Many companies have extensively benefited from the power of business intelligence and much more are planning to do the same, despite ever-increasing business intelligence analyst salary, which is becoming road stone for SMBs, especially the startups. According to Gartner research, the market value of business intelligence will reach $18.3 billion mark in 2017 and will cross $22.8 billion mark by 2020.
What is Business Intelligence?
In short, the business intelligence (BI) is a complete set of activities to find actionable information from a certain heap of raw data. The definition of modern time BI covers many processes and methodologies supported by cutting-edge technologies to skim valuable trends and information, which can be used for the better creation and implementation of business policies/strategies.
In the BI process, numerous business intelligence software and business intelligence tools are used to process and analyze the raw data to find out the desired intelligence that can improve the efficiency of the business. There are many cloud-based as well as on-premises software platforms and tools available on the market that are extensively used for gathering the valuable information from the raw data.
If we look at the IDC information, we can easily assess the popularity of business intelligence tools and software market. According to IDC predictions, business analytics and big data revenue will cross $187 billion by 2019. The main reasons for the popularity of business intelligence include an increase in sales, improvement in policy direction, quick ROI and increase in business efficiency.
Importance of BI Specialist in Modern Businesses
A consistent uptrend of BI market value is a clear indication of its importance in the modern business ecosystems. During the past few years, a huge increase in the business analyst salary is another parameter of increasing demand of BI for the marketplace. Business intelligence specialist is able to help your business to achieve the following objectives.
- Deeper insight into the behavior of your targeted customer segment
- Devising better sales, marketing, and eCommerce policies
- Improving online as well as the offline efficiency of your business
- Increasing ROI and customer satisfaction
- Increase business productivity and product value
- Getting information about competitors and their strategies
- Creating powerful competitive edge in the marketplace
All these desirable goals can be achieved with the help of a great business intelligence analyst or data scientist. One downside of hiring a dedicated business analyst is its salary, which is on the higher side and increasing consistently too. So, it is very imperative to hire a business intelligence analyst that possesses higher qualification and skill sets but costs comparatively low.
Qualification and Skills of a Great BI Specialist
Business intelligence specialist should have deep knowledge of business, accounting, sales, marketing and software, which is normally accomplished through business degrees. For an entry-level business analyst job, bachelor degree in business will suffice, but for senior business analysts, the master’s degree is desirable. As we know, the data analyst salary is increasing exponentially in the marketplace with the increasing demand for high-level skill sets, qualifications and experience of a data scientist.
The main qualifications and skills of a BI specialist can be summarized as below:
- Minimum bachelor’s degree in business (BBA) – master’s degree in business (MBA) is required for the senior positions
- Industry certifications in database management are desirable
- Should have strong hands-on experience with different BI software tools and platforms
- Extensive knowledge of data mining and the associated tools like SQL programming and others
- Should have sufficient business acumen to understand the trends and customer behavior patterns
- Should be able to analyze the final data
- Should be able to find a correlation between past and present trends
- Should have strong interpersonal communication skills
- Should be a creative thinker with problem-solving approach
- Time is very crucial in business, so should have strong time management skills
- Should be a fast learner and deep researcher
- Extensive knowledge of the industry
What Should BI Specialist Resume Look Like?
The business analyst resume is one of the most important tools for the job seeker to land him/her a good job in this competitive marketplace. Creating a good resume is a professional job in itself that requires certain skill sets and experience. So, a good resume should look great and include all skills, keywords, qualifications, certifications and experience at the appropriate position in the resume.
According to resume experts, the major components of a good business analyst resume are given below.
- Cover Letter: Nowadays, the cover letter is considered as the part of a good resume. So, an impressive and to the point cover letter should be added as the first page of the resume.
- Professional Summary: This part should include a summary of the tasks/activities that you performed in the past and are closely related to the job you are applying for. This part should also include very powerful and attractive words that show your confidence and commitment.
- Core Competencies: This part should include major industry certifications in descending order. The higher degree certifications should be kept on the top, followed by the latest industry certifications directly related to the job.
- Experience: This is a very critical part of the resume in which a detailed description in bullet points should be provided for every job that you worked on. It should include all tasks, activities, and results that were associated with those activities. A good number of keywords related to competence should be used in this part too.
- Education: This part should include your academic education in descending order. The higher degree should be at the top, followed by the latest relevant degrees.
BI Software and Tools
According to the 451 Research report, the total market value of all software tools dealing with all segments of big data management will cross $132 billion mark by 2020. This includes different software platforms and tools used for the unified management big data.
Hundreds of BI tools are available in the marketplace and many others are being introduced regularly. The present software tool industry is mostly dominated by big companies like Microsoft, IBM, Hadoop, Oracle, SQL, Sisense and others. There are many business intelligence specialized tools for a particular industry or business.
Hiring a Good BI Specialist
Hiring an expert BI specialist is very critical for all types of businesses in the modern business environment powered by the eCommerce and electronic products. Thousands of new business organizations are emerging on the horizon of global business that makes the business information oriented. In such a cutthroat competitive environment, getting the services of a BI specialist is indispensable.
About the Author
Myron Monets is a Marketing Assistant at Mobilunity. He is passionate about IT and modern technologies. As the company provides dedicated development teams, he is able to gain experience right from the developers and stay up-to-date with the trends.
