Though analytics permeates our culture, most people are clueless as to what a business analyst actually does.
The IT analyst firm Gartner defines business analytics as the use of a set of software applications to build statistical models that help leaders look at data on past business performance, understand the current situation, and predict future scenarios.
The field of business analytics covers an expansive list of skills:
- develop strategy
- data collection
- data mining
- SQL
- data analysis & reporting
- data visualization
- data storytelling
No one person can do it all. This is great news for anyone interested in this career field! With such a wealth of options, business analysts can focus as a generalist or on one or two core skills. Both jack-of-all-trades and specialists succeed as analysts.
Here are just a few job titles you might find as a business analyst:
- Business Analyst
- Systems Analyst
- Systems Architect
- Process Analyst
- IT Business Analyst
- Process Architect
- Insights Analyst
- Data Analyst
Are you interested in a career in business analytics? There’s definitely a role for you.
The University of Arizona Continuing and Professional Education Business Analytics Certificate course, in collaboration with Ziplines Education, prepares you for the industry in only 10 weeks. You’ll gain skills in SQL, Tableau, data visualizations, and more!
