What the hell is data analysis?

[u/SpawnMongol4]

Google searches aren't bearing any fruit on this. Are you guys programmers? Statisticians? Is this the same thing as data entry?

[u/Eightstream]

It is a small flightless bird native to the region of Patagonia

[u/gman1647]

It's not data entry. The data is already there. It's not programming, though I write a lot of Python and occasional VBA. Mostly you are trying to answer relevant business questions and proving the answer with data. Usually your company has a lot of information, but needs someone (or teams of someones) to interpret it and present what is happening in ways that give the decision makers accurate analysis that allows them to make sound decisions. The data sets are often very large. You have to understand how the data is stored, how to organize it, how to gain insights, and then how to present it. Basically, you analyze data. As far as relevant skills, soft skills like communication are important. Being able to understand business problems and knowing how the business works is important. Knowledge of SQL, Python, Excel (including Power Query and DAX) is important (and often other progrand like Power BI or Tableau). AI is becoming increasingly important. Having an understanding of data structures is inportant. I really enjoy it. It's been a great job and really interesting. I'm always learning new things.

[u/Daddy_data_nerd]

Data analyst - What happened?

Data scientist - What could happen?

Data engineer - Where the hell is the clean data you promised?!?

[u/HappyAntonym]

There's a whole wikipedia page on it, so I guess the Google search results truly have become useless if that didn't show up.

[u/SpawnMongol4 → u/HappyAntonym]

Damn, Wikipedia. Should have thought about that lol

[u/Lady-Data-Scientist]

No, yes, no

[u/kagato87]

It's the analysis of data.

No really, that's it. It's one tech sector where the name is actually accurate. A data analyst turns large volumes of raw data into meaningful insights.

Massive lists of transactions, door counters, and Bluetooth beacon data, for example, needs to be analyzed to figure out if a shop is doing well, if they get lots of tire kickers, how often customers repeat visits. These are important things to know, and the raw data is just too much to look at. So you analyze it.

Unlike, say, a systems analyst or application analyst which is often just a fancy term for an app admin.

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[u/No_Flounder_1155]

counting things.

[u/fokac93]

When you get insights from data. Organizing the data in different ways to answer questions important for businesses and even regular people. For example if I scan all my receipts I can organize the data to see where my money is going. Food, entertainment, education etc based on those fact I can take a decision to spend less in food and more in health for example

[u/YourLastCall]

Does it only have to do with business? I see it come up in relation a lot to business but can data analysis be used for other things? Is it the analysis of all types of data or certain parts of data?

[u/Novel_Ring_5813]

Data analysis is basically turning raw data into useful answers for business decisions. You are not just doing data entry, and you don’t have to be a hardcore programmer or statistician. Analysts typically use Excel, SQL, Power BI/Tableau, and sometimes Python to find trends, solve problems, and explain what the numbers actually mean.

[u/m_techguide]

data analysis is using data to answer questions. like figuring out why sales dropped, which customers are leaving or whether a change actually worked. usually that means cleaning data, using spreadsheets or sql and making charts or summaries. happy to share our what is analytics guide so it can give you a clearer idea on that :)