The work of business analysts is strategy-oriented; they help organizations improve their efficiency and customer reach. Business analysts also help speed up the decision-making process of organizations.
This blog gives an overview of how and where to learn Business Analytics:
What is Business Analytics?
Business analytics refers to a set of guided principles and techniques followed to solve complex business problems by using data analysis, statistical tools, and techniques. It deals with the science of analyzing data to find helpful patterns from it and in developing business strategies accordingly. Business analytics finds its usage in almost every industry, be it social media, finance, marketing, e-commerce, human resources, or sales. The following fact emphasizes how important business analytics is in enterprise development.
According to Interactive Data Corporation (IDC), the estimated data generation by 2025 will be around 163 zettabytes. Every organization, be it government-authorized or from the private sector, will be able to find meaningful insights by solely using business analytics. They can further use this data to enhance business efficiency and develop innovative solutions for business issues.
This video tutorial will help you get a brief idea about the fundamentals of business analytics:
Why Learn Business Analytics?
More and more companies are starting to reap the advantages of business analytics and are exploring further the benefits and techniques involved. Due to this, they are always on the lookout for the right talent in business analytics. Tech start-ups as well as major IT giants are hiring and demanding skilled business analytics professionals. This makes business analytics a very important skill to possess. Moreover, data-driven business decision-making is in, and it is here to stay. Another reason behind learning business analytics is that the domain offers exposure to various roles such as data analysis, leadership, research, etc.
What Do You Learn in Business Analytics?
Business analytics is a vast subject. It is primarily a combination of business intelligence, data analytics, and computer programming.
In the business analytics process, there are a few crucial stages that one should go through one after the other. To be a successful business analyst, one needs to be thorough in each of these steps.
Framing the Business Problem
It is the initial step that analysts must perform before starting with the actual analytics. The whole point of this step is to understand the purpose of conducting the analysis and identifying the business goals. This way, analysts can formulate a business problem.
Framing the Analytics Problem
During this stage, the business problem is reformulated based on analytics. Business analysts then develop a set of factors to move the process from here to data cleansing and methodology selection. They later define the metrics to achieve success at this stage.
Data
Business analysts have to identify and select appropriate data for analysis. They need to work with clean data and make it analysis-ready. At this stage, one can find relationships in data.
Model Building
Once the data is ready, now is the time to check which method is useful for the analysis. This is concluded based on the type of data performance. Before deciding upon metrics, multiple models are made and compared to finalize on the best possible one.
Deployment
The designed model is validated here to check if it is giving accurate predictions or not. Once validated, the model is deployed within the company systems. After the deployment of the model, it has to be constantly monitored to check for accuracy. Moreover, business analysts should perform analysis of all incoming data.
Various Domains of Analytics
The domains are relatively new to analytics; they provide different possible solutions to a specific problem in business analysis.
Descriptive Analytics
This part of business analytics makes use of business data to understand various scenarios and analyze them to find an answer to a question. Descriptive analytics conducts a summarization of raw data so that solutions to a variety of business problems can be easily found.
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Predictive Analytics
This branch of business analytics makes use of statistical and forecasting approaches to foretell future behaviors. In short, predictive analytics predicts possible forthcoming issues, based on existing data, and provides measures to overcome the same. Predictive analytics makes use of data to assess business performance and identifies business shortcomings, thereby providing a remedy or strategy to prevent such events from happening again.
Prescriptive Analytics
This branch of business analytics considers simulation algorithms to come up with an answer to the question at hand. Perspective analytics works on the given data and finds the best course of action for the situation. Predictive analytics is related to both above-mentioned methods. However, it emphasizes more on actionable insights than focusing on monitoring data. Perspective analytics, thereby, enhances business productivity and performance and boosts annual returns.
Expected Salary of a Business Analyst
As per Indeed, freshers appointed in entry-level business analytics positions make around USD79,000 p.a. in the United States, while they get an average of INR250,000 to INR500,000 p.a. in India. With five to six years of experience, the salary can go up to INR1,600,000 p.a. in India and USD120,000 p.a. in the US.
As professionals in this field develop their abilities, their salary also sees a steady rise. According to a recent study conducted by Glassdoor, in the US, the Business Analyst job role is ranked at the number one position, offering an average base pay of USD110,000 p.a. at the managerial level. While, in India, the average salary of a senior business analyst is expected to range from INR800,000 p.a. to INR900,000 p.a.
Now, let us discuss some of the tools used in business analytics:
- QlikView: Popularly known as a reporting and business intelligence tool, QlikView helps in the conversion of raw data into useful information base for prompt decision-making. It is one of the highly used tools for data modeling, dashboards, visualizations, and analytical applications.
- Splunk: Splunk is an application and security management tool aimed at supporting business and web analytics. It is used widely to make it easier to generate reports, alerts, etc.
- SAS: SAS is prominently used as a statistical data analysis tool. It is used for running SQL queries, powerful visualizations, and interactive dashboards. SAS programs retrieve, manipulate, and analyze data.
How to Learn Business Analytics?
Learning business analytics involves a certain amount of hard work and referencing adequate course material. In this section, we have compiled a few ways to learn business analytics and excel in your career.
Pursue an MBA
Getting an MBA is one of the easiest ways to inculcate business management and problem-solving skills. Moreover, certain universities are incorporating data science concepts within the curriculum of MBA, owing to the increasing industry demand for analytical and technical skills. This knowledge, acquired from college programs, will enhance the capability of the candidates entering the field.
Enroll in an Online Training Course
If pursuing an MBA is not your cup of tea, then it is best to enroll in an online course to master’s business analytics. Even if you are a working professional, you can easily enroll in online courses and learn the concepts of business analytics.
An online learning experience also comes with the following benefits:
- Learning at your own pace
- Opportunity to connect with peers globally
- Deep understanding of the course content by revisiting the modules and lessons
Gain Hands-on Expertise
Real learning comes through practice, so it is essential to implement learned concepts. Begin with creating data visualizations and applying statistical models to come up with cost-effective business decisions. Additionally, it is advisable to identify the best contacts in the field and ask for their guidance.
Expansion of the skill set has no boundaries, so it is up to you how you want to use the potential possibilities to make way for an exciting career ahead.
Conclusion
Business analytics is everywhere. According to McKinsey, one of the main reasons for the high performance of organizations is the constant practice of business analytics for decision-making. This kind of business environment helps organizations reach their data objectives in a timely manner. Having known the importance of business analytics, it is high time to learn it and gain fundamental skill sets to conduct analysis and drive your organization to success.
Happy learning!