It is evident now that businesses are generating an impressive amount of data. But according to the reports, up to 40% of businesses create useless data every day and wasting their resources on data storage. Gwen Britton, associate vice president of Southern New Hampshire University, said that “There’s a lot of data being generated in many different organizations, and they’re struggling with how to govern that data.” There are many job opportunities, as businesses hire data scientists and business analyst to extract meaningful information from data. Having a business analytics certification will increase your chances of getting selected.
But do you even know what an analyst does? Are they any different from data analysts? We will find out in this article. But first, let us see what a business analyst is expected to do after being hired by a company.
Job responsibilities
There are no pre-defined job roles for a business analyst, as every organization has different business requirements. However, business analysts have some primary job responsibilities that are broken down into the following parts.
- Evaluation: This includes taking initiatives that would help improve the business. These decisions should be taken carefully so that the efficiency and profitability of a business can be enhanced.
- Project Management: Business analysts must work with key stakeholders, team members, managers to implement and oversee the project after proposing a solution.
- Business Analysis: They should be capable enough to analyze and review the extracted information from the data using programming languages like python or R. Advanced Microsoft Excel is also used heavily by a business analyst.
- Reporting: After identifying and analyzing the business problem, the next step is to document findings and provide deliverables.
- Problem Solving: This is also an important characteristic, as it involves understanding the business and then figuring out different techniques and strategies to solve it.
Career Path of Business Analyst
An analyst of business has a highly flexible career path. They have various job roles like project management, business operations, and information technology, just like data analysts who can choose between data scientist or management or consulting roles. However, having a business analyst certification is necessary to enjoy working in a big firm.
Business Analyst vs. Data Scientist
The job titles for both the analysts might seem the same because the main aim is to make informed and strategic business decisions. However, a data analyst’s prime focus is analyzing, extracting information from data, and identifying past trends. They have a sound knowledge of data processing and programming languages, unlike business analysts.
Business analysts are focused on solving the existing business problems through the processed data. They work under the business intelligence team, whose role is to provide past and current insights into business operations. They use the extracted insights of the data to identify certain problems and find solutions.
How To Build Your Analytics Skill Set
There are three ways through which you can learn core business skills.
Gathering the Pieces
Having a good command over programming languages like python or R is necessary to become a business analyst. Scripting is also important, as it helps in data visualization, data organization, and data manipulation. Gaining an analyst certification adds an extra point for you.
If you are not familiar with programming languages, you should start learning one scripting language at a time. Python is the easiest and most basic language to begin with, especially when you don’t know statistics. In the end, it varies from one person to the other; some may find learning R is easier, and to some, python will seem like a cakewalk.
Developing Storyboard
Advance mathematical terms like calculus or linear algebra are not necessary for a business analyst, but they should know applied statistics. It uses different statistical methods and tools like Python and R, which help to interpret and solve real-time data.
Some key core applied statistics are given below:
- Building statistical framework
- Making linear regression models
- Applying general distribution properties
- Building confidence interval models
You may face difficulty in learning statistics, but it is critical for telling stories with data.
Landing the Narrative
A business analyst must tell data stories to various stakeholders, so good and effective commutation is important. Emotional intelligence and active learning skills are an identity of a great analyst. Earning a business analyst certification will surely help you develop skills. According to research, almost 58% of a person’s job performance depends upon his emotional intelligence. It is a key leadership skill that includes self-awareness, conflict management, and empathy.
Active learning is the foremost skill that will help you in becoming a good and effective communicator.
Conclusion
Business Analyst are responsible for extracting meaningful information from the data, whereas, the main role of analysts is to make informed decisions that will help a business grow.
Apart from that. if you are interested to know about Learn Python for Data Science then visit our Business category.
