What is a business intelligence analyst? A role for driving business value with data

Business intelligence (BI) analysts transform data into insights that drive business value. Through use of data analytics, data visualization and data modeling techniques and technologies, BI analysts can identify trends that can help other departments, managers and executives make business decisions to modernize and improve processes in the organization.

The BI analyst role is becoming increasingly important as organizations move to capitalize on the volumes of data they collect. BI analysts typically discover areas of revenue loss and identify where improvements can be made to save the company money or increase profits. This is done by mining complex data using BI software and tools, comparing data to competitors and industry trends and creating visualizations that communicate findings to others in the organization.

Business intelligence analyst job requirements

BI analysts typically handle analysis and data modeling design using data collected in a centralized data warehouse or multiple databases throughout the organization. It’s a role that combines hard skills like programming, data modeling and statistics with soft skills like communication, analytical thinking and problem-solving. Candidates need a well-rounded background to balance the line between IT and the business.

You’ll need at least a bachelor’s degree in computer science, business, mathematics, economics, statistics, management, accounting or in a related field. If you have a degree in an unrelated field but have completed courses in these subjects, that can suffice for an entry-level role in some organizations. Other senior positions may require an MBA, but there are plenty of BI jobs that look only for an undergraduate degree.

Business intelligence analyst job description

Job descriptions will vary by company, but these are some of general responsibilities you can prepare yourself for, according to a sample BI analyst job description from Indeed:

Review and validate customer data as it’s collected
Oversee the deployment of data to the data warehouse
Develop policies and procedures for the collection and analysis of data
Create or discover new data procurement and processing programs
Cooperate with IT department to deploy software and hardware upgrades that make it possible to leverage big data use cases
Monitor analytics and metrics results
Implement new data analysis methodologies
Review customer files to ensure integrity of data collection and utilization
Perform data profiling to identify and understand anomalies

Business intelligence analyst skills

To become a successful BI analyst, you’ll need a mix of technical, soft and analytical skills. The job requires you to mine data using complex tools and software and then analyze that data to find trends. Once you spot data trends, you’ll need to effectively communicate your findings to others in the organization. You’ll also be responsible for suggesting possible solutions to fix issues that you find — especially if they’re tied to revenue loss.