10 Serious Business Analytics Mistakes You Should Avoid

It’s been quite long since the term ‘Business Analytics’ was coined, but businesses are still unable to deal with it effectively.
“Business Analytics basically refers to the thorough investigation of a business’s past performance with the utilization of advanced technologies, skills, applications, tools, and practices in order to identify the blocks of improvement.”
It often includes quantitative, statistical, explanatory, predictive as well as fact-based data and analysis that help in better decision-making. Business Analytics is basically helping businesses to makes sense out of their data by answering the following set of questions efficiently:

•  Why are certain things happening?
•  What will happen in near future?
•  What will push these things? and,
•  What things led to the current situation?

In addition to the above mentioned, there are many other purposes that Business Analytics report serves for every business including:

•  It helps to make a sound business decision that influences overall functioning in the organization.
•  It enhances the level of understanding towards available data resources to improve operational efficiency at different levels.
•  It helps to process information in a meaningful manner in order to offer competitive benefits to the organization.
•  It helps to convert the collected business data into valuable information block that foster informed decision making.

Even after the evolution of advanced tools to conduct analysis precisely, there are certain mistakes that analysts or managers do in analyzing overall business performance, regardless of the number of years they have spent in their profession.
This post contains the extract of such common mistakes and has listed 10 serious Business Analytics mistakes that you should avoid at all costs. Let’s have a quick overview- 
1) Don’t be Confused about Your Role

First and foremost thing you should take care of is your role and responsibilities for the assigned project. With a defined scope of your role, you will know the things you are answerable for.

2) Don’t List Requirement On Your Own

Being a Business Analyst, you are not supposed to work on assumptions, especially when it is about business requirements. Make sure you carefully analyze the business requirements for the upcoming project by discussing them with the individual department heads or team leaders.

3) Don’t Hesitate in Raising Queries

Don’t be afraid to raise questions. If you do not raise queries, you might feel unable to answer your seniors or stakeholders for problems that may arise in the later phase of the project, just because you couldn’t clarify certain things.

4) Don’t Miss Functional Requirements 

Once you are sorted with the business requirements, it’s time to trace them in test cases with the functional requirements and development practices for making the entire process smooth for not only you but everyone else.

5) Don’t Forget to Get Feedback

Whether you are about to float any report, important document, or a PowerPoint presentation, make sure you seek feedback from the concerned persons including project managers. This will help you improve at personal as well as professional level.

6) Don’t Ever Ignore the Stakeholders

Ignoring your stakeholders for any reason, especially at your level may invite trouble. Follow a proactive approach through a one-on-one meeting to take their opinions and leave no stone for possibilities or potential risks unturned.

7) Don’t Be In Hurry to Complete Tasks

Don’t work on anything just for the sake of completing. Understand the criticality of your role for your business and act in a responsible way. Being too speedy about things could turn out to be a deal breaker.

8) Don’t Let Excuses Kill Your Productivity

If there’s something that is interfering with your productivity, you should take a break or convey it directly to your manager, rather than coming up with excuses and causing an unnecessary delay in business processes.

9) Don’t Mix Up Stated Needs With Real Ones

After conducting different processes including one-on-one sessions, anonymous surveys, and group discussions, you will get a long list of needs from the employee (or real-time users). Your responsibility is to sort out the real needs from that list through your keen investigation.

[Remember: Anything that we think we need is not necessarily something we actually need. There are other solutions around to work upon]

10) Don’t Believe in Rhetorical Statements

Gone is the time when rhetorical statements were used to cover reports or reflect outcomes. Now, you should have clear and concise statistical data in hand to prove the credibility of the resources, tools, or processes involved in a particular project.

11) Don’t Refrain from Quantifying Results

Last but not the least, when it comes to showcasing the estimated results in terms of ROI, let the numbers express the whole story to the concerned managers, CEOs, stakeholders. If your report says that customer complaints reduced by 40%, they will be able to make sense out of it. 
If you are a Business Analyst too, you can also create a checklist accordingly to avoid these fallouts and give your best for every project assigned.
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