Product and business analyst adverts in Ghana often ask for strong spreadsheet skills, and analyst roles at fintechs and PAYGO companies add SQL and dashboard tools. Spreadsheets let you answer most beginner product questions. SQL lets you ask the same questions directly of a company's database, which is how analysts work once data grows large.
Spreadsheet skills that matter
In Google Sheets (free, and it works on a phone or a computer), learn to:
- Sort and filter rows, for example to see only orders from Tamale.
- Count and sum with conditions using functions like COUNTIF and SUMIF.
- Summarise with a pivot table, such as orders per week per town.
- Clean data: remove duplicates, fix inconsistent spellings ("Tamale", "tamale", "Tamale "), and split or join columns.
- Chart a summary so others understand it at a glance.
Example formulas, if orders are in rows with the town in column B and value in column C:
- Count orders from Tamale: =COUNTIF(B:B, "Tamale")
- Total value from Tamale: =SUMIF(B:B, "Tamale", C:C)
SQL basics
SQL (Structured Query Language) asks questions of database tables. Most beginner questions use just a few parts: