10 Business Analyst Projects That Showcase Real Experience

In today’s data-driven business world, analytics are essential to businesses of all sizes, and business analysts are critically valuable team members. Though a “business analyst” role can be defined in multiple ways, a business analyst is typically someone who analyzes processes and operations to identify improvements that make a company run more smoothly and successfully.¹

Hands-on experience is crucial in the field of business analytics, as it helps analysts understand the processes and organizations they are assessing, enabling them to identify key aspects and apply relevant insights effectively. This blog examines different types of projects business analysts complete.

1. Customer Segmentation Analysis

Customer segmentation involves grouping different clusters of your customer base by similar characteristics.² It’s common to group customers by demographics, such as age or geographic location. However, you may also choose to group people by where they are in the customer journey, such as customers who are familiar with your brand and are comparing you to competitors versus potential customers who have never heard of your brand. Segmentation allows your marketing team to tailor advertising campaigns based on the qualities of your products or services that are most beneficial to specific customer groups.

2. Sales Trend and Forecast Reporting

Sales trend analysis involves assessing historical sales and revenue data to identify meaningful patterns and then using the findings to predict future sales.³ This kind of business analyst project helps you identify growth opportunities and potential areas of improvement. It also helps you prepare for shifting buyer behaviors.

For example, before Amazon started offering expedited delivery, customers were accustomed to waiting several days or even weeks for online purchases to arrive. Now, customers expect overnight or same-day delivery.⁴ As a business analyst in the early days of Amazon, you could have anticipated this shift through predictive analytics and helped your company remain competitive.

3. Website Traffic and Conversion Analysis

In business, your website is one of your primary marketing tools. More than 80% of customers engage in an online search before making a purchase.⁵ Accordingly, website traffic and conversion analysis are imperative, as they help determine where and how you’re attracting new customers online.

As part of this kind of project, you would examine user behavior, including how people found your website and how long they engaged with specific pages. If you found that most of your new traffic comes from LinkedIn ads, for example, you could use this information to your advantage by optimizing new ads and marketing campaigns for LinkedIn.

You might also launch different versions of a website or landing page using A/B testing. In these tests, each version is run with a small audience segment to see which messaging drives more website visits and purchases.

4. Inventory Management Optimization

Maintaining optimal inventory levels is a delicate balancing act. While you want enough inventory on hand to meet customer demand, you don’t want to incur additional costs or losses as a result of holding excess inventory.

As a business analyst, you can evaluate historical sales data and customer behavior trends to determine the optimal inventory levels for each product your company sells.⁶ You might also consider factors such as merchandise preparation and delivery times to further refine your estimates. Then, you can determine and set an appropriate threshold for automatic repurchasing.

5. Competitor Benchmarking Report

It’s always important to understand how your business compares to its competitors and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Competitive benchmarking is a business analyst challenge that involves assessing your products, services, or processes in relation to those of your competitors.⁷ You might be involved in a competitor benchmarking analysis when you’re trying to assess your unique value proposition, or if you’ve lost market share and you’re trying to determine the root cause.

6. Market Entry Feasibility Study

As a company grows and changes, it will likely consider launching new products or entering new markets. A market entry feasibility study involves analyzing a potential project or venture from multiple angles to determine the likelihood of success based on factors such as existing demand and market competition.⁸

Suppose that your business wanted to launch a product in another country. You would need to assess whether there are enough potential customers to justify the expansion. You would also need to evaluate regulatory, cultural, and logistical barriers to entry. When McDonald's enters a new market, for example, the company makes changes to its menu to better suit the local culture.⁹ While classic menu items are frequently available abroad, a McDonald's in Japan, for example, may also offer green tea ice cream or shrimp filet sandwiches. As a business analyst, you would research new markets and make targeted suggestions to enhance local appeal.

7. Financial Ratio and Performance Analysis

Business analyst project examples aren’t limited to sales and marketing. As an analyst, you might also assess your company’s financial performance by measuring various financial ratios, such as debt-to-income and gross profit margin. These and other financial metrics help you assess your performance relative to business goals so you can course-correct if needed. With your company’s financial team, you could evaluate profitability, liquidity, and efficiency and compare your results against industry benchmarks.¹⁰

In completing such analyses, you may discover that your company has lost profitability over the past year, which would signal a need to increase sales or cut costs. Conversely, you may find out that your company was more profitable than expected in the past year and thus consider options for investing profits into research, development, and other initiatives.¹¹

8. Business Process Improvement

Business process improvement projects are all about efficiency. Analysts working on such projects assess various processes in different departments and make suggestions to reduce costs without minimizing quality.¹² Once each process has been mapped and the key sources of inefficiency have been identified, you could then make suggestions for improvement and help your company implement changes.

9. Product Launch Impact Assessment

While it’s essential to do your due diligence before launching a new product, you can’t predict exactly how well your new product will perform.¹¹ Accordingly, business analysts need to run product launch impact assessments. This kind of report helps you determine if your launch was successful using key performance metrics. For example, you might measure customer sentiment, new revenue, the percentage of people who signed up for a trial, the average cost of customer acquisition, and more.¹³ You can then leverage the results to support future launches.

The case of Coca-Cola’s ill-fated New Coke release highlights the importance of assessing product launches. Following the launch of New Coke, Coca-Cola was fielding angry phone calls and letters for weeks until they relaunched the original formula.¹⁴ Since 1985, the company has been more protective of its brand heritage and hasn’t made any big changes to its recipe.¹⁵

10. Risk Assessment Matrix Development

Every business has its risks, from financial to operational.¹⁶ A risk assessment matrix helps you identify potential risks and develop strategies to manage them. Using this tool, you plot potential risks on a chart based on how likely they are and how damaging they would be.¹⁷

Advance Your Business Analytics Career With Hands-On Experience

Gaining authentic analytics experience is essential for success in today’s data-driven business world. Santa Clara University’s Online Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program will give you the hands-on learning opportunities you need to build your analytics skill set and prepare you to tackle complex business analytics challenges with confidence. As an Online MSBA student, you’ll learn from our expert faculty and gain expertise in cutting-edge analytics tools and techniques through our rigorous curriculum.

Ready to take the next step in your business analytics journey? Review our admissions requirements and connect with one of our admissions outreach advisors today.