What does a Business Analyst do?
Business Analysts typically work for corporations across a variety of industries, providing an external perspective on company operations and necessary steps to maintain a successful business. They use their professional experience within their particular industries to identify business needs and help companies evolve as times and trends change.
Business Analysts coordinate with executives, department heads and IT personnel to streamline business processes and increase employee productivity. They may also assume leadership roles to oversee the implementation of their business ideas and ensure their success.
Business Analyst skills and qualifications
Successful Business Analysts candidate have various prerequisite skills and qualifications necessary for fulfilling the job duties. If you want to hire one of these professionals for your business, look for certain relevant attributes on resumes and application materials. These skills and qualifications include:
- Great analytical, critical thinking and problem-solving abilities
- Superior presentation and negotiation skills
- Strong management and organizational skills
- Adaptable and capable of working in fast-paced environments
- Two or more years of experience in a Business Analyst role
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in business analysis, business administration, finance or related field
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Business Analyst salary expectations
A Business Analyst earns an average salary of $84,140 per year and has a work tenure of one to three years. Indeed has based salary estimates on 11.7K salaries as of June 23, 2023. This data was gathered from current and past Indeed job advertisements as well as from anonymous input from site users and people working as Business Analysts.
Business Analyst salary expectations
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Common salary:
48.80 HOURLY -
Typical salaries range from
15.70 -99.95 HOURLY - Find more information on Indeed Salaries
*Indeed data –
Business Analyst education and training requirements
A bachelor’s degree is the minimum requirement for entry-level Business Analyst jobs, but advanced positions may require a master’s degree or higher. The graduates or post-graduates may have educational backgrounds ranging from business, computer science and engineering and science to business management, finance, economics, accounting, marketing and statistics.
Additionally, many stay current with industry requirements by pursuing continuing education certifications in business analysis obtained from reputable, accredited educational institutions. Since such voluntary certification demonstrates a dedication to the profession plus determination to keep up with industry developments, these candidates are typically more attractive to hiring managers.
Business Analyst experience requirements
In entry-level positions, Business Analysts typically work under senior analysts or as part of a team. After three to five years of experience in the role, they may branch out to work in independent positions. In this capacity, these professionals may interact with senior management and high-profile collaborators, so they need excellent communication skills.
Further, along with demonstrated analytical and conceptual thinking skills, Business Analysts should have an in-depth understanding of organizational data flow and its use in management decision-making. For their data analysis work, they must also have technical experience with programming languages like Python, Apache Spark, NoSQL/Hadoop and SQL, plus familiarity with data visualization, machine learning and artificial intelligence tools.
Business Analyst Job Description Template
We’re looking for a Business Analyst to serve as a vital link between our information technology capacity and business objectives. The successful candidate should support and ensure the successful completion of analytical, building, testing and deployment tasks of our software product’s features.
Responsibilities
- Define configuration specifications and business analysis requirements
- Perform quality assurance
- Define reporting and alerting requirements
- Own and develop relationships with partners, collaborating to optimize and enhance our integration
- Help design, document and maintain system processes
- Report on common sources of technical issues or questions and make recommendations to the product team
- Communicate key insights and findings to the product team
- Stay vigilant for ways to improve monitoring, discover issues and deliver better value to the customer
Requirements
- Previous experience in Business / Systems Analysis or Quality Assurance
- A degree or certificate in IT / Computer Science
- Proven experience in eliciting requirements and testing
- Experience in analyzing data to draw business-relevant conclusions and in data visualization techniques and tools
- Solid experience in writing SQL queries
- Basic knowledge in generating process documentation
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including technical writing skills
Job description samples for similar positions
If a Business Analyst job description template isn’t quite what you are looking for, here are some other available job description samples:
Frequently asked questions about Business Analysts
These are some commonly asked questions employers ask about Business Analysts.
What’s the difference between Business Analysts and System Analysts?
The difference between Business Analysts and System Analysts is that Business Analysts have a broader scope of job responsibilities and areas of focus. For example, Business Analysts review several elements, including hiring procedures, training needs, communication channels, customer relations and the use of technology like IT systems. By contrast, System Analysts focus specifically on how businesses use IT systems and how to improve IT systems to best benefit company operations. System Analysts may also have backgrounds in IT that help them instruct IT departments and participate in software creation.
What are the daily duties of Business Analysts?
On an average day, Business Analysts start by reviewing their schedules. They look at company data and write reports to justify their proposed business ventures. Throughout the day, they meet with company executives to review findings and make suggestions. They may also travel to branch locations to see how employees adapt to operational changes. Once back in their offices, they record new data detailing the progress of business strategies like training programs and better communication channels.
What qualities make a good Business Analyst?
A good Business Analyst uses their knowledge of business development to provide company executives with expert advice about the direction of the company. They have superb analytical skills that let them review financial statements and customer demographics, among other data. Good Business Analysts also exhibit excellent written and verbal communication to better write reports or give presentations. These professionals have innovative mindsets that help them come up with creative solutions to budget limitations, communication barriers and training needs.
*Indeed provides this information as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your recruiting or legal advisor, we are not responsible for the content of your job descriptions, and none of the information provided herein guarantees performance.
