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Business Analytics Interview Questions in Chennai

36 practice questions with answers for Business Analytics interviews in Chennai.

Business Analytics jobs in Chennai

Chennai is a long-standing IT-services and SaaS hub along OMR, with strong demand for testing, data and support-engineering roles. Many companies here hire freshers in large batches and train them on the job.

Below are 36 questions that match the mix of service, product and domain employers hiring business analysts in Chennai.

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What is a foreign key and what is referential integrity?

SQL for Business AnalysisEasy

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A foreign key is a column in one table that refers to the primary key of another, such as orders.customer_id pointing to customers.customer_id. Referential integrity means every foreign key value must exist in the parent table, so you cannot have an order for a customer who does not exist. The database enforces it on insert, update and delete, which keeps joins reliable for reporting.

What is a market entry strategy case?

Case Studies and GuesstimatesMedium

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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.

What are acceptance criteria?

Requirements and AgileMedium

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Clear, testable conditions a story must meet to be accepted, often written as Given-When-Then scenarios.

What is an index in a database and when can it hurt performance?

SQL for Business AnalysisEasy

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An index is a sorted lookup structure on one or more columns that lets the database find rows without scanning the whole table, much like a book index. It speeds up WHERE filters, joins and ORDER BY on those columns. It hurts when there are too many indexes, because every insert and update must maintain them, and it may not help on low-selectivity columns or when functions are applied to the indexed column.

BRD vs FRD?

Requirements and AgileEasy

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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).

What are guardrail metrics in experiments?

Product AnalyticsMedium

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Guardrail metrics are measures that must not get worse while you try to improve the primary metric. For a test aimed at increasing conversion, guardrails might be refund rate, page load time, unsubscribe rate and customer support tickets. If the primary metric improves but a guardrail drops significantly, the change is not shipped as is. They protect long-term health from short-term optimisation.

What is the difference between ROI, ROE and ROCE?

Financial and Business AnalysisMedium

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ROI (return on investment) is the gain from a specific investment divided by its cost and is used to judge projects or campaigns. ROE (return on equity) is net profit divided by shareholders' equity and shows the return to owners; high debt can inflate it. ROCE (return on capital employed) is EBIT divided by equity plus long-term debt and shows how efficiently all long-term capital is used. ROCE is better for comparing companies with different debt levels.

A release passed all system testing, but business users reject it during UAT. What went wrong and what do you do?

Requirements and AgileHard

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The team built what was written, but not what users needed, which points to gaps in elicitation, missing real-world scenarios or users not involved early. Capture each rejection and classify it as a defect, a missed requirement or a new request. Prioritise blockers with the product owner and agree on a fix plan and date. Going forward, involve users in demos every sprint and base UAT scenarios on real workflows.

Daily active users dropped 10 percent week over week. How do you investigate?

Product AnalyticsMedium

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Rule out data issues first: tracking changes, app release bugs, pipeline delays or bot filters. Check whether the drop is seasonal by comparing with the same week last year or a festival calendar. Then segment by platform, app version, country or city, acquisition channel and new versus returning users to locate it. Look at the funnel for the core action. Connect findings to releases, outages or marketing changes, then recommend fixes.

An online learning platform finds that only 12 percent of learners complete paid courses. How do you analyse it?

Case Studies and GuesstimatesMedium

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Define completion and see where learners drop: first week, a specific module or before assessments. Segment by course, length, learner background, device and acquisition channel. Look at causes in content difficulty, video length, lack of deadlines, mentor support and job relevance. Recommend tests such as shorter modules, cohort-based deadlines, progress nudges and live doubt sessions, and measure completion and referral impact.

Overall conversion fell this month, yet conversion improved for both mobile and desktop users. How is that possible?

Product AnalyticsHard

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This is Simpson's paradox caused by a change in mix. If mobile converts lower than desktop and the share of mobile traffic grew sharply, the overall average can fall even though each segment improved. Show conversion by segment along with the traffic mix. The insight is not that conversion got worse but that traffic shifted, so the question becomes how to raise mobile conversion further.

How do you handle changing requirements?

Requirements and AgileMedium

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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.

Write Excel formulas for IRR with yearly cash flows and XIRR with irregular dates.

Financial and Business AnalysisMedium

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# Yearly cash flows in B2:B7, year 0 investment negative =IRR(B2:B7) # Irregular dates: cash flows in B2:B7, dates in C2:C7 =XIRR(B2:B7, C2:C7) # XIRR returns an annualised rate based on actual dates, # which suits SIP returns or projects with uneven payments.

What is ARPU and how is it calculated?

Business Metrics and KPIsEasy

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ARPU, Average Revenue Per User, is total revenue in a period divided by the average number of users in that period. If a telecom-style app earns 50 lakh in a month from 25,000 average users, ARPU is 200 rupees. It is tracked to see whether growth comes from more users or more value per user. ARPPU, revenue per paying user, is used when only some users pay.

Tell me about yourself, for a business analyst role.

Stakeholder CommunicationEasy

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Keep it to about 90 seconds in a present, past, future flow. For example: I am a commerce graduate working as an analyst intern, where I build Excel and Power BI reports and write SQL queries for the sales team. Earlier, my college project analysed customer churn for a local gym and recommended changes they adopted. I want to grow as a business analyst because I enjoy turning business problems into clear requirements and data-driven decisions.

Describe how you would model an employee leave approval process in BPMN.

Process Modelling and BPMNMedium

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Use one pool for the company with lanes for Employee, Manager and HR system. Start event: leave request submitted. Task: system checks leave balance. Exclusive gateway: balance sufficient? If no, end event that notifies the employee. If yes, user task: manager reviews. Add an interrupting timer boundary event of 3 days that escalates to the skip-level manager. Gateway: approved or rejected. Approved path updates the leave balance and calendar, then both paths notify the employee and end.

How do you use Excel's Scenario Manager?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium

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Define named scenarios such as best, base and worst with different input values and compare the outputs in a summary report.

What is a BRD review and who signs it off?

Requirements and AgileMedium

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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.

Should a food-delivery app launch in a new city?

Case Studies and GuesstimatesHard

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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.

What is a spike in Agile and when would a business analyst request one?

Requirements and AgileMedium

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A spike is a time-boxed story used for research or experimentation to reduce uncertainty, not to deliver a feature. Its output is knowledge, such as a recommendation or a prototype. A BA might request one when the team cannot estimate a story because an external API, a data source or a regulation is unclear, for example checking whether a payment gateway supports partial refunds. The time box, often one to three days, prevents open-ended investigation.

XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP?

Excel for Business AnalystsEasy

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XLOOKUP can look left or right, uses exact match by default, returns a custom value if nothing is found and doesn't break when columns move. VLOOKUP only looks right and needs a column number.

What is a user story and what makes it good?

Requirements and AgileMedium

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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.

What is a SIPOC diagram and when do you use it before detailed process mapping?

Process Modelling and BPMNMedium

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SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers. It is a one-page, high-level table that lists 4 to 7 main process steps along with who supplies what and who receives the outputs. A BA uses it at the start of a process improvement project to agree on scope and boundaries with stakeholders before spending time on a detailed BPMN map. It prevents arguments later about where the process starts and ends.

What is a stakeholder analysis?

Stakeholder CommunicationMedium

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Identifying everyone affected by the project and mapping their influence and interest to decide how to communicate with and involve each group.

How would you improve a company's low app conversion rate?

Product AnalyticsMedium

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Map the funnel, find the biggest drop-off, check usability and load time, run A/B tests on fixes and track conversion lift.

Three departments describe the same order process in three different ways during workshops. How do you arrive at the true AS-IS?

Process Modelling and BPMNMedium

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Treat each version as a hypothesis. Walk the process physically or observe real cases end to end, and pull a sample of 20 to 30 recent orders from the system to trace what actually happened. Compare timestamps and status changes with each department's story. Then hold a joint session, show the evidence-based map and mark the variants openly. Often all three are partly right because different order types follow different paths, which should be modelled explicitly.

Write a SQL query to find the percentage of orders delivered late in each city.

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium

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-- late = delivered after the promised date SELECT city, COUNT(*) AS total_orders, SUM(CASE WHEN delivered_at > promised_at THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS late_orders, ROUND(100.0 * SUM(CASE WHEN delivered_at > promised_at THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) / COUNT(*), 2) AS late_pct FROM orders WHERE status = 'DELIVERED' GROUP BY city ORDER BY late_pct DESC;

What are the current ratio and the quick ratio?

Financial and Business AnalysisEasy

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Both measure short-term liquidity. The current ratio is current assets divided by current liabilities; around 1.5 to 2 is often comfortable, though it varies by industry. The quick ratio excludes inventory and prepaid items: (cash plus marketable securities plus receivables) divided by current liabilities. It is stricter because inventory may not sell quickly. A retailer with a current ratio of 1.8 but a quick ratio of 0.4 depends heavily on selling its stock to pay bills.

How do you chart a trend with a target line?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium

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Create a line or column chart of actuals and add the target as another series formatted as a line.

How would you decide whether to launch a new product?

Product AnalyticsMedium

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Assess market size and demand, customer need, competition, unit economics, capabilities, risks and strategic fit, then test with a pilot before scale-up.

Monthly subscription churn jumped from 3 percent to 5 percent. How do you investigate?

Business Metrics and KPIsMedium

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Confirm the data first: definition changes, failed-payment handling or a billing date shift. Then segment churn by plan, tenure, acquisition channel, city and device to find where it concentrates. Separate voluntary cancellations from involuntary card failures. Look at events before the jump, like a price change, app release or competitor offer, and read cancellation reasons. Recommend targeted fixes, such as payment retries or win-back offers, and track the affected cohort.

How do you validate data before analysis?

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium

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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.

How do you find the top 5 customers by revenue?

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium

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SELECT customer_id, SUM(amount) AS revenue FROM orders GROUP BY customer_id ORDER BY revenue DESC LIMIT 5;

Why do you want to become a business analyst?

Stakeholder CommunicationEasy

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Link your answer to real experience. For example: during my internship I noticed reports were rebuilt manually every week, so I mapped the process and automated it with Power Query, saving the team a day each week. I enjoyed understanding the problem, talking to users and seeing the result used. A BA role combines that problem solving, communication and data work, which is where my strengths are, and I want to build deeper domain knowledge.

Push notifications increased weekly engagement, but app uninstalls also rose. What do you recommend?

Product AnalyticsMedium

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Quantify both effects: extra sessions and revenue from notifications versus users lost through uninstalls and notification opt-outs, including their lifetime value. Segment by notification type and frequency to find which ones annoy users. Recommend frequency caps, personalised timing, relevance rules and easy preference settings, then test them with uninstall rate and opt-out rate as guardrails. Short-term engagement should not cost long-term users.

What are leading and lagging indicators? Give examples.

Business Metrics and KPIsMedium

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Lagging indicators measure outcomes after they happen, such as monthly revenue, profit or churn. They confirm results but are hard to influence directly. Leading indicators move earlier and predict outcomes, such as demo bookings, trial activations, cart additions or support ticket backlog. A good KPI set pairs them: a sales team tracks qualified pipeline (leading) along with closed revenue (lagging) so it can act before the quarter ends.

Companies with offices in Chennai (44)

IT services

TCS

Business Analytics interview questions

40 questions
4 rounds

Mumbai, Chennai, Pune +2

Business Analytics Interview Questions in Chennai

Business Analytics jobs in Chennai

What is a foreign key and what is referential integrity?

What is a market entry strategy case?

What are acceptance criteria?

What is an index in a database and when can it hurt performance?

BRD vs FRD?

What are guardrail metrics in experiments?

What is the difference between ROI, ROE and ROCE?

A release passed all system testing, but business users reject it during UAT. What went wrong and what do you do?

Daily active users dropped 10 percent week over week. How do you investigate?

An online learning platform finds that only 12 percent of learners complete paid courses. How do you analyse it?

Overall conversion fell this month, yet conversion improved for both mobile and desktop users. How is that possible?

How do you handle changing requirements?

Write Excel formulas for IRR with yearly cash flows and XIRR with irregular dates.

What is ARPU and how is it calculated?

Tell me about yourself, for a business analyst role.

Describe how you would model an employee leave approval process in BPMN.

How do you use Excel's Scenario Manager?

What is a BRD review and who signs it off?

Should a food-delivery app launch in a new city?

What is a spike in Agile and when would a business analyst request one?

XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP?

What is a user story and what makes it good?

What is a SIPOC diagram and when do you use it before detailed process mapping?

What is a stakeholder analysis?

How would you improve a company's low app conversion rate?

Three departments describe the same order process in three different ways during workshops. How do you arrive at the true AS-IS?

Write a SQL query to find the percentage of orders delivered late in each city.

What are the current ratio and the quick ratio?

How do you chart a trend with a target line?

How would you decide whether to launch a new product?

Monthly subscription churn jumped from 3 percent to 5 percent. How do you investigate?

How do you validate data before analysis?

How do you find the top 5 customers by revenue?

Why do you want to become a business analyst?

Push notifications increased weekly engagement, but app uninstalls also rose. What do you recommend?

What are leading and lagging indicators? Give examples.

Companies with offices in Chennai (44)

TCS

Infosys

Wipro

Cognizant

Capgemini

Amazon

Cisco

Walmart

PayPal

Barclays

HCLTech

Tech Mahindra

Mphasis

LTIMindtree

Hexaware

Birlasoft

EPAM Systems

Thoughtworks

Virtusa

UST

CGI

NTT DATA

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Tiger Analytics

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