【BQ Story】 Sales Forecasting model

Can you describe a situation where you had to overcome a significant challenge in your academic or professional life?

[Situation&Task] In my role as a sales analyst at a retail company, I encountered a significant challenge when tasked with improving the accuracy of sales forecasts for a new product line. The challenge stemmed from the messy format of the historical data, due to the unstandardized naming rules of SKUs and the inconsistant update between pos database and inventory system.

[Action] To overcome this probelm, my first move was to collaborated closely with the sales team to gather as much useful information as possible, so that I can adpot a feasible strategy to clean and transform data . Besides, I collaborate with product and inventory team to standardize names of SKUs to ensure each SKUs has a unique product id and product name. These actions could help in data cleaned and transformed in a better format, while also allow me to apply multiple modeling techniques and make prediction in a more accurate and comfort way.

[Result] Our dedication and efficient approach has led to a more accurate forecast, which eventually helped the company optimize inventory levels and increase sales revenue.

This experience taught me the importance of adaptability/considerable thinking, teamwork, and continuous learning to overcome challenges in a dynamic business environment

Other Fitted Question：
Tell me about a project where you had to collaborate with others to achieve a common goal. How did you contribute to the team’s success?
Describe a situation where you had to gather and analyze complex data to inform decision-making. How did you ensure the accuracy and reliability of your analysis?
Can you give an example of a time when you had to adapt to unexpected changes or setbacks? How did you overcome them?
Talk about a project where you had to utilize advanced statistical modeling techniques. How did you determine which techniques to use, and what was the outcome?
Describe a situation where you had to communicate complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders. How did you ensure they understood the insights and implications?
Have you ever led a project to optimize processes or systems? How did you approach it, and what were the results?
Tell me about a time when you had to continuously learn and adapt to new technologies or methodologies in your role. How did you stay updated, and what was the impact on your work?

Extented questions：
1.2 Can you provide specific examples of the challenges you encountered while processing data? How did you address these challenges?

[Situation&Task] Certainly. The significant challenge I faced during the data processing stage was to seek out an effective method to ensure consistency of data. The increasing number of product categories and the unstandardized naming rules for SKUs has made the data inaccurate and unreliable, and therefore made it difficult to extract and transform for modelling purpose.

[Action] To address this challenge, I i