01
What is a subquery and when would you use it?
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A query nested inside another, used for filtering or calculating values such as customers whose spend is above the average.
Accenture Business Analytics Interview Questions & Answers
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02
What are functional and non-functional requirements?
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Functional requirements describe what the system does (login, reports); non-functional ones describe how well it does it (speed, security, availability, usability).
03
What are wireframes and why are they useful for a BA?
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Low-fidelity layouts of screens that help stakeholders visualise and agree on requirements before development starts.
04
Do a quick SWOT analysis for an ed-tech company.
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Strengths and Weaknesses are internal; Opportunities and Threats are external. Example: S = strong faculty, W = low brand awareness, O = AI upskilling demand, T = free online content.
05
Write a user story with acceptance criteria for password reset.
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As a customer, I want to reset my password by email so that I can get back into my account.
Acceptance criteria:
• Reset link expires in 15 minutes
• Password rules are shown while typing
• A success message appears after reset
06
What are fixed costs and variable costs?
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Fixed costs stay constant regardless of volume, such as rent; variable costs change with volume, such as raw materials.
07
SQL: month-over-month revenue growth.
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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;
08
How do you protect a worksheet or workbook?
Show answer
Review > Protect Sheet or Workbook with a password, lock cells, hide formulas and allow only selected cells to be edited.
09
How do you find the top 5 customers by revenue?
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SELECT customer_id, SUM(amount) AS revenue FROM orders GROUP BY customer_id ORDER BY revenue DESC LIMIT 5;
10
What is the use of the IFERROR function?
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It returns a custom value when a formula errors out, keeping reports clean, for example =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(...), "Not found").
11
What is the difference between COUNT(*) and COUNT(column)?
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COUNT(*) counts all rows; COUNT(column) counts only rows where that column is not NULL.
12
How do you handle NULL values when calculating averages?
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AVG ignores NULLs; use COALESCE(col, 0) if NULLs should count as zero, depending on the business meaning.
13
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;
14
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.
15
How do you estimate the annual revenue of a coffee shop chain?
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Number of outlets x daily customers x average bill x operating days, then validate using footfall, peak hours and similar chains.
16
What is a stakeholder and who are the typical stakeholders in a project?
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Anyone affected by or influencing the project: sponsors, product owners, end users, developers, testers, operations and customers.
17
How do you create a dashboard in Excel?
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Prepare clean data, build PivotTables and PivotCharts, add KPI cards and slicers, and arrange everything on one sheet with a clear layout.
18
How would you size the market for IT courses in Delhi NCR?
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Top-down: NCR population aged 18–30 × share of graduates × share wanting paid upskilling × average fee. Cross-check bottom-up with institutes × batches × students × fees. State your assumptions.
19
How do you validate data before analysis?
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Check row counts against the source, nulls, duplicates on keys, value ranges, date coverage and that totals reconcile with finance reports.
20
How would you forecast next quarter's sales in Excel?
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Use FORECAST.ETS or a trendline on monthly history, check seasonality, compare with a simple moving average and present a range, not a single number.
21
What is scope creep and how do you control it?
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Uncontrolled growth of requirements. Control it with a clear scope statement, change control process, impact analysis and sponsor approval for additions.
22
What is the difference between a chart and a dashboard?
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A chart shows one view of data; a dashboard combines several charts and KPIs on one page for monitoring.
23
What is a primary key?
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A column or set of columns that uniquely identifies each row in a table and cannot contain NULL.
24
How do you manage conflicting requirements from two senior stakeholders?
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Clarify the underlying goals, present data and trade-offs, facilitate a joint session, escalate to the sponsor if needed and document the agreed decision.
25
What is SQL and why do business analysts need it?
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A language for querying databases. BAs use it to pull data themselves, validate numbers, check reports and answer questions without waiting for engineers.
26
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).
27
What is a RACI matrix?
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A table assigning Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed roles per task so ownership is clear.
28
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.
29
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')
30
A client's profits are falling. How do you structure the problem?
Show answer
Split into revenue and cost, then revenue into price, volume and mix, and cost into fixed and variable; check internal factors and external market factors.
31
How would you price a new subscription product?
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Combine cost-plus, competitor benchmarks and willingness to pay from research, test tiers with experiments and check margin and churn impact.
32
What are the 4 Ps of marketing?
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Product, Price, Place and Promotion, the levers a business uses to bring an offering to market.
33
What is a BRD review and who signs it off?
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Stakeholders and the sponsor review the Business Requirements Document for completeness and accuracy, and the business owner gives formal sign-off before design begins.
34
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.
35
How do you handle changing requirements?
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Log the change, assess impact on scope, cost and timeline, get approval through change control or backlog grooming, and update documents and stakeholders.
36
How do you compute CAGR in Excel?
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CAGR = (End value / Start value)^(1/years) - 1, entered as =(B2/A2)^(1/n)-1.
37
Difference between INNER JOIN and LEFT JOIN?
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INNER returns only matching rows; LEFT returns all rows from the left table and NULLs where there is no match.
38
What is a data table in Excel?
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A what-if tool that recalculates a formula for different inputs, for example loan payments across different rates and tenures.
39
What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
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The smallest version of a product with enough features to deliver value and gather real user feedback before investing more.
40
What is the difference between XLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH?
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Both look up values flexibly; XLOOKUP is simpler with built-in not-found handling, while INDEX-MATCH works in older Excel versions.
41
What is customer lifetime value?
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The total profit expected from a customer over the relationship, roughly average margin x purchase frequency x lifespan, compared with acquisition cost.
42
Stakeholders give conflicting requirements. What do you do?
Show answer
Clarify the goal behind each request, map them to business objectives, prioritise with MoSCoW, run a joint session, then document the decision and get sign-off.
43
What is a market entry strategy case?
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Decide whether and how to enter a market by evaluating attractiveness, competition, capabilities and entry mode (build, buy, partner), then risks and next steps.
44
How do you build a forecast in Excel?
Show answer
Use historical data with FORECAST.ETS or trend lines, state assumptions, compare against actuals and show best, base and worst scenarios.
45
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.
46
Which Excel functions do business analysts use daily?
Show answer
VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF, text functions, PivotTables and charts.
47
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.
48
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.
49
How do you validate that a report's numbers are correct?
Show answer
Reconcile totals with source tables using SQL, check filters and joins for duplication, compare with prior periods and verify with business owners.
50
How do you calculate the percentage contribution of each category?
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SUM(sales) per category divided by SUM(SUM(sales)) OVER () and multiplied by 100 gives each category's share of the total.
51
What is a CTE?
Show answer
A named temporary result introduced with WITH that makes long queries readable and reusable in the same statement.