LinkedIn Learning 2

Which statement is correct about analytics?

All analytics are based on data that has been derived from observations. Whether the data is quantitative or qualitative, data is derived from a set of observations.

You are interested in sales conversion rates. Which rule of thumb can best keep you from drawing incorrect conclusions about an already existing dataset you are presented?

Ask why the data was gathered in the first place. The data might have been gathered for some reason that is completely inapplicable for the business question you framed.

If you had to choose between having a high level of business acumen or being an expert statistician, which choice would provide more value to your company and why?

Business acumen will let you formulate questions because they align with business strategy. It is far more valuable to a company to have someone who understands the company's strategy, and can find answers to business problems.

A before-and-after comparison of your online and in-store sales shows your online sales increased after an online promotion. What must you think about first before drawing conclusions about the promotion?

Did your in-store sales also increase even though they were not part of the promotion? This is the starting point. If sales went up for both the entire increase in online sales would not be as a result of the promotion.

You want to take a poll of your customers for their perceptions of customer service. How can you most accurately explain what is meant by a random sample in conducting your poll?

Every customer has an equal chance of being included in your poll. "Randomness" means there is no bias in selecting the customers who will be polled.

You own a florist shop where your revenue depends on how many flowers each customer buys. If the average sale for roses is a dozen, and one standard deviation is three, what does this tell you?

For two-thirds of your sales, customers will buy between nine and fifteen roses. Both add and subtract the standard deviation from the mean to arrive at the range. Two-thirds of your sales will fall in the range.

When customers enter your store, they are handed a card asking how they heard about your store. Will this card provide adequate data as to where customers heard about your store?

If everyone entering your store is given a card, the data will include many people who leave without buying. If you want data on where purchasers heard about your store, your data will be affected by the people who came in but did not buy anything.

Which statement is most accurate about "one standard deviation" in a normal distribution?

Roughly one-third of data points are beyond one standard deviation from the mean. Because roughly 68% of data points were within one standard deviation from the mean, this is just another way of saying it.

Raj reviews performance scores for a department's employees on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being the lowest. What would a mean of 7.8, a median of 4, and a mode of 6 suggest to Raj?

The average score is skewed to a small number of high-performing employees. The mean of 7.8 is high when the median is only 4 and 6 is the modal statistic. This suggests the median is skewed by some 9's and 10's.

Your ice cream shop's monthly sales show that sales have increased each year since you opened in 2013. If you remove data for July, you see your sales have actually remained steady. Was the data cherry-picked?

The data was not cherry-picked because you included all data for every month since you opened. The data was not cherry-picked because you had every month's data since you opened. Diving farther to find trends is not cherry-picking.

What is most likely to cause a delay and adversely impact a company's deadline in performing a data analysis of a particular business problem?

The data you have access to is not clean. If the data is not clean it can cause an unforeseen delay.

What do the descriptive statistics of mean, mode, and median do?

They summarize the basic features of a dataset. This is all descriptive statistics do. You have to draw any conclusions from the data in the dataset.

The mean sales conversion rate for a FarmCo retail store is 50%. The median conversion rate is 40%. Which conclusion can you meaningfully draw from this data?

This data alone tells you little if the stores are not all the same size and not all located in rural areas. Differences in store size and location could explain these results. You cannot make meaningful conclusions until you analyze those factors.

To properly use data analytics tools, which two things must you always do?

You must understand the data, and you must focus on the questions you want to have answered. Remember, the only reason you are using data analytics is to have data that answer a business question.

If you are doing data analytics for an external stakeholder, what is the most damaging adverse effect of using cherry-picked data?

You will undermine your credibility. If you use cherry-picked data, and your stakeholder finds out, your credibility will be undermined; perhaps permanently.

Your online store's sales are expanding while your in-store sales are declining. Which expensive error might you make if you use the online sales techniques in your retail store using this data alone?

failing to consider extrapolation to your retail store properly The techniques used in your online store might not extrapolate to a retail store.

Which field of economics provides guidance to a company as to how a change of policy will affect a company's bottom line?

program evaluation Program evaluation is a field of economics that attempts to determine how a new policy or program affects a business's bottom line.

Data analytics does not have to be complex and confusing. If you have a command of _____, you can help your company identify patterns that can be explored further.

summary statistics The simple summary statistics of mean, median, mode, and standard deviation can reveal trends for someone who is not an expert statistician.

How do businesses use "forecasts"?

to reduce the likelihood of certain outcomes A forecast will not increase future outcomes. Market forces and other external factors do that.