Quantile

A quantile is a statistical term that is like a checkpoint in a race that splits the runners into groups based on how far they’ve run. In business intelligence and data analytics, quantiles divide a set of numbers into equal-sized, contiguous subsets. This helps to understand how the data is spread out. For instance, if you have a list of test scores, you can use quantiles to find out what the top 25% of scores are, which could be considered the first quantile or the lower quartile.

The most commonly known quantiles are the quartiles (which divide the data into four parts), deciles (which divide it into ten parts), and percentiles (dividing into a hundred parts). If you were looking at a company’s sales data, you could use percentiles to see how much the top 10% of salespeople are selling compared to the rest.

Using quantiles, businesses can figure out where certain values, like sales numbers or customer satisfaction scores, stand in comparison to the whole dataset. This can help when making decisions, like setting targets or thresholds, identifying outliers, or segmenting customers. It’s a way to break down and interpret data that gives a clearer picture of the overall distribution and performance.