Akong The Analyst

Hi, Saturday: Relearning and practicing.

The foundation of the Data Analysis begins with the formulas that are in high usage.

I have continue to learn, relearn and understand more of the excel functions.

• XLOOKUP
• VLOOKUP
• MATCH
• INDEX
• SUM
• AVERAGE
• IF
• COUNT
• COUNTA
• MAX
• MIN
• VSTACK

What Recruiters Want to Hear
Recruiter: "VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP?"

Bad Answer: "XLOOKUP"

Good Answer: "I use XLOOKUP for new models because it’s dynamic and won’t break. But I can read/debug VLOOKUP because 70% of company legacy files still use it.

For big data I’d actually use Power Query merge instead."

✍️ XLOOKUP Superpower: Return 2 columns at once
=XLOOKUP(A2, Customers!A:A, Customers!B:C)
Pulls both Name AND Email in 1 formula. VLOOKUP can't do this.

✅ Rule of Thumb for Data Analyst

1. Learn VLOOKUP first to understand legacy reports
2. Use XLOOKUP daily for all new analysis
3. Level up to Power Query when you have 100k+ rows. XLOOKUP slows down

✅ Bottom line: `XLOOKUP` saves you time. `VLOOKUP` gets you the job because the old CFO's file uses it.

Data Analysis Storytelling: Turning Data into Decisions

Data storytelling is the art of transforming raw data into a meaningful narrative that helps people understand insights and make informed decisions.

A good data story combines three key elements:

📊 Data: The facts, numbers, and evidence.
📈 Visuals: Charts, graphs, and dashboards that make data easy to understand.
📝 Narrative:The explanation that connects the insights to business goals and actions.

Example

📌Situation:
A retail company noticed a decline in monthly sales.

📊Data Analysis:
After analyzing sales data, the analyst discovered that sales dropped by 20% in the Northern region during the last quarter.

📊Insight:
Customer purchases decreased significantly after a major competitor launched a discount campaign.

📌Story:
"Our analysis shows that the 20% sales decline in the Northern region began shortly after a competitor introduced aggressive discounts. The impact was strongest among price-sensitive customers. By introducing targeted promotions and loyalty rewards, we can recover lost market share and improve customer retention."

📊Recommendation:

* Launch region-specific promotions.
* Strengthen customer loyalty programs.
* Monitor competitor pricing strategies.
* Track sales performance weekly.

Why Data Storytelling Matters

✅ Makes complex data easy to understand.
✅ Helps stakeholders make better decisions.
✅ Drives action instead of just presenting numbers.
✅ Increases the impact of dashboards and reports.
✅ Connects business problems to data-driven solutions.

Remember:
"Data tells you what happened. Analysis tells you why it happened. Storytelling tells people what to do next."

This is the mindset of a successful Data Analyst: Don't just present data—tell the story behind the data. 📊📖✨

Excel 2024 introduces powerful data analysis tools and productivity features.

Key highlights include 14 new text and array functions (such as =GROUPBY and =PIVOTBY), dynamic charts that automatically resize, native in-cell checkboxes, and the ability to insert and format pictures directly into cells using the =IMAGE function.

These features are designed to speed up reporting and enhance overall workbook management:

✅ Top New Features & Formulas

✍️ GROUPBY & PIVOTBY: These powerful functions allow you to summarize data, sort, and apply aggregations using a single, streamlined formula without needing traditional pivot tables.

✍️ New Text and Array Functions: 14 new formulas were added to help manipulate, split, and reshape text strings and data arrays effortlessly.

✍️ Dynamic Charts: Charts can now reference dynamic arrays. As your underlying array expands or shrinks, the chart automatically updates to reflect the new dataset length.

✍️ Focus Cell: Highlights the active row and column to help you easily navigate large and dense spreadsheets.

✍️ AI-Assisted Data Cleanup (Copilot & ChatGPT): AI integration allows Copilot to detect text inconsistencies, number format issues, and extra spaces, helping clean your dataset with simple prompts.

The latest Microsoft Excel has added new analytics tools to aid user advance in working.

Our daily activities involve using SQL query command consciously or unconsciously.

SQL command....
SELECT, WHERE, INSERT, GROUP BY, ORDER, COUNT, ALTER, SELECT, CREATE, MERGE, UPDATE, JOIN, DROP, REMOVE, CONCATE and lot more.

Let look at some of our daily activities and also using SQL coding/ SQL query.

✅ John go to Mama Obi shop to collect the green shirt for me.
SQL: Select shirt from Mama Obi shop where shirt =green;

✅ Madam add egg to my food on top of the rice.
SQL: Alter food add column egg varchar (25);

✅ Sister remove the fish from my Soup.
SQL: Alter soup drop column fish;

✅ Remove 2k and 5k from my UBA account, the expenses wallet.
SQL: Alter UBA account drop 2k, 5k where UBA account = expenses wallet;

✅ Give me coffee, glass cups, gallon, freezer from Walmart store.
SQL: select coffee, glass_cups, gallon, freezer from Walmart store;

✅ Turn everything in the Soup and the Stew into one plate for me now.
Select * from Soup full join Stew;

📌Add your knowledge of SQL query!

Tell me what you have learned today from the explanation in the comments.

Sales Performance Analysis Dashboard

✅ Objective:
The aim of the analysis is strong sales Performance of products, profit and discount across regions.

✅ Finding:
📊 Sales increase by 31% in the west due to strong performance.

📊 Technology category has the highest percentage rate in sales.

📊 Profit from the West increase significantly as a result of higher sales performance.

📊 Sales dropped by 14% in the South region

📊 Degrees in profit in the Central region by 24% across all KPIs.

📊 Products/category discount rise to 38% in the Central region.

📊 Office supplies have higher discount rates with a 61% total.

✅ Interpretation:

📈 Growth in the west is driven by high regional demand.

📉 The crisis in the South region affected the sales performance.

📊 Over-reliance on a single category may be risky.

✅ Recommendation:

📊 Increase marketing in high performing region (West).

📊 Investigate the remedy to the sales dropped in some region due to crisis.

📊 Diversity products focus beyond technology category.

📊 Reduce the discount rates in regions with high discount but low profit.

The recommendation should be based on your findings.
A dashboard shows what is happening, but your report explains why it matters and what to do next.

Writing a short findings report from a dashboard is about turning charts into clear insights + actions.
A dashboard shows what is happening, but your report explains why it matters and what to do next.

📊 Happy Saturday!

While many people see weekends as a time to relax, a Data Analyst sees opportunities to learn, grow, and uncover new insights.

Remember: Every chart tells a story, every dataset holds answers, and every skill you build today brings you closer to your goals.

Take some time this weekend to recharge, reflect on your progress, and sharpen your analytical skills. Small consistent efforts create big results.

Wishing you a productive, peaceful, and insight-filled Saturday!

Analytics of Sales Performance.

Analysis of sales performance dashboard of an organization finding it uneasy to know about their sales, profit and discount rate across all their outlets (regions).

The objective from the raw dataset.

✍️ Identify sales performance by region and category.

✍️ Profit from category and regional growth.

✍️ Category with high performance returns

✍️ Sales dropped by regions and category.

Examining the dataset which was a large messy dataset with sale across regions with product category, sub-category and mini category, I group them into a major category for analysis.

The tools used for the analysis is Power BI and Skills applied are:
• ETL
• Data cleaning
• Data modeling
• KPI identification
• Visual charts

After which the report shows the region with the highest sales and profit performance and low performance, category with the highest level of performance and profit.

This is for educational purposes and data analytics skills mastery.

I will drop my interpretation, finding of the dashboard and Recommendations to enable the teams leaders make informed decisions.

THE SWEET TASTE OF DATA VISUALIZATION

Turning Raw Data into Actionable Insights

Data visualization is where numbers come to life. It transforms complex datasets into clear, engaging, and meaningful stories that drive informed decisions.

📊 Discover trends and patterns
📈 Track business performance
🎯 Identify opportunities and risks
💡 Turn insights into action
🚀 Make data-driven decisions with confidence

Tools of the Trade

* Microsoft Excel
* Power BI
* Tableau
* SQL
* Python
* Looker Studio

"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion. With visualization, data tells the story."

Analyze. Visualize. Communicate. Impact.