Data people, how to "package" yourself as an industry expert?

This article systematically shares methods to quickly understand the industry and business. Let’s take a look.

"To do data analysis, you need to understand the business! You need to understand the industry!" This is a basic requirement, but how can you quickly understand an industry and business? Do you have to work in operations and sales to understand the business? Today, I will share with you a systematic method to quickly understand the industry and business.

First of all, it should be clear that interviews and work are two completely different scenarios and should be treated differently.

01 Interview Preparation

If you only have two days for an interview, how can you learn about an industry and a company? The first thing you need to pay attention to is: what does this company do. This includes:

Business model: Is the company toC/toB/B2B2C? Who are its main customers?

Track: What products/services does the company provide and what customer needs does it meet?

You need to understand these two points mainly because different business models and tracks have different data collection, data indicators, and business focus. If you don’t understand them in advance, it’s okay if you meet your peers, but if you meet a different industry, you may be kicked out by the interviewer with a sentence like “You don’t understand the industry at all!”

Generally speaking, toC model companies are easy to understand because toC model companies meet personal needs for food, clothing, housing and transportation. If you find that the business of this company is toC, you can directly experience its products.

If there is an APP (such as games, social networking, short videos, e-commerce, O2O, etc.), you can download it directly to experience it. During the experience, please pay attention to:

• On which channels did you advertise?
• How is the registration process for new users?
• What information is collected on first login?
• What products will be pushed when logging in for the first time?
• What special offers are there for new members?

These are likely to be related to user analysis and product analysis, so you can pay attention to them and compare them with similar apps to see what features they have. These can make it easier for you to pass the interview.

If you don’t have an app but have a physical store, you can go directly to the store to experience it and pay attention to the following:

• Number of physical stores in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier cities (viewed using Amap)
• Location and decoration level of physical stores in this city
• Display of flagship products in physical stores

These are likely related to channel analysis and product analysis, so you can pay attention to them.

Some students may find this too slow. If you want to learn quickly, there are three other ways:

1. Search Baidu for the company's financing information. Generally, in the financing news, there will be a systematic introduction to the company's business model and operating conditions, so you can quickly understand it.
2. Search for industry reports related to the company/industry on platforms such as iResearch, Analysys, MoblieQuest, 36Kr, and Huxiu. Note that when reading industry reports, the focus is on the industry chain, upstream and downstream, and main products of the industry, so as to understand the industry situation. As for specific figures, they can only be used for reference.
3. Search for the company/industry + keywords such as problems, difficulties, opportunities, etc., so that you can find analysis articles on the company/industry on Baidu, which will also provide in-depth interpretation of the company/industry situation.

The only thing you shouldn't do is to search directly for: "XX industry report". This will basically bring up junk ads selling industry reports on Baidu, which are not very informative.

ToB business may be more troublesome. Some students have no toB experience at all and cannot imagine what toB is like. At this time, you can use the above three methods of searching for information to build your cognition and then deal with it accordingly. Or stop and think: If I really have no foundation, do I really need to switch from toC to toB?

Another situation is the toB business of some Internet platforms (such as ByteDance, Meituan, Alibaba, etc. that provide merchant services). Although these are also toB, they are very different from traditional toB. These businesses rely on the platform to develop, and students have the opportunity to get in touch with the toB background. At the same time, there are many articles interpreting these large platforms. You can directly search for keywords such as "What does the merchant operation of XX platform do?" You can also search for interview requirements and interview experiences of similar positions on job search websites/APPs, so that you can quickly establish business awareness.

The main purpose of building business awareness during the interview stage is to reduce the sense of unfamiliarity and avoid not knowing who the users are or what products they sell when others ask questions such as user analysis, product analysis, and channel analysis. You can also compare your previous work experience to see which project experience can be transferred to show your professionalism and rich experience.

In theory, job-hopping within the same industry and position is the most popular. Job-hopping between different industries and positions is the most difficult. However, data analysis has an advantage, that is, as long as you have analyzed similar business scenarios, written code, and have some understanding, it is relatively easy to successfully change careers.

For example, they are both user analysis, but one is for e-commerce users and the other is for community users. As long as you know the functions of community products and the behavioral indicators of users, and the e-commerce company has done user behavior analysis before, you are likely to succeed in the interview. Therefore, business preparation before the interview is quite necessary.

02 Work Preparation

If you are at work, the focus of understanding the business is completely different. If you have joined a company, you can fully understand what the company does from the company's internal reports, company organizational structure, etc. You can also learn who your partner departments are from work and understand how they are doing through data.

The key points to understand the business at work are:

• What are the specific actions of the business?
• What goals/actual problems does the business want to achieve?
• Does the business have any assumptions? What are the assumptions?
• Has the business seen the data? What data has it seen?

These four items are related to the work results of data analysis.

When doing data analysis, I am most afraid of:

1. I don't understand the situation and don't know where to get the data.
2. I got the numbers, but I don't know what to do with them, so I keep running the numbers over and over again.
3. I ran out to count, and people said, "I knew it a long time ago."
4. I worked so hard to write a report, but someone said, "What's the point?"

The root of these problems is that they don't understand the business. They don't know what they do specifically and what their real problems are. Therefore, it is very important to understand the business. You can start from the following two aspects.

1. Formal communication

include:

• Daily collection business activity announcements, product update announcements, product listing and delisting announcements
• When accepting data requirements, refuse to speak verbally and fill in the requirements form
• When receiving analytical tasks, take the initiative to communicate and understand the assumptions
• When receiving a request for running numbers, take the initiative to understand the background
• Regularly hold data sharing meetings every month to share information
• Collect BI requirements regularly every month and understand business trends

However! These actions require the careful cooperation of the business department. There are many companies where the workplace atmosphere is not so good and the communication between departments is not smooth. At this time, students who work on data have to think of more solutions.

2. Informal communication

for example:

• Each department develops at least one insider who eats and plays games together
• Boldly reject some unsolicited requests and force the other party to explain the reasons
• Give up some departments that are difficult to cooperate with, and make the needs of those with good relationships into high-quality products
• Develop personal relationships when training new employees
• Actively learn industry knowledge, keep job hunting, and collect information extensively

Of course, even so, there are still setbacks. For example, in some companies, product managers have no ideas of their own, so they forward the boss's needs and force data analysis to "produce valuable insights." In some companies, the gap between departments is too deep, and it is impossible to talk properly. In some companies, operations do not set goals before activities, and they are repeatedly entangled afterwards.

Author: Down-to-earth Teacher Chen

WeChat public account: Down-to-earth Teacher Chen