Tech Mahindra Business Analytics Interview Questions & Answers

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).

An Excel add-in for building data models with relationships and DAX measures over millions of rows, beyond normal worksheet limits.

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.

A named temporary result introduced with WITH that makes long queries readable and reusable in the same statement.

A query nested inside another, used for filtering or calculating values such as customers whose spend is above the average.

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).

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

GROUP BY aggregates rows by column; WHERE filters before grouping and HAVING filters after, using aggregate conditions.

A chart shows one view of data; a dashboard combines several charts and KPIs on one page for monitoring.

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.

OLTP handles many small day-to-day transactions; OLAP supports analysis over large historical data with aggregates and reporting.

Log the change, assess impact on scope, cost and timeline, get approval through change control or backlog grooming, and update documents and stakeholders.

Create a table, insert a PivotTable, drag region to rows, product to columns, sales to values, and add slicers for month or channel.

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.

A column or set of columns that uniquely identifies each row in a table and cannot contain NULL.

Excel suits small to medium data and quick ad-hoc work; SQL queries large databases directly and repeatably.

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;

A table assigning Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed roles per task so ownership is clear.

Low-fidelity layouts of screens that help stakeholders visualise and agree on requirements before development starts.

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

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.

A language for querying databases. BAs use it to pull data themselves, validate numbers, check reports and answer questions without waiting for engineers.

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.

Review > Protect Sheet or Workbook with a password, lock cells, hide formulas and allow only selected cells to be edited.

Check row counts against the source, nulls, duplicates on keys, value ranges, date coverage and that totals reconcile with finance reports.

Stakeholders and the sponsor review the Business Requirements Document for completeness and accuracy, and the business owner gives formal sign-off before design begins.

Break sales into footfall, conversion and average basket, compare with last year and competitors, and check stock, pricing, staffing and local events.

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.

COUNT(*) counts all rows; COUNT(column) counts only rows where that column is not NULL.

Number of outlets x daily customers x average bill x operating days, then validate using footfall, peak hours and similar chains.

AVG ignores NULLs; use COALESCE(col, 0) if NULLs should count as zero, depending on the business meaning.

Finding the underlying reason for a problem using the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams or Pareto analysis, then fixing the cause not the symptom.

SUM(sales) per category divided by SUM(SUM(sales)) OVER () and multiplied by 100 gives each category's share of the total.

The sales volume where total revenue equals total cost. It equals fixed cost divided by contribution margin per unit.

Anyone affected by or influencing the project: sponsors, product owners, end users, developers, testers, operations and customers.

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.

A what-if tool that recalculates a formula for different inputs, for example loan payments across different rates and tenures.

Functional requirements describe what the system does (login, reports); non-functional ones describe how well it does it (speed, security, availability, usability).

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.

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.

A model classifying features as basic, performance or delight attributes based on how they affect customer satisfaction, helping decide what to build first.

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

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.

The total profit expected from a customer over the relationship, roughly average margin x purchase frequency x lifespan, compared with acquisition cost.

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

ROI = (incremental profit - campaign cost) / campaign cost. Measure incremental sales using a control group or before-after comparison.

A UML diagram showing actors and the actions (use cases) they perform with the system, giving a quick view of scope.

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

Variance = Actual - Budget, shown as amount and percentage, with conditional formatting to flag large gaps and comments on the drivers.

Uncontrolled growth of requirements. Control it with a clear scope statement, change control process, impact analysis and sponsor approval for additions.

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.

Fixed costs stay constant regardless of volume, such as rent; variable costs change with volume, such as raw materials.

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

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.