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Copyright notice

All rights reserved.

IIBA®, BABoK®, CBDATM are registered Trademarks of International Institute of Business

Analysis, Canada.

All trademarks and copyrights mentioned herein are the possession of their respective
owners. We make no claim of ownership by the mention of products that contain these
marks.

Contents of this document should not be disclosed to any unauthorized person. This
document may not, in whole or in part, be reduced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
translated, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical.

This publication may be used in assisting aspirants for CBDATM examination.

It does not warrant that use of this publication will ensure passing the CBDATM examination.

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Introduction

As the book title suggests, this book is a guidebook for the aspirants of the CBDATM
examination from IIBA®, Canada. We value your time and hence the book is designed to be
extremely specific – Help you pass the certification examination with least possible effort.

This book is authored by qualified IIBA® trainers who have helped many other participants
clear the IIBA® examination in the very first attempt. They are also regular trainers for IIBA®
preparations in both corporate and open-hose workshops and have trained participants
across the world – USA, Australia, Middle East, South East Asia, Europe and Africa.

CBDATM examination is based on IIBA® CBDA Guide and so is this book. This book presents
the concepts in a tabular format which is easy to understand.

Feedbacks and suggestions on the book

We will be glad and thankful if you can share your feedbacks and suggestions on the book.
Please send your feedbacks and suggestions to [email protected].

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Table of Contents
Copyright notice .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 4

Feedbacks and suggestions on the book................................................................................................... 4

1. Introduction to Business Data Analytics................................................................................................. 6

1.1 What is Business Data Analytics ............................................................................................................. 8

1.1.1 Business Data Analytics as a Movement .......................................................................................... 8

1.1.2 Business Data Analytics as a Capability ............................................................................................ 9

1.1.3 Data Analytics as a Data-centric Activity Set .................................................................................. 9

1.1.4 Business Data Analytics as a Decision-Making Paradigm ...................................................... 10

1.1.5 Business Data Analytics as a Set of Practices and Technologies ......................................... 10

1.1.6 Business Data Analytics Objectives ................................................................................................. 10

1.1.7 Business Analysis and Business Data Analytics........................................................................... 13

Blog 1 - Analyzing Quantitative Research............................................................................................... 15

Blog 2 - 27 Examples of Key Performance Indicators ......................................................................... 16

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1. Introduction to Business Data Analytics

Data plays a crucial and transformational role in decision making. Data is a collection of facts,
observations or other information. Enterprises are using data not only to improve their
business processes and to forecast typical business metrics, but also use data to support
strategic decisions that shape an organization's future. Analytics is the science of examining
raw data to draw insights from information.

It impacts

 How businesses make decisions

 Enabling new products and services and by creating new markets
 Disrupting existing markets and unseating secure businesses
 Driving increased efficiency, i.e., for retailers to enable them to tailor products for
customers
 Identifying growth opportunities
 Driving innovation and
 Operating more efficiently and better management of risk.

Business Data Analytics is an area of study targets effective business decision-making as

opposed to using the rigorous technical know-hows through which data is analyzed.

IIBA Guide to Business Data Analytics emphasizes some of the significant business analysis and
analytics concepts to build a foundational understanding that will guide practitioners through
analytics initiatives.

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Use of Business Data Analytics for business decision-making

Answering What will analytics initiative and business data be used for?
Strategic
How will insights from data drive business outcome and value?
Questions
What type of business data is most likely to generate the insights
needed? What business problems are we trying to address?

What is the hypothesis that will be tested? What do the identified

patterns from data inform us about the future?

Enterprise data What type of data is collected and captured?

organization
What is master data for the enterprise, e.g., customer, supplier or
and
product master data?
management

How are we What is the enterprise data strategy and architecture - Legacy, Data
managing data Warehouse, Data Lakes and vaults, Big Data capable, etc.?
quality?

Understanding How can we best explain analytics results - Data Coherence vs.
and Storytelling?
communicating
How do we visually present analytics results to business stakeholders?
analytics
What business inferences can be drawn out of the data?
results

Integrating What business processes and workflows are impacted?

insights into
How do we manage the resulting change from analytics initiative?
initiatives
How do we become a more data sophisticated organization?

Technology What IT systems need to be improved to capitalize on the insights?

Do we need any additional technology/systems to be procured and

implemented?

People Need for additional trainings to improve employee capabilities

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1.1 What is Business Data Analytics

Business Data Analytics is an area of study by which a specific set of techniques,

competencies and best practices are applied to perform continuous exploration, iteration,
investigation and visualization of business data to obtain insights that can lead to improved
decision-making.

Business Data Analytics can be applied to investigate a proposed business decision, action or
a business hypothesis, or discovering new insights from business data that may result in
improved decision-making.

Business data analytics can be defined more specifically through several perspectives such as

• a movement;
• a capability;
• data-centric activity set;
• decision-making paradigm; and
• set of practices and technologies.

1.1.1 Business Data Analytics as a Movement

A management philosophy or business culture of evidence-based problem identification and

problem-solving. Evidence through data is the driver of business decisions and change.
Rapid technological advances in the digitization of data and improved analytics methods are
prompting the businesses to adopt a data-driven management philosophy.

Example of Evidence-Based Problem Analysis in Insurance

For the Insurance industry, generating better customer value has always meant getting a
clearer picture of individual risk. By paying closer attention to the data people create daily,
insurance companies can better anticipate needs, personalize offers, tailor the customer
experience. It is a shift from the standard practice of using demographics data to tailor
insurance products. Non-traditional data such as telemetric, social media and lifestyle data
can accurately reveal individual risk patterns through advanced analytics. The availability of
such data has prompted insurers to change the way products are marketed and priced and
to manage the claims better.

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1.1.2 Business Data Analytics as a Capability

Includes the competencies possessed by the organization and its employees which include
analytical activities, innovation, culture creation and process design.

• needed data infrastructure,

• how to source the relevant data,
• how to design analytics solution,
• how to measure improvement, and
• how to create a business case.

1.1.3 Data Analytics as a Data-centric Activity Set

Six core data-centric activities:

1. Access (Shall we call as Acquiring / Obtaining;

2. Examine
3. Aggregate (Is it mandatory? Why?)
4. Analyze
5. Interpret and
6. Present results.

In addition to the core data-centric activities, extended activities include:

1. Planning;
2. Strategy analysis;
3. Stakeholder collaboration and management;
4. Solution designing;
5. Recording and verifying analytics approaches; and
6. Tracking and managing analytics recommendations.

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1.1.4 Business Data Analytics as a Decision-Making Paradigm

Make decisions using evidence-based problem identification and problem-solving. Treat

evidence from data as an enabler in business decision-making that is more persuasive than
instinctive decision-making. Instinctive decision-making is influenced by different types of
cognitive biases. Strike a balance between business experience and analytics results for
effective business decisions through a collaborative approach.

1.1.5 Business Data Analytics as a Set of Practices and Technologies

A set of practices and technologies required to successfully execute analytics initiatives.

These practices can be discussed in the context of six Business Data Analytics domains:

1. Identify Research Questions (Should we call it as Define Research Questions?)

2. Source Data
3. Analyze Data
4. Interpret and Report Results
5. Use Results for Business Decision-making, and
6. Guide Company-level Strategy for Business Analytics

1.1.6 Business Data Analytics Objectives

Leaders have traditionally made business decisions based on personal expertise, experience
and instinct. Business Data Analytics reduces cognitive and personal biases from the
decision-making process by using data as the primary input for decision-making.

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4 types of analytics methods:

Descriptive: Provides insight into the past by describing or summarizing data.

Descriptive analytics aims to answer the question "What has happened?"

Example: Aggregation and summarization of sales data based on geographic regions.

Diagnostic: Explores why an outcome occurred.

Diagnostic analytics is used to answer the question "Why did a certain event occur?"

Example: Investigation of dipping revenue in a particular quarter.

Predictive: Analyzes past trends in data to provide future insights.

Predictive analytics is used to answer the question "What is likely to happen?"

Example: Predicting profit or loss for the next financial year.

Prescriptive: Uses the findings from different forms of analytics to quantify the anticipated
effects and outcomes of decisions under consideration.

Prescriptive analytics aims to answer the question "What should happen if we do …?"

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Example: What will happen to sales if the marketing spend goes up by 10%?

Examples of Analytics Contexts and Business Use Cases

Analytics Typical Business Cases

Context

Customer • Predicting customer churn and behaviour

Analytics • Understanding customer segments
• Developing proactive campaigns to retain them
• Understanding customer lifetime value
• Optimizing

People Analytics • Understanding and predicting attrition

• Performance assessment (How?)

Supply Chain • Predicting and matching demand and supply

Analytics • Managing inventories
• Conducting root cause and failure analysis (How?)

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BFSI Analytics • Quantifying portfolio risks and value at risk (VaR)

• Fraud detection and prevention using credit risk models
• Product pricing

Digital Analytics • Platform and channel utilization? (Or effectiveness?)

• SEO and digital marketing assessments
• Web and social media engagement statistics

Healthcare • Predicting disease vectors and outbreaks, e.g., Dengue, Malaria

Analytics • Drug discovery and genomics
• Research for lifestyle diseases

1.1.7 Business Analysis and Business Data Analytics

Business Analysis

• Practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending

solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
• Business analysis tools, techniques and competencies complement the analytics
initiatives to be more effective by providing the business context for analytics effort.
• Defines the focus for the analytics problem and sets the scope before data is collected.
• Aids in the collection of data and the implementation of the data collection processes.
• Communicate the results and facilitate the implementation of informed business
decisions made as a result of what is learned from analytics.

Analytics Disciplines

• Focuses primarily on a systematic process to observe and predict trends and patterns.
• Used to sort, process, and analyze the data collected through business analysis process.

Some consider data analytics as a specialty or subset of business analysis focused on data
analysis. This viewpoint is taken considering skills and competencies needed for business
analysis and data analytics work.

Business Data Analytics is a specialized area of study that contains aspects of business
analysis and analytics disciplines and used for creating better business outcomes through
evidence (data) - driven business decisions.
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Business Analysis and Data Analytics

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Blog 1 - Analyzing Quantitative Research

Quantitative studies result in data that provides quantifiable, objective, and easy to interpret
results. Data can typically be summarized for generalizations which can be applied to the
greater population. Design of quantitative studies helps to ensure that personal bias does
not impact the data. Identify the levels or scales of measurement as nominal, ordinal, interval
or ratio. Data can typically be entered into a spreadsheet and organized or “coded” in some
way that begins to give meaning to the data.

List of commonly used descriptive statistics:

 Frequencies – a count of the number of times a particular score or value is found in the
data set

 Percentages – used to express a set of scores or values as a percentage of the whole

 Mean – numerical average of the scores or values for a particular variable

 Median – the numerical midpoint of the scores or values that is at the center of the
distribution of the scores

 Mode – the most common score or value for a particular variable

 Minimum and maximum values (range) – the highest and lowest values or scores for
any variable

Nominal scales, such as gender, does not have a mean score.

For some studies, descriptive statistics may be sufficient if you do not need to generalize the
results to a larger population. For example, if you are comparing the percentage of teenagers
that smoke in private versus public high schools, descriptive statistics may be sufficient.

However, if you want to utilize the data to make inferences or predictions about the
population, use inferential statistics. Inferential statistics examine the differences and
relationships between two or more samples of the population. Inferential statistics allow you
test hypotheses and generalize results to population as whole.

List of basic inferential statistical tests:

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 Correlation – seeks to describe the nature of a relationship between two variables,

such as strong, negative positive, weak, or statistically significant. Remember: A
correlation does imply causation

 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) – Determines whether or not the means of two sampled
groups is statistically significant, for example, the test scores of two groups of students
are examined and proven to be significantly different or not.

 Regression – Determines whether one variable is a predictor of another variable.

Regression does not indicate causation.

Blog 2 - 27 Examples of Key Performance Indicators

Good plans use 5-7 KPIs to manage and track the progress of their plan.

A structured KPI includes:

 A Measure – Every KPI must have a measure. The best KPIs have more expressive
measures.

 A Target – Every KPI needs to have a target that matches your measure and the time
period of your goal. These are generally a numeric value you’re seeking to achieve.

 A Data Source – Every KPI needs to have a clearly defined data source so there is no
gray area in how each is being measured and tracked.

 Reporting Frequency – Different KPIs may have different reporting needs, but a
good rule to follow is to report on them at least monthly.

Examples of Sales KPIs

1. Number of New Contracts Signed Per Period

2. Dollar Value for New Contracts Signed Per Period

3. Number of Engaged Qualified Leads in Sales Funnel

4. Hours of Resources Spent on Sales Follow Up

5. Average Time for Conversion

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6. Net Sales – Dollar or Percentage Growth

Examples of Financial KPIs

7. Growth in Revenue

8. Net Profit Margin

9. Gross Profit Margin

10. Operational Cash Flow

11. Current Accounts Receivables

12. Inventory Turnover

13. EBITDA

Examples of Customer KPIs

14. Number of Customers Retained

15. Percentage of Market Share

16. Net Promotor Score

17. Average Ticket/Support Resolution Time

Examples of Operational KPIs

18. Order Fulfillment Time

19. Time to Market

20. Employee Satisfaction Rating

21. Employee Churn Rate

Examples of Marketing KPIs

22. Monthly Website Traffic

23. Number of Qualified Leads

24. Conversion Rate for Call-To-Action Content

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25. Keywords in Top 10 Search Engine Results

26. Blog Articles Published This Month

27. E-Books Published This Month

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