Skip to content
Business Analytics
All courses OffersPlacement Report
‹ Back to previous sectionCourse homeAll page URLs

Business Analytics Technical Round Questions & Answers

40 questions for the technical round stage — 5 easy, 32 medium, 3 hard.

About the technical round round

The technical round is the core of a Business Analytics interview: concept questions with follow-ups, a live hands-on task and a deep dive into one of your projects. Interviewers check depth, not just definitions.

Tips for the technical round round

  • Say your approach out loud before you start writing.
  • After a correct answer, expect 'why?' and 'what if?' follow-ups; go one level deeper than the question.
  • Pick one project you can explain end to end, including what you would do differently.
  • If you get stuck, explain what you would try next instead of going silent.
Solved — technical roundStart practicing
3 QUESTIONS FREESign up to unlock the full question bank and track your progress.Unlock every question and answer, then continue practising company-wise and package-wise.
3 questions free Unlock the rest in seconds
01

The totals in your Excel report differ from the finance system by a few rupees. What could cause this?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Usually rounding. Excel may display rounded values while summing the full-precision numbers, or line items were rounded individually in the source system and the total was computed differently. Check whether finance rounds each invoice line before summing, and apply ROUND at the same level in Excel. Other causes include floating-point artifacts, values stored as text being skipped by SUM, or hidden filtered rows. Agree and document one rounding rule with finance.
02

What is the difference between correlation and causation in product analytics?

Product AnalyticsEasy
Save to ▾
Show answer
Correlation means two metrics move together; causation means one actually changes the other. Users who use the wishlist feature may retain better, but they may simply be more engaged users already. Acting on correlation alone can waste effort, such as forcing everyone into the wishlist. To establish causation, run an A/B test, or use quasi-experimental methods such as difference-in-differences when a test is not possible, and always check for confounders like user tenure or acquisition channel.
03

How do you find duplicate customers?

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
SELECT email, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY email HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
04

What are acceptance criteria?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Clear, testable conditions a story must meet to be accepted, often written as Given-When-Then scenarios.
05

Write a DAX measure for the product return rate that avoids divide-by-zero errors.

Power BI and TableauMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Return Rate % = VAR ReturnedQty = SUM ( Returns[Quantity] ) VAR SoldQty = SUM ( Sales[Quantity] ) RETURN DIVIDE ( ReturnedQty, SoldQty, 0 ) // DIVIDE returns the third argument (0) when SoldQty is zero or blank. // Format the measure as a percentage in the model.
06

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

Case Studies and GuesstimatesMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
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.
07

What checklist do you apply to a BPMN diagram before sharing it with stakeholders?

Process Modelling and BPMNMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Every diagram has clear start and end events and a title with version and owner. Activities use verb-noun names such as Approve invoice. Each gateway is labelled with a question and its outgoing flows with answers. Splits and joins use matching gateway types. Message flows only connect separate pools. No dangling or crossing arrows where avoidable. The happy path reads left to right. Exceptions are handled, and complex rules are referenced to decision tables rather than drawn as gateways.
08

How do you build a PivotTable to analyse sales by region and product?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium
Save to ▾
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.
09

How do you run an effective stakeholder meeting?

Stakeholder CommunicationMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Send an agenda with the goal and the decisions needed beforehand, along with any pre-read. Invite only people who contribute or decide. Start by restating the goal, keep to time, park off-topic issues and confirm decisions aloud. End by summarising actions with owners and dates. Send minutes within a day. A meeting without a clear decision or output usually could have been an email.
10

What techniques do you use to elicit requirements?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Interviews, workshops, surveys, observation, document analysis, prototyping and brainstorming, chosen according to stakeholders and project stage.
11

What is the difference between a calculated column and a measure in Power BI?

Power BI and TableauEasy
Save to ▾
Show answer
A calculated column is computed row by row at refresh time and stored in the model, so it uses memory and can be used in slicers, rows and relationships. A measure is computed at query time based on the current filters, so it is not stored and responds to slicers. Use a column for attributes such as an age band, and a measure for aggregations such as Total Sales or Margin %.
12

What is user story mapping and how does it help plan releases?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
User story mapping arranges stories in two dimensions. Across the top is the user journey as a sequence of activities, for example search, compare, buy and track. Below each activity, stories are stacked by priority. Drawing horizontal lines across the map creates release slices, where the first slice is a thin end-to-end MVP that covers every step at a basic level. It prevents a flat backlog where teams build one area deeply while the journey stays incomplete.
13

What are UAT entry and exit criteria? Give examples.

UAT and BA DocumentationMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Entry criteria are conditions that must be met before UAT starts, for example system and integration testing completed, no open critical defects, UAT environment and test data ready, test cases reviewed and testers trained. Exit criteria define when UAT is complete, for example 100 percent of critical test cases executed, at least 95 percent passed, no open critical or high defects, and workarounds agreed for remaining medium ones. Clear criteria stop arguments about readiness near go-live.
14

How do you write an effective executive summary for an analysis report?

Stakeholder CommunicationMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Put it first and keep it to one page or five lines on a slide. Start with the answer or recommendation, then the two or three key findings that support it, each with a number, then the impact in rupees or percentage, and finally the decision or action needed and by when. Avoid methodology details, which go in the appendix. Test it by asking whether a busy leader could act after reading only this section.
15

In the middle of a sprint, a senior stakeholder asks to add an urgent feature. What do you do?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Understand the urgency and the business impact of waiting until the next sprint. Bring it to the product owner, who decides. If it truly cannot wait, the team agrees to swap out work of similar size so the sprint goal stays realistic, and the trade-off is made visible to the stakeholder. If it can wait, add it to the top of the backlog for the next sprint. Avoid silently adding scope.
16

Developers and testers interpret the same user story differently. How do you fix this?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
The story is ambiguous, so bring the three amigos together: BA or product owner, a developer and a tester. Walk through concrete examples, including edge cases and error cases, and write them as acceptance criteria, ideally in Given-When-Then format. Add business rules, sample data and mock-ups where needed. Update the story and use the same practice in refinement for future stories, so gaps are found before coding starts.
17

What is a date table in Power BI and why should you mark it as a date table?

Power BI and TableauMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
A date table has one row per day with no gaps, plus columns like Year, Quarter, Month, Week and Fiscal Period. It is related to the fact table date column. Marking it as a date table tells Power BI to use it for time intelligence functions like TOTALYTD, SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR and DATESINPERIOD, which require a continuous date range. It also gives consistent month sorting and fiscal calendars across every report.
18

A product manager wants to stop an A/B test after three days because the variant is winning. What do you advise?

Product AnalyticsHard
Save to ▾
Show answer
Advise against it. Checking results repeatedly and stopping at the first significant result inflates false positives, often far beyond the planned 5 percent. Three days also misses weekly patterns and novelty effects. Run the test for the pre-calculated sample size and duration. If speed is critical, the team can use a sequential testing method designed for early looks, but that must be planned before the test starts.
19

Write a SQL query that shows revenue per region with one column per quarter.

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
SELECT region, SUM(CASE WHEN EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM order_date) = 1 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS q1, SUM(CASE WHEN EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM order_date) = 2 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS q2, SUM(CASE WHEN EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM order_date) = 3 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS q3, SUM(CASE WHEN EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM order_date) = 4 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS q4 FROM orders WHERE EXTRACT(YEAR FROM order_date) = 2026 GROUP BY region;
20

After joining orders to a payments table, your total revenue doubled. What went wrong?

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
The join created a fan-out: some orders have more than one payment row, such as split payments or retries, so each order amount is repeated. Check the grain by counting rows per order_id on both sides. Fix it by aggregating payments to one row per order in a CTE before joining, joining on the full key, or summing from the table whose grain matches the metric. Always compare row counts before and after a join.
21

XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP?

Excel for Business AnalystsEasy
Save to ▾
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.
22

How do you validate that a report's numbers are correct?

Business Metrics and KPIsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Reconcile totals with source tables using SQL, check filters and joins for duplication, compare with prior periods and verify with business owners.
23

A lender is launching a new personal loan product. What KPIs would you set up?

Business Metrics and KPIsHard
Save to ▾
Show answer
Cover the full funnel and risk. Acquisition: applications, approval rate, cost per disbursed loan and time to disbursal. Value: disbursed amount, average ticket size and net interest margin. Risk: delinquency rates at 30 and 90 days past due by cohort, and early default rate. Customer: drop-off by application step, complaint rate and repeat borrowing. Track risk by monthly disbursal cohort, because defaults show up months later.
24

Write a SQL query to calculate the repeat purchase rate.

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
WITH per_customer AS ( SELECT customer_id, COUNT(DISTINCT order_id) AS orders FROM orders GROUP BY customer_id ) SELECT ROUND(100.0 * SUM(CASE WHEN orders >= 2 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) / COUNT(*), 2) AS repeat_rate_pct FROM per_customer;
25

Prepare a simple cost-benefit analysis for automating invoice processing.

Financial and Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Costs: software 12 lakh in year 1 plus 3 lakh per year support, and 4 lakh for implementation and training. Benefits: 60,000 invoices a year at 10 minutes saved each is 10,000 hours; at 400 rupees per hour that is 40 lakh, plus around 5 lakh from fewer late-payment penalties. Year-1 net benefit is 45 - 16 = 29 lakh and payback is under six months. Then test sensitivity, for example if only half the time saving is realised.
26

What is product analytics and how is it different from business reporting?

Product AnalyticsEasy
Save to ▾
Show answer
Product analytics studies how users behave inside a digital product, using event data such as sign-ups, clicks, feature use and purchases, to improve activation, engagement and retention. Business reporting usually summarises outcomes like revenue, cost and orders by period. Product analytics answers questions like where users drop off, which features retained users adopt, and whether a change worked, often through funnels, cohorts and experiments.
27

During UAT, users log 60 defects, but you suspect many are actually new requirements. How do you handle it?

UAT and BA DocumentationMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Run a joint triage with the business owner, QA and development. Compare each item against the signed-off requirements and acceptance criteria. Real defects stay in the defect log; items not covered by requirements are reclassified as change requests and prioritised separately through change control. Keep the tone neutral so users do not feel dismissed. Also review why the gap happened, for example prototypes were not shown early enough, and fix that for the next release.
28

What is a communication plan in a project and what does it include?

Stakeholder CommunicationMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
A communication plan defines who needs what information, when, in which format and from whom. It typically lists stakeholders, their information needs, the channel such as status email, standup, steering meeting or dashboard, frequency, owner and escalation path. It prevents both silence and overload, and makes sure decision-makers hear about risks early. A BA usually keeps it updated as stakeholders change.
29

How would you build a simple financial model in Excel?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Separate inputs, calculations and outputs, link all formulas to input cells, add scenarios and checks, and avoid hard-coded numbers inside formulas.
30

Write an Excel formula for the NPV of a project with an initial investment today and five yearly cash inflows.

Financial and Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
# B1 = discount rate (for example 12%) # B2 = initial investment entered as a negative number # B3:B7 = cash inflows for years 1 to 5 =NPV(B1, B3:B7) + B2 # NPV() assumes the first value comes at the end of year 1, # so the year-0 investment is added outside the function.
31

Revenue grew 20 percent this quarter but the number of active customers stayed flat. How do you interpret it?

Business Metrics and KPIsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Growth came from more value per customer, not more customers. Break revenue into customers times orders per customer times average order value to see which moved. It could be price increases, larger baskets, a shift to premium products or a few large accounts. Then check risks: is new customer acquisition stalling, is churn being masked, and is growth concentrated in a small segment that could leave?
32

How would you measure the success of a new feature?

Product AnalyticsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Define a goal metric, a baseline and guardrail metrics, run an experiment or before-after comparison and review adoption, retention and revenue impact.
33

What is a feasibility study?

Requirements and AgileMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
An early assessment of whether a proposed solution is technically, economically, operationally and legally viable before committing budget.
34

What does a Business Analyst do?

Requirements and AgileEasy
Save to ▾
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.
35

What is Power Pivot?

Power BI and TableauMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
An Excel add-in for building data models with relationships and DAX measures over millions of rows, beyond normal worksheet limits.
36

What is the difference between OLTP and OLAP systems?

SQL for Business AnalysisMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
OLTP handles many small day-to-day transactions; OLAP supports analysis over large historical data with aggregates and reporting.
37

How do you analyse variance between budget and actual?

Business Metrics and KPIsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
Variance = Actual - Budget, shown as amount and percentage, with conditional formatting to flag large gaps and comments on the drivers.
38

How would you forecast next quarter's sales in Excel?

Excel for Business AnalystsMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
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.
39

A ride-hailing app's ride cancellation rate rose from 8 to 14 percent. How would you structure the problem?

Case Studies and GuesstimatesMedium
Save to ▾
Show answer
First split by who cancels: riders or drivers. For rider cancellations, check wait times, pickup accuracy, price surges and changes in ETA. For driver cancellations, check trip distance, payment mode, low fares, destination visibility and incentive changes. Then segment by city, time of day and area. Link to recent changes like a new pricing rule. Recommend fixes for the largest driver, such as better matching or adjusted incentives.
40

Your LEFT JOIN report should list all customers, but customers without orders are missing. Why?

SQL for Business AnalysisHard
Save to ▾
Show answer
A condition on the right table was probably placed in the WHERE clause, for example WHERE o.order_date >= '2026-01-01'. For customers with no orders, o.order_date is NULL, so WHERE removes them and the query behaves like an INNER JOIN. Move the condition into the ON clause, as in LEFT JOIN orders o ON o.customer_id = c.id AND o.order_date >= '2026-01-01', or explicitly allow NULLs.

Frequently asked questions

What happens in the Business Analytics technical round round?

The technical round is the core of a Business Analytics interview: concept questions with follow-ups, a live hands-on task and a deep dive into one of your projects. Interviewers check depth, not just definitions.

How do I clear the technical round round?

Say your approach out loud before you start writing. After a correct answer, expect 'why?' and 'what if?' follow-ups; go one level deeper than the question. Pick one project you can explain end to end, including what you would do differently.

Which round comes next?

A typical order is online assessment, telephonic screening, one or two technical rounds, a managerial round and HR. Use the other round pages to practise each stage.

Practise every interview round

Online Assessment questionsTelephonic Interview questionsManagerial Round questionsRapid-Fire questionsHR & behavioural questionsFull mock interview

More ways to practise

Company-wise Business Analytics questionsPackage-wise Business Analytics questionsExperience-wise Business Analytics questionsRole-wise Business Analytics questionsCity-wise Business Analytics questionsMost asked Business Analytics questionsScenario-based questionsPractical / hands-on questionsHR & behavioural questionsBusiness Analytics mock interviewOnline assessment questionsTechnical round questionsManagerial round questionsBusiness Analytics topic sheets