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What is Business Statistics?

Statistics in marketing, quality control and insurance

Statistics is the most widely used quantitative method in business. It is concerned with extracting the best possible information from data in order to aid decision making. It is often applied to sales forecasting, quality control and market research. Data used in business include population censuses, opinion polls, consumer data bases, and sales and demand data. The role of the Statistician is to determine, for a given question, the type of data that is needed, the way it should be collected and how it should be analysed in order to best answer that question.

Statistics has been described as "the science of learning from data". This includes everything from planning for the collection of data and subsequent data management to end-of-the-line activities such as drawing inferences from data and presentation of results.

Important skills

Statisticians working in business should have the following skills:

  • to be able to express a generally posed question as a statistical question;
  • to be familiar with a variety of commonly used techniques and the models underlying them;
  • to be familiar with the mathematical underpinning of often-used statistical techniques to the extent of being able to make simple modifications in appropriate situations;
  • to be able to use statistical packages to perform relevant calculations;
  • to be equipped with a variety of graphical techniques for displaying data;
  • to understand the scope and limitations of statistical inference and its proper role in the process of investigation;
  • to be able to decide how to obtain a suitable sample of data;
  • to be able to think clearly and coherently;
  • to be able to work productively as an individual or in cooperation with others;
  • to be able to complete assigned tasks on schedule;
  • to be able to produce clear and accurate written work.

Employment opportunities

The research and development units of some larger corporations, larger hospitals and health departments employ statistical consultants. The Australian Bureau of Statistics employs many statisticians in the area of civil statistics, and various government departments in finance and industrial relations areas have statisticians working with economic data. Most large banks, financial companies and energy companies employ statisticians. There are opportunities for statisticians to work in quality improvement initiatives within industrial and commercial organisations. See also:

For more information

For general information about Statistics, see