A local manufacturer that serves about 1000 retail stores is experiencing a slow yet steady decrease of its customer base over the last couple of years. Attributing the situation to increased competition, management has hired a team of sales representatives to attract new clients and promote the manufacturer's products.
However, after four months there is still no progress. Management has engaged a business analyst (BA) to investigate this issue.
What should the BA do first?
To address the declining customer base effectively, the business analyst should first review historic sales and related data. This step is crucial to understand the trends, patterns, and potential underlying issues that are causing the decline. Without this analysis, any actions taken, such as market research or training programs, would be based on assumptions rather than facts. By thoroughly analyzing the data, the business analyst can identify specific problems, validate or refute the management's assumption about increased competition, and provide data-driven recommendations to resolve the issue.
Ans is C. Attributing the situation to increased competition is an assumption of d management. D BA needs to dig a little deeper to come to a confirmed conclusion on d actual reason behind d decline in customer base and then, proffer more suitable recommendations on appropriate solutions.
We don't need to review historic sales and related data anymore, we already have a declining trend as stated in the question -' However, after four months there is still no progress' The next logical thing to do is to perform market research. According to Babok 10.4.2 Market analysis involves researching customers in order to determine the products and services that they need or want, the factors that influence their decisions to purchase, and the competitors that exist in the market. The objective of market analysis is to acquire this information in order to support the various decision-making processes within an organization. Market analysis can also help determine when to exit a market. It may be used if partnering, merging, or divesting are viable alternatives for an enterprise.
Correct answer is C. I thought in this line also, especially as this is a tricky question. The question however did not state if the BA was to investigate the failure of the Sales team or the declining customer base which suggests that the A option is not fool-proof. Option C looks like a safer and more reasonable answer as it can capture both the sales efforts and customer retention. My final answer is C.
C is correct because data mining needs to be done on the historic data including the data of four months after hiring of sales representative to discover insights into potential reasons for decline in customer base. Based on that analysis, further actions can be recommended. A is incorrect because market research works well to focus on competitive advantages once BA is sure that the exact reason for decline in customer base is focusing the wrong competitive strategies that is leading to unfruitful results and to be sure, analysis of sales and historic data needs to be done.
market research is time consuming and require knowledge and finances, and the question is asked what to do first, of course, looking into the data first isright decision.
After 3 months there is still no progress, this indicates that the root cause of decrease may not competitive, maybe there are some other reasons. So I think A is not correct. I prefer C, as it need to find the root cause firstly.
I believe A: V3 pg 63 used as a source of business analysis information by comparing a specific process, system, product, service, or structure with some external baseline, such as a similar organization or baseline provided by an industry association. Market analysis is used to determine what customers want and what competitors provide
A should be the answer because market research involves researching customers in order to determine the products and services that they need or want , and the factors that influence their decisions to purchase and the competitors that exist in the market
the right answer is a
Hey Saeedddd, can you validate why answer A - I was leaning towards option C.