Exploring associations between variables

At first glance, you might wonder what the point of finding relationships between variables is. Being able to understand the behavior of a pair of variables and identify a pattern in their behavior helps business owners identify key factors to divert certain indicators of company health to their benefit. Knowing the pattern that binds the trend of two variables gives you the power to predict with some certainty one of them by knowing the other. So, knowing the tools to uncover these patterns gives you a kind of analytical superpower that is always appealing to business owners.

In general, two variables are associated with each other when the values of one of them are in some way related to the values of the other. When you can somehow measure the extent of the association of two variables, it is called correlation. The concept of correlation is immediately applicable in a case where the two variables are numerical. Let's see how.

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