01
What is the difference between COUNT(*) and COUNT(column)?
Show answer
COUNT(*) counts all rows; COUNT(column) counts only rows where that column is not NULL.
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02
Explain Porter's Five Forces.
Show answer
A model assessing industry attractiveness through supplier power, buyer power, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes and rivalry among competitors.
03
A food delivery company's orders fell 15%. How do you investigate?
Show answer
Check data accuracy, then segment by city, restaurant, time and user type; look at supply, delivery time, pricing, competitors and seasonality before proposing fixes.
04
Agile vs Waterfall?
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Waterfall runs fixed phases one after another with requirements frozen early. Agile delivers in short sprints with continuous feedback, so requirements can change. In Agile, BAs maintain the backlog and user stories.
05
What is a data table in Excel?
Show answer
A what-if tool that recalculates a formula for different inputs, for example loan payments across different rates and tenures.
06
Use case vs user story?
Show answer
A use case describes the full interaction between an actor and the system (main and alternate flows). A user story is a short statement of need from the user's point of view, refined with acceptance criteria.
07
What is a traceability matrix?
Show answer
A table linking each requirement to design, test cases and delivery status, ensuring nothing is missed and helping assess change impact.
08
How do you find duplicate customers?
Show answer
SELECT email, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY email HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
09
What is the difference between SQL and Excel for analysis?
Show answer
Excel suits small to medium data and quick ad-hoc work; SQL queries large databases directly and repeatably.
10
What are wireframes and why are they useful for a BA?
Show answer
Low-fidelity layouts of screens that help stakeholders visualise and agree on requirements before development starts.
11
BRD vs FRD?
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A BRD states what the business needs and why. An FRD details how the system should behave to meet those needs (functional specifications).
12
How do you prioritise requirements?
Show answer
Use MoSCoW (Must, Should, Could, Won't), value versus effort scoring or the Kano model, agreed with stakeholders based on business value and risk.
13
What techniques do you use to elicit requirements?
Show answer
Interviews, workshops, surveys, observation, document analysis, prototyping and brainstorming, chosen according to stakeholders and project stage.
14
What are the 4 Ps of marketing?
Show answer
Product, Price, Place and Promotion, the levers a business uses to bring an offering to market.
15
How do you build a PivotTable to analyse sales by region and product?
Show answer
Create a table, insert a PivotTable, drag region to rows, product to columns, sales to values, and add slicers for month or channel.
16
What is Kano model in prioritisation?
Show answer
A model classifying features as basic, performance or delight attributes based on how they affect customer satisfaction, helping decide what to build first.
17
What is a market entry strategy case?
Show answer
Decide whether and how to enter a market by evaluating attractiveness, competition, capabilities and entry mode (build, buy, partner), then risks and next steps.
18
Guesstimate: how many cups of tea are sold in Delhi per day?
Show answer
Population about 20 million, adult tea drinkers about 50%, cups bought outside per person around 1 on average. This gives roughly 10 million cups, then adjust for offices and stalls.
19
What is a primary key?
Show answer
A column or set of columns that uniquely identifies each row in a table and cannot contain NULL.
20
How do you handle changing requirements?
Show answer
Log the change, assess impact on scope, cost and timeline, get approval through change control or backlog grooming, and update documents and stakeholders.
21
Guesstimate: how many cars are sold in India every year?
Show answer
Structure it: households × car-owning share ÷ replacement cycle + first-time buyers + commercial fleet. State each assumption clearly and sanity-check the final number.
22
How do you compute CAGR in Excel?
Show answer
CAGR = (End value / Start value)^(1/years) - 1, entered as =(B2/A2)^(1/n)-1.
23
How do you create a dashboard in Excel?
Show answer
Prepare clean data, build PivotTables and PivotCharts, add KPI cards and slicers, and arrange everything on one sheet with a clear layout.
24
SQL: total revenue per month.
Show answer
SELECT DATE_TRUNC('month', order_date) AS month, SUM(amount) AS revenue
FROM orders GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1;
-- MySQL: DATE_FORMAT(order_date, '%Y-%m')
25
SQL: month-over-month revenue growth.
Show answer
WITH m AS (SELECT month, SUM(amount) AS rev FROM orders GROUP BY month)
SELECT month, rev,
ROUND(100.0 * (rev - LAG(rev) OVER (ORDER BY month))
/ LAG(rev) OVER (ORDER BY month), 1) AS mom_pct
FROM m;
26
What is sensitivity analysis?
Show answer
Testing how changes in key inputs such as price or volume affect the output, in Excel using data tables or scenario manager.
27
What is the 80/20 rule in business analysis?
Show answer
Pareto principle: about 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes, such as most revenue from a few customers or most defects from a few issues.
28
What is Power Pivot?
Show answer
An Excel add-in for building data models with relationships and DAX measures over millions of rows, beyond normal worksheet limits.
29
How do you analyse variance between budget and actual?
Show answer
Variance = Actual - Budget, shown as amount and percentage, with conditional formatting to flag large gaps and comments on the drivers.
30
What is the difference between OLTP and OLAP systems?
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OLTP handles many small day-to-day transactions; OLAP supports analysis over large historical data with aggregates and reporting.
31
How do you approach a guesstimate question?
Show answer
Clarify the scope, break the problem into logical parts, state assumptions with round numbers, compute step by step and sanity-check the answer.
32
What is a process flow and which tools do you use?
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A diagram of steps, decisions and owners in a process, made using BPMN or flowcharts in tools like Visio, Lucidchart or draw.io.
33
How would you improve a company's low app conversion rate?
Show answer
Map the funnel, find the biggest drop-off, check usability and load time, run A/B tests on fixes and track conversion lift.
34
Which what-if analysis tools does Excel have?
Show answer
Goal Seek (find the input for a target output), Data Tables (see outputs for many inputs) and Scenario Manager (save best, base and worst cases).
35
What is a KPI tree?
Show answer
It breaks a top metric into drivers: Revenue = Users × Conversion × AOV; Users = New + Returning, and so on. It shows which lever to pull and where a drop came from.
36
Build a break-even analysis in Excel.
Show answer
Break-even units = Fixed costs ÷ (Price − Variable cost per unit).
Add a data table to test different price and volume scenarios.
37
What is a CTE?
Show answer
A named temporary result introduced with WITH that makes long queries readable and reusable in the same statement.
38
How do you handle large datasets in Excel?
Show answer
Use tables, Power Query, remove volatile functions, filter before calculating and move to Power Pivot or a database when rows reach the millions.
39
What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
Show answer
The smallest version of a product with enough features to deliver value and gather real user feedback before investing more.
40
What is a user story and what makes it good?
Show answer
A short requirement written as 'As a user, I want X so that Y', backed by acceptance criteria. Good stories follow INVEST: independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small and testable.
41
SQL: top 5 customers by spend.
Show answer
SELECT customer_id, SUM(amount) AS spend
FROM orders
GROUP BY customer_id
ORDER BY spend DESC
LIMIT 5;
42
How do you write a query to find users active in consecutive months?
Show answer
Get distinct user-month pairs, self-join or use LAG on month per user, and keep rows where the previous month is exactly one month earlier.
43
How do you calculate the percentage contribution of each category?
Show answer
SUM(sales) per category divided by SUM(SUM(sales)) OVER () and multiplied by 100 gives each category's share of the total.
44
What is a subquery and when would you use it?
Show answer
A query nested inside another, used for filtering or calculating values such as customers whose spend is above the average.
45
How would you decide whether to launch a new product?
Show answer
Assess market size and demand, customer need, competition, unit economics, capabilities, risks and strategic fit, then test with a pilot before scale-up.
46
What are aggregate functions?
Show answer
Functions that summarise rows into a value, such as COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN and MAX.
47
What is a SWOT analysis?
Show answer
A framework listing internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats to assess a project or business position.
48
How would you price a new subscription product?
Show answer
Combine cost-plus, competitor benchmarks and willingness to pay from research, test tiers with experiments and check margin and churn impact.
49
What does GROUP BY do and how is HAVING different from WHERE?
Show answer
GROUP BY aggregates rows by column; WHERE filters before grouping and HAVING filters after, using aggregate conditions.
50
What is a KPI and give examples for an e-commerce business?
Show answer
A measurable value showing progress to a goal, such as conversion rate, average order value, cart abandonment rate and customer retention.
51
What are fixed costs and variable costs?
Show answer
Fixed costs stay constant regardless of volume, such as rent; variable costs change with volume, such as raw materials.
52
What is a RACI matrix?
Show answer
A table assigning Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed roles per task so ownership is clear.
53
What is a stakeholder analysis?
Show answer
Identifying everyone affected by the project and mapping their influence and interest to decide how to communicate with and involve each group.
54
How do you handle NULL values when calculating averages?
Show answer
AVG ignores NULLs; use COALESCE(col, 0) if NULLs should count as zero, depending on the business meaning.
55
What is Agile and how does Scrum work?
Show answer
Agile delivers value in small increments with feedback. Scrum organises work in sprints with planning, daily stand-ups, review and retrospective, led by a Scrum Master and Product Owner.
56
How do you use Excel's Scenario Manager?
Show answer
Define named scenarios such as best, base and worst with different input values and compare the outputs in a summary report.
57
Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder.
Show answer
Use STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Show that you listened, found the underlying goal, used data to align people and reached a documented decision.
58
What is a product backlog vs a sprint backlog?
Show answer
The product backlog is the ordered list of all desired work; the sprint backlog is the subset the team commits to in the current sprint.
59
What is a use case diagram?
Show answer
A UML diagram showing actors and the actions (use cases) they perform with the system, giving a quick view of scope.
60
What is a BRD review and who signs it off?
Show answer
Stakeholders and the sponsor review the Business Requirements Document for completeness and accuracy, and the business owner gives formal sign-off before design begins.
61
How would you analyse the declining sales of a retail store?
Show answer
Break sales into footfall, conversion and average basket, compare with last year and competitors, and check stock, pricing, staffing and local events.
62
Should a food-delivery app launch in a new city?
Show answer
Check market size (population, online ordering share), competition, restaurant supply, unit economics per order, CAC and payback period. Propose a pilot with clear success metrics.
63
What is the profit equation and how do you use it in cases?
Show answer
Profit = Revenue minus Cost, where revenue = price x volume and cost = fixed + variable. Split each part to find which one explains a change.
64
How do you chart a trend with a target line?
Show answer
Create a line or column chart of actuals and add the target as another series formatted as a line.
65
What does a Business Analyst do?
Show answer
A BA bridges business and technology: gathers requirements, analyses data and processes, documents BRD/FRD and makes sure the final solution actually solves the business problem.
66
Difference between INNER JOIN and LEFT JOIN?
Show answer
INNER returns only matching rows; LEFT returns all rows from the left table and NULLs where there is no match.
67
How do you estimate the annual revenue of a coffee shop chain?
Show answer
Number of outlets x daily customers x average bill x operating days, then validate using footfall, peak hours and similar chains.
68
How do you calculate monthly revenue growth in SQL?
Show answer
Aggregate revenue per month and use LAG(revenue) OVER (ORDER BY month) to compute (revenue - previous) / previous.
69
How do you find the top 5 customers by revenue?
Show answer
SELECT customer_id, SUM(amount) AS revenue FROM orders GROUP BY customer_id ORDER BY revenue DESC LIMIT 5;