Some professions demand a lot of focus, learning ability, willpower, anticipation, and other similar mental abilities. A business analyst is one of such professions which is demanding as well as taxing. This particular profession needs both technical as well as soft skills. This role does not demand pure technical skill but some inherent skills that people acquire through some sort of training and over years of experience.
A business analyst analyzes a business or organization and documents its various processes and operations accordingly. This is used to assess the business model and find how it integrates with technology. He guides a business to improve its operations and processes, services, products, and software through data analysis.
At the same time, a business analyst works as a bridge between a company’s business problems and technological solutions. Here the term ‘business problems’ indicates business systems that may include models, processes, and methods. Technological solutions make use of software applications, technological architecture, and tools.
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Skills a Business analyst needs
We can cater the skills required for a business analyst into two categories-
- Soft skills
- Technical skills
Soft skills
1. Verbal Communication
Communication is an essential skill that is a need in any high-functioning job profile. A business analyst analyzes data and communicates the results to the higher authority, including stakeholders. Hence, communication plays the biggest role here. He should be able to communicate with extreme clarity. Also, he should be able to ask insightful questions to acquire proper information from the stakeholders.
2. Good Listening Skills
Effective communication skills and proper listening skills are one of the keys to a good business analyst must be focused on. A good business analyst absorbs information by listening properly. Through this
The analyst can analyze the information thoroughly and can specify the requirements. Also, he should have the ability to understand the context of the topic. A business analyst must be competent enough to understand the message clearly by learning the speaker’s voice, tone, and body language.
3. Interpretation skill
Interpretation is an extension of communication skills. The requirements are to be understood both individually and holistically. Sometimes, the communicated information contains a lot of gaps. So, the business analyst needs to do the gap analysis and fill it up. He should not hesitate to ask any questions. Overall, understanding quickly is one of the top business analyst skills.
4. Being able to Run Meetings with Stakeholders
Email communication is an effective and professional way of communication with clients. However, at times, it is not the most effective way. Therefore, face-to-face discussions with clients can even help in solving issues pretty quickly. Hence, a business analyst must have the skill to organize and run meetings with stakeholders.
5. Knowing the Objectives Well
Understanding the objective of a project is one of the most crucial business analyst skills. Though sometimes management communicates the task properly sometimes they just provide an outline of the task. A business analyst must have the capability to transform the silhouette of ideas into a solid understanding.
6. Diligent with Time Management
Being diligent with time management is an essential skill of a business analyst. In fact, this is very crucial for all the skills required for business analysts. The work schedule of a business analyst is filled with tasks, and they have to be committed to each task. So, they should understand the priorities and schedule the day accordingly. Also, he should have multitasking capability to manage all the tasks single-handedly.
7. Documentation and report generation
Though you don’t need to be a technical writer but ability of documentation and report generation related to various types of analysis details are important in the role of a business analyst. This is an essential technical skill for a business analyst. It involves writing reports, documentation, plans, and various types of analysis details. And as a business analyst, you may have to write on a wide array of topics.
You need to articulate the key points in technical terms but with easy understandable English. In brief, this skill combines writing skills and the ability to understand the communication parameters that include your target readers and your targeted message. So, written communication is one of the important skills required for a business analyst.
Technical Skills for Business Analyst
8. Probability and Statistics
Business analysts need to play with numbers, so they must understand them thoroughly. On the other hand, statistics and probability help you understand the numbers, which eventually help in relevant hypotheses and make better predictions.Â
9.Data Retrieval
Business analysts must demonstrate possess data retrieval skills from databases. Otherwise, they won’t be able to apply their analytical skills. This is what Data Retrieval is for. Data Retrieval is the identification and extraction of required data from the database using a command line. For this purpose, knowing SQL is a must-have skill because this is the programming language specifically designed to work with large databases, especially relational databases. Â
There are many Database Management Systems Available in the market like Oracle, MongoDB, SQLite. But the most famous that a large number of renowned organizations and aspiring candidates use is MySQL. It is the highest-rated open-source DBMS that is famous for its maturity and reliability.
10. Statistical Tools
As statistics is an important part of data analysis, you need to know at least one statistical tool as a business analyst. This tool helps to import data and perform analysis. Some of the statistical software include- SPSS, SAS, Sage, Mathematica, etc. But the most dominant one in this range is Microsoft Excel.
It also performs a major lot of complex mathematical and statistical functions. All you have to do is write the formula and select the range of data for which you have to calculate the parameter.
11. Knowledge of Statistical Programming Languages
Knowing a statistical language is a recent demand in the industry. Python and R are two of the most used languages for this purpose. Nowadays, data is everything for business. Hence the volume of data generated today needs tools that can easily manage such volumes of data. Using these tools, one can perform regression and time series analysis and make relevant predictions on expected results. This helps to achieve set targets.
Languages like Python and R make data transformation very easy, and one can easily create new variables using existing ones or perform mathematical transformations based on a variable’s distribution.
Also, these languages are rich with libraries that help one make predictive models with ease.
12. Visualization
Data is visualization serves as the bridge between what business analysts do and what the client/stakeholder needs to know. With real-time visualization coming into the game, the entire spectrum of visualization has been elevated to another level.
Conclusion
To conclude, business analyst skills are a combination of hard skills and soft skills. It is a blend of emotional and people skill capabilities with technical skills. As a career of a business analyst, you can expect excellent compensation. In addition to that, you can expect extra benefits if you obtain a certification on the business analysts’ specialized streams. I hope the article will help you to gain some ideas on the business analyst role.