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[ MARKETING LESSONS ]2026-10-08 · 3 min read

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

I was watching a video where interviewer was asking situation based questions like "what would be your approach if sales drop by 5%" , "User interaction reduced by 10%", So the interviewer expects a particular format of answer on how we're handling a situation, So when i further read about it, i got to know such topics come under "Root Cause Analysis". When i Started reading about it, i came across this youtube channel "Alok The Analyst ". He explained very simply on how the flow begins and how should we tackle such questions .

He divided the situation into 2 major factors — External Factors and Internal Factors. What I found useful was that each of these could be further broken down into smaller areas, making the analysis much more structured.For example, if the interviewer asks:
“What would you do if sales dropped by 5%?”

1. External Factors

  • Market → Overall market demand, economic conditions
  • Competition → New competitor, lower prices, better product
  • Customer → Change in preferences, sentiment, demographics
  • Technology → New technology replacing the product
  • Regulations → Government policies or restrictions
  • Seasonality → Festivals, weather, seasonal demand
  • Complementary products → Changes in products/services related to ours

2. Internal Factors

  • Product → Quality issues, features changed, product discontinued
  • Pricing → Price increase, discounts removed
  • Marketing → Lower ad spend, poor campaign performance
  • Sales → Fewer leads, lower conversion, sales-team performance
  • Technology → Website/app issues, payment failures
  • Operations → Supply-chain problems, inventory shortage, delivery delays
  • Policy → Changes in return/refund policies or customer experience
From there, I can keep drilling down.Sales ↓ 5% → Customers ↓ → Leads ↓ → Marketing reach ↓ → Ad campaign performance ↓This gives me a structured path from the problem → possible causes → root cause → solution, rather than jumping to conclusions.
 
The flowchart image credits goes to the youtube channel : "Alok the Analyst"
 

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