Data analysis can easily be overlooked when it comes to business analysis.
Data is a key aspect of many organizations and special consideration should be given to data analysis when starting any new project where data is involved.
What is data?
Data describes the information a business uses and an important feature of data is Metadata. Metadata is data about data. It is information about things of interest to a business, stakeholder, or customer. It includes things like First Name, Last Name, SIN/SSN, Credit Card Number, DOB, et cetera.
Where can we get data?
We can get data just about anywhere. Data is associated with any type of business activity. We can get data from webpages, forms, transactions, mobile apps, production, development, testing environments, and much more. Data is required to start a process. When data is received it reads, writes, updates, and deletes information from a data source (usually a database) and sends out a response to indicate what happened to the data it received and displays it as a report, a GUI, or a data link to another process.
Where is data used?
Data is used for the input, processing, and output of IT systems and business processes. The data required for the input, processing, and output of a system is essential for any business analyst to understand. We must understand how data is collected, organized, processed, distributed, and related to other data.
Understanding data and how it is used can help an organization design its systems, processes, and products more efficiently. Successful organizations understand their data. Understand the data and you understand the business.