01
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.
Mastercard Business Analytics Interview Questions & Answers
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02
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.
03
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')
04
What is root cause analysis and which techniques do you know?
Show answer
Finding the underlying reason for a problem using the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams or Pareto analysis, then fixing the cause not the symptom.
05
What is a feasibility study?
Show answer
An early assessment of whether a proposed solution is technically, economically, operationally and legally viable before committing budget.
06
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.
07
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.
08
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.
09
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.
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
What is the difference between OLTP and OLAP systems?
Show answer
OLTP handles many small day-to-day transactions; OLAP supports analysis over large historical data with aggregates and reporting.
12
What is SQL and why do business analysts need it?
Show answer
A language for querying databases. BAs use it to pull data themselves, validate numbers, check reports and answer questions without waiting for engineers.
13
Which Excel functions do business analysts use daily?
Show answer
VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF, text functions, PivotTables and charts.
14
How do you validate data before analysis?
Show answer
Check row counts against the source, nulls, duplicates on keys, value ranges, date coverage and that totals reconcile with finance reports.
15
How would you build a simple financial model in Excel?
Show answer
Separate inputs, calculations and outputs, link all formulas to input cells, add scenarios and checks, and avoid hard-coded numbers inside formulas.
16
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.
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
A bank wants to reduce customer churn. What would you do?
Show answer
Define churn, analyse who leaves and why, segment customers, find drivers through data and surveys, design retention offers and measure uplift with a control group.
19
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;
20
Revenue grew but profit fell. Why could that happen?
Show answer
Look at the cost side: heavier discounts, higher CAC, logistics costs, product mix shifting to low-margin items, one-time expenses or pricing changes. Break contribution margin down by segment.
21
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.
22
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.
23
BRD vs FRD?
Show answer
A BRD states what the business needs and why. An FRD details how the system should behave to meet those needs (functional specifications).
24
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.
25
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.
26
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.
27
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.
28
How do you evaluate a marketing campaign's ROI?
Show answer
ROI = (incremental profit - campaign cost) / campaign cost. Measure incremental sales using a control group or before-after comparison.
29
What are aggregate functions?
Show answer
Functions that summarise rows into a value, such as COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN and MAX.
30
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.
31
What is the role of a BA in Scrum?
Show answer
They help the Product Owner refine the backlog, write stories and acceptance criteria, clarify details with developers and support testing and demos.
32
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.
33
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.
34
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.
35
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.
36
What is customer lifetime value?
Show answer
The total profit expected from a customer over the relationship, roughly average margin x purchase frequency x lifespan, compared with acquisition cost.
37
What are functional and non-functional requirements?
Show answer
Functional requirements describe what the system does (login, reports); non-functional ones describe how well it does it (speed, security, availability, usability).
38
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.
39
What is a break-even point?
Show answer
The sales volume where total revenue equals total cost. It equals fixed cost divided by contribution margin per unit.
40
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.
41
What is the difference between a chart and a dashboard?
Show answer
A chart shows one view of data; a dashboard combines several charts and KPIs on one page for monitoring.
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
Guesstimate: how many pizzas are sold in Mumbai on a weekend?
Show answer
About 20 million people, roughly 10% order pizza on a weekend, about 1 pizza per 2 people in an order. This gives roughly 1 million pizzas, adjusted for outlets and delivery capacity.
44
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.
45
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.
46
XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP?
Show answer
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.
47
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.
48
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.
49
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.
50
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.
51
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;
52
Do a quick SWOT analysis for an ed-tech company.
Show answer
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.
53
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.
54
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.
55
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.
56
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.
57
How do you manage conflicting requirements from two senior stakeholders?
Show answer
Clarify the underlying goals, present data and trade-offs, facilitate a joint session, escalate to the sponsor if needed and document the agreed decision.
58
What is a process flow and which tools do you use?
Show answer
A diagram of steps, decisions and owners in a process, made using BPMN or flowcharts in tools like Visio, Lucidchart or draw.io.
59
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.
60
KPI vs metric?
Show answer
Every KPI is a metric, but a KPI is tied directly to a strategic goal (e.g. monthly churn). A metric can be any measurement (e.g. page views).
61
What is the difference between revenue and profit?
Show answer
Revenue is total money from sales; profit is what remains after subtracting all costs and expenses.
62
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;
63
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.
64
What is scope creep and how do you control it?
Show answer
Uncontrolled growth of requirements. Control it with a clear scope statement, change control process, impact analysis and sponsor approval for additions.
65
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.
66
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.
67
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.
68
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.
69
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.
70
How do you find duplicate customers?
Show answer
SELECT email, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY email HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
71
Agile vs Waterfall?
Show answer
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.
72
How do you compute CAGR in Excel?
Show answer
CAGR = (End value / Start value)^(1/years) - 1, entered as =(B2/A2)^(1/n)-1.
73
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).
74
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.
75
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.
76
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.
77
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.
78
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.