How do you solve business problems?

An understanding of business problems

When in your "Ask" phase during the problem-solving process as a data analyst, one of the essential things that guides you into understanding the problem you are about to solve is the 5 whys. The 5 whys is used to understand the root cause of a business problem.

A clear understanding of the business problem ensures that you offer the right solution. This ensures that the problem does not come back as a threat, i.e you tackled the problem's root cause.

What are the 5 whys? This means;

Define the problem > why is it happening> why is it happening > why> why>

"Using an illustration of an organization facing a problem of low revenue in 20*2 as compared to previous years"

Why 1: The analyst asked, "why are we having low revenue?

We then discovered that it was due to low sales and not increased cost.

Why2: why are we experiencing low sales?

We then discovered that it was due to customer's refusal to buy our product.

Why3: why are customers refusing to buy our product?

We then found out that customers complained our products were of low quality compared to our previous product standard. (we didn't jump into the conclusion that it was customers low income that affected their patronage).

Why4: why are our products of low quality?

We then found out that low materials were used during production.

Why5: why were low materials used?

Our suppliers gave us inferior materials.

With this, we have traced the problem all down to the suppliers. We didn't just act on the originating problem and then started proffering solutions like "let us increase advertisement, or let us Increase price."

That would have been the wrong solution because in the end, customers would still not buy our products and our brand reputation might be damaged along the line.

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However, taking a detailed look into the problem by asking questions using the 5 whys allowed us trace the problem to the right cause, and by this, we proffered the right solution.

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