Analytical skills are the abilities, knowledge, and experience related to the gathering, processing, organizing, and interpreting of information. These skills are important for many different jobs and activities, as they allow individuals to collect and analyze information in order to make informed decisions and solve complex problems.

For example, if you are a business analyst, you might use your analytical skills to collect and analyze data about market trends, customer behavior, and competitor activity in order to help your company make strategic decisions. Alternatively, if you are a research scientist, you might use your analytical skills to collect and analyze data from experiments and observations in order to test hypotheses and advance our understanding of the natural world.

Overall, analytical skills are valuable talents that are essential for many different jobs and activities. By helping individuals collect, process, and interpret information, these skills can be used to make better decisions and solve complex problems. The following are some illustrative examples.

Strategic Planning
The process of developing strategies to achieve goals in the face of constraints and competition. Developed a strategy to expand our product line that increased revenue by $17 million.

Business Analysis
Business analysis is the process of developing documentation and communications for a business. Developed a competitive analysis that estimated the unit costs of our competitors across 12 product categories.

Business Planning
The development of a business plan or business case that recommends an investment in a business. Developed a plan to invest in a data center expansion that was approved by the executive team with a budget of $12 million.

Requirements Gathering
The process of gathering and refining requirements from the stakeholders in a project. Delivered the requirements for a $12 million data center expansion project.

Estimates
Estimating the cost and duration of projects, activities and tasks. Developed formal cost estimates for a $7 million software development project.

Financial Analysis
Analysis of financial proposals, performance and conditions. Developed return on investment estimates for a $250,000 product development initiative.

Forecasts
Developing reasonable predictions of the future. Developed a quarterly sales forecast for a product with revenue of $45 million that was used to plan marketing, sales and production.

Goal Planning
Goal Planning is the process of establishing goals for an organization, team and individual. This is part of the performance management process. Managed the performance goal setting process for a team of 42 software developers.

Problem Solving
Using a process of analysis to solve problems. Examined more than 3,000 product reviews to determine the reasons a product was receiving low scores. Used this information to drive design and quality improvements to the product.

Decision Making
Using analysis to make decisions. Developed an analysis of the risks and opportunities associated with 130 cost cutting proposals to determine a strategy that reduced opex costs by $240,000 per quarter.

Critical Thinking
Thinking that challenges or validates the assumptions, positions and assertions of others. Note: choosing examples that produced value as merely criticizing others without doing anything useful can be perceived negatively. Challenged the assumption that a legacy system was too critical to retire. Sponsored a project to retire the system that saved $930,000 in annual maintenance and support costs.

Market Research
Market research is the process of understanding customers and competition. Conducted market research to identify how customers perceive the quality of snowboard gear.

Data Analysis
Data analysis is the use of data science techniques and tools to develop knowledge, make decisions and solve problems. Performed an exploratory data analysis to identify optimal price points for a range of ice cream products.

Statistical Analysis
The analysis of probability distributions and other statistical models. Developed a probability distribution that was used to predict the effect of price increases on demand for a line of packaged food goods.

Quantification
Quantification is the process of measuring things. Measured customer satisfaction with the meal service on the London to Shanghai route.

Benchmarking
Comparing your results to your industry or competitors. Benchmarked our revenue per employee against our industry and closest competitors.

Management Accounting
Management accounting is the practice of measuring things that management needs to know. Measured the throughput of a production line by workstation.

Business Process Analysis
The analysis of business processes. Performed an analysis of a quote-to-cash process to develop recommendations to shorten the process by 23% with more parallel steps.

Gap Analysis
A gap analysis identifies the difference between where you are and where you want to be. Delivered a gap analysis for the goal to improve customer perceived quality by 70%.

Voice of the Customer
Engaging with customers to understand things like customer needs, quality and pricing. Established a network of lead users who recommended designs and improvements that generated $4.2 million in new product revenue.

Systems Analysis
The analysis of IT systems, architecture, design, operations and infrastructure. Performed a product evaluation for network infrastructure such as routers and recommended products for a data center design.

Capacity Planning
Determining future resource requirements and planning to meet demand. Forecast the storage capacity required for a cloud service with 1.2 million users and delivered an infrastructure plan to meet demand.

MECE
A common management consulting approach to analysis that produces information that is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Delivered recommendations for an acquisitions strategy that listed all possible targets with a risk, opportunity and feasibility assessment for each.

SWOT Analysis
A popular analysis technique that involves evaluating your current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a competitive environment. Developed a SWOT analysis for a GovCloud platform.

Operations Analysis
Analysis of the core operations processes of an organization. Delivered an analysis of a production process that identified efficiency bottlenecks and opportunities for quality improvement.

Metrics & Reporting
Developing measurements that are communicated to stakeholders. Developed a labor productivity metric that was reported monthly to the executive team.