Want to be a Business Analytics Professional in 2023?
Think in a structured manner
Structured thinking is a crucial skill that is essential for anyone aspiring to become a business analytics professional. You might find yourself wondering, do I think in a structured way before now?; or what exactly structured thinking entails?. By the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding of what structured thinking is and its significance in the field of business analytics.
Structured thinking is the process of conceptualising complex problems into a framework, to enable a systematic procedure to deriving answers.
Well, let me guess your thoughts right now. Whose definition is that? Save the stress, that is my definition. Ofcourse, i got the inspiration here. Everyone has some experience of doing structured thinking at some point. It is inborn for man, to try and fail, before discovering a pattern that works well. Until a better way of solving the problem comes up. A quick example of a simple structured thinking situation is:
Problem: You just got back from work, you want to see a football game, but today your Television is not showing as required. How do you fix this?
First, you check if the Television power is on(Usually people do this with remotes these days)
Then you check if the input signals connection is on the right source.
If it does work, you can go further to check the source for possible mishaps.
When there are no physical mishaps, you start considering if the cables are faulty or the wifi connection is lost. Then you check where the connection etc.
Yea, I can guess what you thinking, this is a quick and easy one, but you should know this is how structured thinking works and master it for your business problems. We go from the known to the unknown.
Why is structured thinking required?
When you ask organization leaders what the most important skill of a business analytics professional. ‘they answer: structured thinking’. Again, I guess you might be saying why not Negotiation skills, or communication skills etc. Those are essential skills of business analysts. However, Not the same for a Business Analytics professional. The reason is that they usually do not interphase with Clients, most times they are internal, to improve business processes and increase efficiency. Now you understand, that business analytics professionals have a very dynamic day, in which no two days are alike. but the approach to solving the problems remain the same application of a structured approach to solving business problems.
Who needs structured thinking?
Only a Business analytics guru! Yes, but we should understand they are not alone in this category. Everyone is required to know this art. The better you are at structured thinking, the more efficient you would be in solving complex problems. Everyone is encouraged to apply this method in their day to day tasks.
Examples of complex problems that require structure thinking
- How do we classify our customers into loyalty levels for proper customer compensation?
- Where do we open our next 10 stores?
- Predict which users are likely to make a purchase
- Who is the next best candidate for promotion?
- How much are our stores likely to sell in the next 6 months.
Bonus
Let us take one of the problems from the above business problem
How do we classify our customers into loyalty levels for proper customer compensation?
According to research in Harvard business review, proper customer compensation can provide increased loyalty in business. This can further drive an increase in revenue from loyal customers. The company superstore wants to capitalize on these research findings, to classify the customers into various loyalty groups bearing in mind that not all customers are created equal. How do you go about this as a business analytics professional?
First, have a deep thought about this then read the solution I want to provide below in a structured manner.
Customer loyalty class = Top percentile(Recency ) + Top percentile (Frequency) + top percentile (Monetary value)
The fomular stated above give a conscise method of presenting a solution to a problem seen as complex. Moving forward;
Lets us dissect the following information for clarification
- Customer loyalty class = Platinum, Gold, silver and bronze
- Recency — The closest date the customer visited the business (The larger the number the less the value of recency)
- Frequency- The rate at which the customer purchases in the store. (The higher the frequency the higher the value)
- Monetary — The amount in value spent on purchase by the given customer. ( The higher of course, the better )
It is now easy to gather your data based on this structured framework you derived.
- Recency — Date of the last purchase
- Frequency- Number of purchase orders made by this customer
- Monetary- The total money value of this customer for the period.
I believe you have an understanding of what structured thinking is now. Well, that is the goal of this blog.
Kindly like my post and give me a clap 👏 . Thanks
