Level 3 · Recommend: keep, roll back or extend?

From numbers to a recommendation

The analysis is done; now it has to be useful to someone who will not read your query. A recommendation that holds up in a meeting has three parts, sometimes taught as what, how much, so what:

• What is the main finding? There is no sign the price rise cost volume.
• How much supports it? The numbers from the analysis, the ones Thomas can repeat: units of the raised products up 21.0% on last spring against 9.2% for products left alone; revenue up 44.3% against 13.4%.
• So what does it mean for the decision? Keep the new prices.

Without the numbers it is a description. Without the decision it helps nobody.

Caveats belong in the paragraph

Thomas asked how sure you are. A careful analyst says it in the same paragraph, in plain words:

• Association, not proof. Merchandising chose which products to raise, so the raised products may differ from the others: more popular, better reviewed, featured more often. Only a test in which products keep or lose the old price at random can show cause.
• The window is short. Six months, no holiday season. Check again in January.
• What would make the next answer better. If the rise is extended, keep a few similar products at the old price as a hold-out group. The next analysis then compares like with like by design rather than after the fact.

Caveats are not hedging. They tell the reader what the result can carry, so nobody stretches it into “price doesn’t matter”.

The traps in the other options

• The wrong comparison. Six months before against six months after puts November and December on one side. Seasonality, not price, explains the 26% “drop”.
• Generalising too far. Twenty-nine products in one spring cannot tell you how the whole catalogue responds to price.
• Reading cause into a correlation. The 44.3% revenue growth includes the 6% price itself and a shift towards dearer items in the group. It does not show that higher prices make things sell.

The report structure behind this paragraph

In a written report this paragraph is the executive summary: five or six lines at the top that say what was analysed, with which data, what was found and what is recommended. Below it come the objective (the SMART question from the first level), the data and its limits, the method, the findings with their chart, the conclusions, the recommendations and the next steps. Most readers stop after the summary, which is why it carries the numbers and the caveats.