Use of Statistics

Here’s a few examples of using statistics in business:

Quality Control
Say you have to inspect a shipment with a large number of items in it. Instead of inspecting each and every item, you select a few at random. Statistics can help you determine how many to select and how well your sample reflects the whole shipment.

Market Surveys
This is like opinion polling.

Demand for Products
Statistics can help determine what factors make up demand and how important each factor is. Example: selling ice cream. Factors: price point, weather, average income, number of children.

Financial Auditing
CPA’s exam random transactions and use statistics to project these to the whole.

Product Testing
Statistics are used to determine if results are caused by products or by other factors.

I’ve seen statistics over-used, too. Overall, it is a good tool to have.