What-if Analysis for Business Professionals: Current Practices and Future Opportunities

Abstract

What-if analysis (WIA) is essential for data-driven decision-making, allowing users to assess how changes in variables impact outcomes and explore alternative scenarios. Existing WIA research primarily supports the workflows of data scientists and analysts, and largely overlooks business professionals who engage in WIA through non-technical means. To bridge this gap, we conduct a two-part user study with 22 business professionals across marketing, sales, product, and operations roles. The first study examines their existing WIA practices, tools, and challenges. Findings reveal that business professionals perform many WIA techniques independently using rudimentary tools due to various constraints. We then implement representative WIA techniques in a visual analytics prototype and use it as a probe to conduct a follow-up study evaluating business professionals’ practical use of the techniques. Results show that these techniques improve decision-making efficiency and confidence while underscoring the need for better support in data preparation, risk assessment, and domain knowledge integration. Finally, we offer design recommendations to enhance future business analytics systems.