Data analysis is the process of transforming raw data into insights that guide your business decisions and operations. It starts with identifying the issue you are trying to solve, then gathering all the relevant data and then analyzing it using a variety of statistical techniques to find patterns or connections. The result can be greater efficiency or profit.
To begin the process, determine a goal. This could be as simple as a specific sales goal or as complicated as predicting the likelihood of customer churn. Then, you have to decide what type of data analysis will lead you to that goal. Diagnostic data analysis aims to discover known connections between data points to explain observations. Predictive modeling, on the other hand is based on past results to predict the outcome.
The next step is to collect the information, which could include gathering it from internal sources like CRM software, internal reports and archives. It could also require importing external data, which involves dealing with data from various sources in various formats. Once you have your data you can begin prepping it for analysis by cleaning, organizing and transforming as necessary.
After the data has been analyzed and analyzed, you must write a report to present the findings in a way that is easy to understand for your readers. Depending on the level of experience of your readers, this might be written for non-experts or working with an expert to translate technical terms and processes into readable information.