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

Data analysts seek to describe the current state of reality for their organizations by translating data into information accessible to the business. They collect, analyze, and report on data to meet business needs. The role includes identifying new sources of data and methods to improve data collection, analysis, and reporting. Data scientists, on the other hand, are often engaged in long-term research and prediction, while data analysts seek to support business leaders in making tactical decisions through reporting and ad hoc queries.

The difference between data analysts and data scientists comes down to timescale. A data analyst might help an organization better understand how its customers use its product in the present moment — what works and doesn’t work for them, whereas a data scientist might use the insights generated from that work to help design a new product that anticipates future customer needs.

Data analyst role

Data analysts mostly work with an organization’s structured data. They create reports, dashboards, and other visualizations on data associated with customers, business processes, market economics, and more to provide insights to senior management and business leaders in support of decision-making efforts. They also work with all manner of data, including inventories, logistics and transportation costs, market research, profit margins, sales figures, and so on to help the business estimate market share, price products, time sales, optimize transportation costs, and the like.