Eugene Lebedev is a Power BI consultant by background. Before founding Vidi Corp in 2021 he created Power BI reporting for Autodesk. His Power Bi reports were used by VPs of Finance and C-suite of Autodesk. As part of Vidi Corp, Eugene created dashboards for Google, Teleperformance, Delta Airlines and 200+ clients worldwide.
It’s no surprise that lack of data isn’t a problem for most businesses and government agencies. In turn, it’s the case of the opposite, i.e., there’s often too much information collected from their users, and most of the time, the entire available data may not be the kingmaker to make better decisions by stakeholders or business owners. Now the question arises ‘ what the steps to make better data analysis are? ” We will answer it for you; hold on!
To be precise, organizations need better data analysis that really means for the actual growth of their business. With the proper data analytics process, tools, and metrics, the once overwhelming volume of discrete data now becomes a simple, clear decision point leaving no threads loosely tied.
Arguably being a business owner, you must understand the key analytic factors that bring differences in the business. Unfortunately, companies are not aware of how to ensure that they are getting value from their data analysis, which happens with most of them.
But you should not because today, in this blog, we will guide you with the best practices on how to get value from your data analysis in a positive way.
Start with clearly defined targets and goals; every business is unique and has its own goals. One may target reaching more audience while others may have a target of acquiring more customers and likes, so first define your targets. Targets are useful because they give context to your numbers. For example, is it good or bad that you get 200 new customers in one month? It depends on what your target is. If you are targeting 300 new customers per month, it is bad but if you are targeting 100, that is great. Do you get the idea?
There are a few questions that you can ask yourself to set your goals.
1. Can I express my targets in money equivalent e.g. revenue targets, profit targets, etc?
2. How can I break down the business target further e,g, set a target for every team/salesperson/month/etc
Defining goals alone is not worthy if you are not sure what to measure? And how to measure?. You need to understand both these measuring processes so that you can know where your business stands out.
Ask yourself, which ones of your initiatives are responsible for achieving your target? For example, if your target is to increase your revenue, one initiative that you can take is to find an additional sales channel. It is therefore very important to track the growth of this channel and its proportion in the overall sales mix.
You then need to identify how to calculate your revenue in technical terms e.g. is it the sum of the column [Revenue] in your dataset? Or is it something more complex e.g. sum of several columns from several datasets? Understanding the math behind the numbers can help a lot to deepen your understanding of your business.
Finally, is it useful not only to measure the results but to measure them against something such as last period or last year. This would give context to your numbers and would help you understand if you are doing good or bad.
As your questions are clearly defined, and your measurement priorities are set, now it’s time to know your data and what we mean by that is to achieve your target and measure your growth; you need to understand which data gives you the desired results.
For example, you need to figure your growth of revenue here. You require data that interprets your sales and marketing figures. Other collected data, such as feedback, ratings, employee performance, etc may not be needed as your goal is concentrated on profits only.
You can ask yourself some questions like
After you’ve pointed to the right data to answer your question, it’s time for deeper data analysis. Begin your analysis by manipulating your data in several various ways, such as plotting graphs, heatmaps, bar graphs, time series, geo-maps, etc.
During this step, data analysis tools such as Tableau, PowerBI, Domo, Google data studio help you understand even the minute details clearly using rich visuals and dashboards.
During this step, you can ask yourself some questions like :
After analyzing your data and conducting further research on finding gaps, it’s time to interpret your outputs. As you interpret results, you can clearly understand the width of your goals and outcomes easily. This helps you mind your status of progress as long as you repeat these five steps.
As you interpret the results of your data, ask yourself few questions:
● Does the data answer your original question? If yes, then how?
● What factors could be responsible for the growth or decline of the metrics that you track? What can you do to influence those factors?
● Are there any limitations on your conclusions, any angles you haven’t considered?
We anticipate that with the above steps, you get a fair idea of undergoing the best practices for data analysis that are truly meaningful for your business.
Let’s measure your growth practically and cross verify if your data analysts honestly answer these below-mentioned metrics that speak loud on the value of data analysis conducted.
Don’t be ditched in a trap where you just let your analytics teamwork and let your hands shake off. Being a business owner or a stakeholder, you too should have a clear idea and data analytics practices to measure your growth fairly. It doesn’t mean you need to be technically aware of the tools and methods used, but you should know the valuable insights and data that genuinely revolutionize your business curve to move up.
” What isn’t measured can’t be managed.”
It is highly factual these days; you’ll be like shooting arrows in the dark without analytics. So, make analytics a substantial part of your business, and you can do this by partnering with a highly efficient BI agency like our Vidi-corp.
We at Vidi-corp offer high-end value-based analytic solutions across finance, marketing, web analytics. With our expert team of highly qualified, experienced BI experts, your tracking of business equations and value-driven analytics never go out of hand.
Want to draw the most accurate conclusions from your data? Then get in touch with our BI analysts today.
