What is a business intelligence analyst? A key role for data-driven decisions

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.

What does a business intelligence analyst do?

The role is becoming increasingly important as organizations move to capitalize on the volumes of data they collect through business intelligence strategies. 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 such as programming, data modeling, and statistics with soft skills such as communication, analytical thinking, and problem-solving. Candidates need a well-rounded background to balance the line between IT and the business, and usually a bachelor’s degree in computer science, business, mathematics, economics, statistics, management, accounting, or 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 require only an undergraduate degree.

Business intelligence analyst job description

A typical day for BI analysts includes collecting data from sources such as industry reports, public information, field reports, or purchased findings; analyzing data to identify trends; and sharing it with the proper stakeholders. Although job descriptions will vary by company, according to a sample BI analyst job description from Indeed, general responsibilities for the role include:

• Review and validate customer data as it is collected
• Oversee deployment of data to a data warehouse
• Develop policies and procedures for the collection and analysis of data
• Create or discover new data procurement and processing programs
• Work with IT to deploy tools for leveraging big data
• Implement new data analysis methodologies
• Review customer files to ensure data integrity
• Perform data profiling to identify anomalies

Business intelligence analyst skills

To succeed as a BI analyst, you’ll need a mix of analytical and soft skills, including the following:

You will also need a range of technical skills, which, depending on the company’s tech stack, could include several of the following technologies: