How to Become a Business Analyst in 2023? Skills and Salary | Simplilearn

The role of a business analyst is gaining paramount importance in current times. They are one of the most highly paid professionals today. However, to become a business analyst, there are a few skills you would require. In this article on how to become a business analyst, we’ll take you through a business analyst’s role and how you can successfully become one.

Land a High-Paid Business Analyst Job

Business Analytics For Strategic Decision Making

Explore Course

Who Is a Business Analyst?

In today’s data-driven environment, organizations use data to unearth business patterns and to derive meaningful insights. With the available data, companies try to improve processes and make critical decisions.

A business analyst enables change in an organization by understanding and analyzing business problems and delivering solutions that will maximize its value to its stakeholders. 

Business analysts bridge the gap between IT and business teams using analytics to evaluate processes, determine requirements, deliver data-driven solutions, and generate reports to executives and stakeholders.

They work closely with the technology team to enhance the quality of the services being delivered. They also help in assisting in the integration and testing of new solutions. 

Now that you know who a business analyst is, check out how to jump start your career as a business analyst with our Business Analytics Program with IIT Roorkee.

Responsibilities of a Business Analyst

The job of a business analyst comes with several roles and responsibilities. Hence, before you understand how to become a business analyst, it is of utmost importance to clearly understand the duties carried out by a business analyst. Given below are some of the primary responsibilities of a business analyst:

1. A business analyst identifies an organization’s business objectives and problems and comes up with lucrative solutions.
2. They comprehend and collect business requirements from clients and stakeholders. 
3. Business analysts interact with the development team in order to design a solution for solving a particular problem. 
4. They proactively provide feedback on a software application’s layout and implement the newly designed features that a business needs.
5. Business Analysts gauge the functional and non-functional requirements in a business.
6. They conduct regular meetings with stakeholders and clients to discuss business issues and solutions. 
7. Business analysts are responsible for validating the status of a project with the help of user acceptance testing. They ensure if the business solutions are in line with the clients’ requirements. 
8. A business analyst documents and builds data visualizations to convey all the project findings.

Now that you know the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst, let us take you to the next section of this article on how to become a business analyst.

How to Become a Business Analyst?

Let’s find out how to become a business analyst with the help of the following few steps:

• Decide Your Goal

Getting the fundamentals right is the most crucial requirement for success in other fields, as well as business analytics. You might start by learning more about the fundamental concepts of business analytics. First, you should clearly know what a business analyst does. You can select whether or not you want to learn business analytics by consulting blogs and online training.

• Pursue a Degree in a Similar Field

Typically, obtaining a bachelor’s degree is the initial requirement to work as an entry-level business analyst. You might need to finish an advanced degree to pursue a career in business analytics at the management level or even higher. To stand out in a competitive field, consider adding a master’s program to your business analyst qualifications, which is essential for business analytics or business administration.

Learn Product Management with SPJSGM

Free Webinar | 7 March, Tuesday | 9 PM IST

REGISTER NOW

• Develop Your Business Analysis Skills

You must develop your skills if you want to succeed as a business analyst. The following list includes the top five business analyst skills:

• Business Analytics: Business analysts should be able to do fundamental statistical and probability analyses.
• Problem Solving: Business analysts must foresee outcomes and possess the specialized abilities that enable organizations to overcome obstacles.
• Communication Skills: To work with all teams, clients, and stakeholders, they must possess strong communication skills. It is knowing what the client wants—describing management changes—IT-based problem-solving. A business analyst’s daily activities revolve heavily around communication; therefore, developing your verbal and written abilities as you begin your career is crucial.
• Stakeholder Analysis: Stakeholder analysis helps clarify a project’s development by identifying and removing several barriers.
• Technical Skills: Business analysts need to keep up with their technical capabilities since market analysts act as a bridge between experts and businesspeople.

• Acquire Online Business Analyst Certificate

To demonstrate your key competencies and learn about the newest software and technologies, you can receive certificates that are crucial to your business analyst qualifications. Certifications might be extremely helpful if you wish to grow in your career. Employers might not demand unusual credentials, but possessing one in your chosen specialty will make you stand out. Enroll in a course that will enable you to acquire the necessary technical abilities, familiarity with the various business analysis tools, and certification.

• Gain Practical Real-Time Experience

Build your practical skills by working on some real-world projects based on business analytics once you are thoroughly familiar with the principles, techniques, and skills needed for business analytics. By knowing more about the tools and technology available and how businesses utilize them, you’ll be better able to understand how to be a business analyst. So that you may perform better in future positions of greater responsibility, you will also study how businesses function and what a business analyst’s roles and responsibilities are.

Consequently, if you’re unsure how to develop into a junior business analyst, don’t worry; just sharpen your technical and interpersonal abilities, apply for a job as a junior business analyst, and perform well under supervision.

• Apply for Job 

Build a good portfolio by including all your practical projects, assignments, etc., that you have worked on. The portfolio must also contain any work you completed for your internship or online credentials.

You will be qualified to apply for a business analyst position if you have all the necessary training and experience. Don’t forget to update your resume before applying to a company. Use your resume to grab the interviewer’s attention because the initial impression is the most crucial.

Check out the business analyst job vacancies at various firms after remembering to put in your CV all your abilities acquired from online courses and the projects you worked on at prior positions. Try to get a job. Make some preliminary study on the business and its demands, then make the appropriate preparations. You’ll undoubtedly land a job.

Skills Required to Become Business Analyst 

To successfully carry out the duties mentioned, you must have a rich technical and non-technical skill set. Listed below are the top skills you require to become a business analyst.

1. Degree and Domain Knowledge

You should hold a degree in the relevant field. It is also useful if you carry sound domain knowledge along with relevant experience.

2. Analytical Skills

Business analysts must possess analytical skills, along with logical and critical thinking. This helps in interpreting business needs and choosing the best solution for a challenging business problem.

3. Microsoft Excel

Excel helps create several graphs and helps generate dynamic reports related to a business problem. 

The Only Course You Need to Succeed

Purdue PCP in Business Analysis

Explore Course

4. Negotiation Skills

A business analyst must have excellent negotiation skills. As a business analyst, you must achieve a profitable result for your company while keeping the client happy. 

5. SQL

Knowledge of SQL and relational databases is required for a business analyst. This helps in accessing, retrieving, manipulating, and analyzing data. Working knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL database, Oracle DB, and SQLite is crucial.

6. Programming

Knowledge of programming languages, such as R and Python, is a prerequisite. Programming knowledge helps in solving complex problems and performing faster data analysis. 

7. Data Visualization

Business analysts must know to work on various data visualization tools like Tableau, QlikView, and PowerBI. This will help them create reports and dashboards, forecast data, and make vital business decisions.

8. Communication Skills

A business analyst should have good presentation and communication skills to interact with clients and stakeholders. To carry out documentation, they must also have superb writing skills. 

Those were the skills required to become a business analyst. Now, let us walk you through a roadmap that depicts what steps a fresher needs to take to become a business analyst.

• First, have a graduation degree in a related field. 
• Second, learn SQL and other relational databases. 
• Third, have good hands-on experience with programming languages.
• Finally, be good at both written and verbal communication and practice to become good at presentations.

Moving on, we can take note of the roadmap mentioned below by experienced professionals to become a business analyst.

• As mentioned earlier, a graduation degree is mandatory.
• Knowledge and experience in writing SQL queries. 
• Expert knowledge of programming languages. 
• They need to have good communication and negotiation skills.
• Good at creating interactive reports using various business intelligence tools. 
• Having a certification offered by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) such as Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) would be highly beneficial.

Now, let us go to the salary structure of a business analyst across different countries.

Free Course: Business Analysis Basics

Master the Fundamentals of Business Analysis

Enroll Now

Business Analyst Job Description

• Constructing a thorough business study and drafting a company’s issues, prospects, and solutions
• Identifying and reporting to stakeholders the business requirements
• Forecasting and budgeting
• Monitoring and planning
• Analysis of variance
• Pricing
• Reporting

Salary Structure of a Business Analyst

According to Glassdoor, a business analyst in the United States earns an average annual salary of 68 thousand and 346 dollars. 

Fig: Business Analyst Salary in the U.S.

Meanwhile, in India, a business analyst earns an average annual salary of 7 lac rupees.

Fig: Business Analyst Salary in India

A business analyst in the United Kingdom earns an average annual salary of £40,000.

      Fig: Business Analyst Salary in the U.K.

In Australia, business analysts earn an average annual salary of 90 thousand Australian dollars.

Fig: Business Analyst Salary in Australia

Now that you understand the salary range of a business analyst across various countries, let us look at the companies hiring business analysts worldwide.

The popular companies hiring for a business analyst position are CISCO, Capital One, American Express, WhatsApp, Google, Ernst & Young Global Limited, Amazon, and Dell, to name a few.

Are You Ready to Become a Business Analyst?

Now that you know who a business analyst is, the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst, the steps on how to become a business analyst, you’re all set to start your business analytics career. 

For all business aspirants out there, the “Business Analyst” Master’s Program provided by Simplilearn is a brilliant choice. This certification will help you become a business analyst. To know more about this master’s program, click on this link: Business Analyst Simplilearn.

Do you have any questions for us concerning ‘How to Become a Business Analyst’? Mention them in the comment section below; our experts will get back to you as soon as possible!