sense to divide markets in segments and estimate them separately (i.e. average and typical users, women and man, people in different age groups or segmentation by lifestyle)
Segment A
Segment B
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…lets do a simple example. Imagine that you want to make an application for franchised restaurants
You pick the sample group / area you want to estimate i.e. city (here Warsaw)
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…lets do a simple example. Imagine that you want to make an application for franchised restaurants
You pick the sample group / area you want to estimate i.e. city (here Warsaw)
You count the number of all restaurants in the area
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…lets do a simple example. Imagine that you want to make an application for franchised restaurants
You pick the sample group / area you want to estimate i.e. city (here Warsaw)
You count the number of all restaurants in the area
For the chosen area you count the franchising restaurants
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…lets do a simple example. Imagine that you want to make an application for franchised restaurants
You pick the sample group / area you want to estimate i.e. city (here Warsaw)
You count the number of all restaurants in the area
For the chosen area you count the franchising restaurants
You check the population of the whole country – here Poland
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…lets do a simple example. Imagine that you want to make an application for franchised restaurants
You pick the sample group / area you want to estimate i.e. city (here Warsaw)
You count the number of all restaurants in the area
For the chosen area you count the franchising restaurants
You check the population of the whole country – here Poland
Assuming similar density as in Warsaw you scale up the number of franchised restaurants proportionally to the population
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Top-down approach
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When to use top-down approach?
You know the size of the whole market
You are interested in a specific segment of the market
Segment is big enough
You are thinking about niche strategy or low cost strategy (market re-segmenting)
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For a change lets see how it would work with top-down approach
You use the total market size to get to the size of the segment in which you are interested
You have to use some sort of sample measure
By applying the result from the sample you can get to the size of the segment in which you are interested
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… let’s use the top-down approach to estimate the market for science fiction books sold in Poland….
You use the total number of books sold in your country
Then you go to the bookstore that belongs to the biggest chain of bookstore and check what percentage of the shelves are take by science fiction books
If you use this proportion to the whole market you should get the rough estimation of the science fiction book segment
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Use simple math
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Whenever somebody mentions math you see the dreaded formulas
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There are some rules that are worth following
Find drivers
Round to integers
Calculate in your mind
Do sampling afterwards
Write down the rough values
Main things that certain thing depends on
Instead of multiplying 2,3 by 3,61 multiple 2 by 4
Make educated guess
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Imagine that you want to use simple math to estimate how long you will wait in the queue. You should use the following simple formula
Number of people in the queue x
Number of cash tilts
Time per 1 customer
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If you try to calculate the using the exact digits you may get lost…..
Number of people in the queue
Time per 1 customer
Number of cash tilts
32 2.3 3
Time you will wait In min
23.4
Number of people in the queue x
Number of cash tilts
Time per 1 customer
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Yet, if you round it up to integers you get fast a good-enough answer
Number of people in the queue
Time per 1 customer
Number of cash tilts
32 2.3 3
30 2 3 20.0
Time you will wait In min
23.4
Number of people in the queue x
Number of cash tilts
Time per 1 customer
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Master techniques used to improve results of the company
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80/20
Theory of Constraints (Remove Bottlenecks)
There are number of techniques that you should master to be world class business analyst
Critical Chain Method
Lean manufacturing
Lean startup
6-sigma
Industrial Organization
PERT, CPM Business models and lean analytics
Market research tricks
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Applying 80/20 rule in practice
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80/20 – Pareto Principal
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What does 80/20 mean in practice
Concentrate only on the big items
Concentrate on the big customers
Analyze the most typical cases
Concentrate on the most frequently occurring problems
Analyze problems with big impact
Your analyses should have only 20% of the variable that generate 80% of the impact
Start with subjects where you see the biggest difference between actual results and benchmarks
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Here are 3 examples of using 80/20 rules
Learning Visual Basic for Excel
Checking competitors
Salsa course
Area
Learn only the 5 most used items that will take only 20% of full course and will be used by in you in 80% cases
You check only 20% of competitors that sales add-up to 80% of the market
Go through 20% of the course to learn the moves and the figures used by 80% of people
Description
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Removing bottlenecks
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Bottlenecks are dangerous as their hurt the efficiency of the whole system. To improve the wholes system you have to improve first bottlenecks
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Bottleneck is always at the place where you have the lowest capacity. Have a look at 3 examples below
Example 1
7 5 7
Example 2
5 10 20
Example 3
5 5 3
x Stage capacity
x Bottleneck
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The are 4 rules that you should follow when it comes to bottlenecks
Identify what is the bottleneck
Increase its throughput by lowering the time needed for everything that goes through the bottleneck
Add new resources to bottleneck
Adjust everything to the bottleneck – so it works at the same pace
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Imagine that you are working in a company working in a content marketing. Your bottleneck is writing posts
Research topics for a post Write a post Create illustration
Edit and modify post, add illustration
and schedule
20 5 7 10
# of post that can be done in a week by 1 person
xx
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If you Speed up the writing process (faster typing, better tools, shortcuts for the most popular words) you boost capacity to 7 and Creation of illustration becomes your bottleneck
Research topics for a post Write a post Create illustration
Edit and modify post, add illustration
and schedule
20 5 7 10
# of post that can be done in a week by 1 person
Speed up the writing process (faster typing, better tools, shortcuts for the most popular words)
xx
20 8 7 10
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Finally if you make the researcher do also par time writing and making illustration you boos capacity even further to 9 post per week. Writing post again becomes bottleneck. But with the same people you produce almost 2x
Research topics for a post Write a post Create illustration
Edit and modify post, add illustration
and schedule
20 5 7 10
# of post that can be done in a week by 1 person
Speed up the writing process (faster typing, better tools, shortcuts for the most popular words)
xx
20 8 7 10
10 9 10 10 Make the researcher do also par time
writing and making illustration
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I recommend reading the following books – click on the chosen cover to see details on each and every book
Click for more Click for more Click for more
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Lean Manufacturing
50 * Sort,Set,Shine,Standardise,Sustain ** Total Productive Maintenance *** Overall Equipment Efficiency
Kanban Kaizen Poka Yoke Produkcja gniazdowa
Zero defects OEE*** TPM** SMED Just in time
Process mapping
Continuous flow management Standaryzacja
pracy Heijitsu box
5S*
Lean Manufacturing is a philosophy of working with little waste and highest quality. It consists of many techniques that should be gradually mastered
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I recommend reading the following books – click on the chosen cover to see details on each and every book
Click for more Click for more Click for more Click for more
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Business models
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There are 6 basic business models for on-line activities and another 6 for off-line. You have to at leas try to understand some of them
SaaS
E-commerce
Media site
2-sided market
User Generated Content
Mobile Applications
B2B Service
Retail
B2C Service
B2C Products
B2B Products
Freelancing
On-line
Off-line
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Developed companies can operate at the same time many business models, sometimes even within one business unit
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Developed companies can operate multiple models under one or many companies. Have a look at Amazon
SaaS
E-commerce Media site 2-sided market
UGC
B2B Service
B2C Service
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Check my presentation on on-line models to understand them properly
Business models Practical guide for startups and entrepreneurs
presentation
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For more check also my on-line course
Click to check my course
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I recommend reading the following books – click on the chosen cover to see details on each and every book
Click for more Click for more Click for more
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Critical Chain
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One of the biggest problem for efficiency is the so called Parkinsons’s Law
work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion
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To avoid it use the so called Critical Chain Method where you put aggressive deadlines (you do not let people create ‘just in case buffers’ and instead you create 1 buffer for everything
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I recommend reading the following books – click on the chosen cover to see details on each and every book
Click for more
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Market research techniques
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Market research can be divided into 3 main categories
Market research
Consulting methods
Off-line research
On-line research
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The simplest methods are used by consultants and only require a bit of imagination
Market research
Consulting methods
Top-down
Bottom-up Off-line research
On-line research
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Off-line research are a must not only in physical good businesses
Market research
Consulting methods
Off-line research
Interviews and discussion with (potential) customers
Being where your (potential) customer is
Work for your (potential) customers
Store checks of competition
Mystery shopping at competition
On-line research
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The last group of on-line tools puts at your disposal numerous solutions giving you in-depth knowledge of your competitors and markets
Market Research
Consulting methods
Off-line research
On-line research
On-line interviews
Facebook Audience Insight
Customers profiles on facebook/instagram/pinterest
Keyword Planner for Google AdWords
SimilarWeb
Branch sites and reports
Slideshare and Youtube
Markets for applications
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Type of markets
Existing
Better Product
Resegmented
Niche Strategy
Low cost
New Market
New users
New product
Some methods are more useful on a specific type of markets…
Mainly consulting methods Off-line and on-line research of
customers for proxy or similar markets
Off-line and on-line research of customers for similar business models
Off-line and on-line research of customers (chosen segments) and competition
Off-line and on-line research of customers and companies on similar / proxy markets
Some usage of consulting methods
Off-line research of customers and competition
On-line research of customers and competition
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Check my presentation on on-line models to understand them properly
Market research Practical guide for startups and entrepreneurs
presentation
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If you want to learn how to make in Excel advanced analysis that you would do as a business analyst go to my on-line course
Click to check my course
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Lean Startup
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I recommend reading the following books – click on the chosen cover to see details on each and every book
Click for more Click for more Click for more Click for more
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Master Excel
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Rules for Excel
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What rules should be used when building analysis in Excel
Usage of colors
Consistency between sheets
Pyramid principle
1-source rule
Repetition of variables
Shortcuts
No mouse
Description
Data source
Master sheet
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The most useful functions
Basic functions Financial / Mathematical Others
SUMIF / SUMIFS COUNTIF / COUNTIFS HLOOKUP VLOOKUP MATCH SUMPRODUCT IF AND / OR IFERROR AVERAGEIF LEFT / RIGHT / MID FIND CONCATENATE YEAR / MONTH / DAY ROUND / ROUNDUP /
ROUNDDOWN TODAY VALUE WEEKDAY
RAND / RANDBETWEEN MOD NPV IRR ABS MAX / MIN CORREL
Pivot Slicer Relative addresses Formats Hyperlink Remove Duplicates Filters Sorting Data Validation Trace Dependents /
Precedent Analysis Tool Pack
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Have a look at an example of analysis where we try to see which marketing channel is the most sensible
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If you want to learn how to make in Excel advanced analysis that you would do as a business analyst go to my on-line course
Click to check my course
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Become brutally efficient
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Check my extensive presentation on productivity hacks to see how you can me 10x more productive
Management consultant productivity hacks
How to be lazy and still get things done
presentation
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If you need more detailed version on productivity hacks you can check our course on productivity hacks
Click to check my course
Management Consulting Productivity hacks
$20
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Talk with slides
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Power Point presentations
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What rules should be used for Power Point Presentations
Use the template
1 slide = 1 message
Agenda
Executive summary
Excel analysis for every slide
Sources
Dates
Backup
Next version rule
Show money
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Now have a look at 3 examples of showing market development on slides. The first 2 are ok; the 3rd one violated the rules we have shown
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The kids market will be slowly growing as a result of GDP growth
3 247 3 480 3 473 3 503 3 537 3 583 3 626 3 689 3 750 3 806 3 857 3 911 3 965 4 011 4 055 4 104 4 144
2 804 2 862 2 855 2 880 2 908 2 946 2 981 3 033 3 084 3 130 3 171 3 216 3 260 3 298 3 334 3 374 3 407
1 328 1 392 1 389 1 401 1 415 1 433 1 450 1 476 1 500 1 523 1 543 1 565 1 586 1 605 1 622 1 641 1 658
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
8 058 8 198 8 334 8 459 8 570 8 692 8 811 8 914 9 012 9 119 9 209 7 963 7 859 7 785 7 717 7 734 7 380 Total
Source: Euromonitor
Toys
Food
Fashion
Market size In milions of EUR
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Market size In millions of EUR
3 247 3 480 3 473 3 503 3 537 3 583 3 626 3 689 3 750 3 806 3 857 3 911 3 965 4 011 4 055 4 104 4 144
2 804 2 862 2 855 2 880 2 908 2 946 2 981 3 033 3 084 3 130 3 171 3 216 3 260 3 298 3 334 3 374 3 407
1 328 1 392 1 389 1 401 1 415 1 433 1 450 1 476 1 500 1 523 1 543 1 565 1 586 1 605 1 622 1 641 1 658
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
8 058 8 198 8 334 8 459 8 570 8 692 8 811 8 914 9 012 9 119 9 209 7 963 7 859 7 785 7 717 7 734 7 380
Total
Source: Euromonitor
Toys
Food
Fashion
The kids market will develop in will be slowly growing as a result of GDP growth
88
Market size In millions of EUR
3 247 3 480 3 473 3 503 3 537 3 583 3 626 3 689 3 750 3 806 3 857 3 911 3 965 4 011 4 055 4 104 4 144
2 804 2 862 2 855 2 880 2 908 2 946 2 981 3 033 3 084 3 130 3 171 3 216 3 260 3 298 3 334 3 374 3 407
1 328 1 392 1 389 1 401 1 415 1 433 1 450 1 476 1 500 1 523 1 543 1 565 1 586 1 605 1 622 1 641 1 658
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
8 058 8 198 8 334 8 459 8 570 8 692 8 811 8 914 9 012 9 119 9 209 7 963 7 859 7 785 7 717 7 734 7 380
Total
Source: Euromonitor
Toys
Food
Fashion
The kids market will develop in will be slowly growing as a result of GDP growth
The kids market will develop in will be slowly growing as a result of GDP growth
89
If you want to learn more on being business analyst go to my on-line course
Click to check my course
90
Check my presentation on on-line models to understand them properly
Market research Practical guide for startups and entrepreneurs
presentation
91
Check my presentation on on-line models to understand them properly
Business models Practical guide for startups and entrepreneurs
presentation
92
Check my presentation on on-line models to understand them properly
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