BI ANALYST: Definition, Skills, Salary, Tools & Difference

Are you seeking a job that combines your passion for data with your ability to positively impact and assist an organization? The job of a business intelligence (BI) analyst is to do just that. They do this by studying large amounts of data within a company to make suggestions for growth and improvement. This article discusses what you need to know about Bi analyst, their skills, tools, their salary range, and the Difference between a Bi analyst and a data analyst.

Bi Analyst

A business intelligence analyst conducts data analysis in order to prepare market intelligence and financial reports. In these studies, patterns, and trends in a certain market that could affect how a company acts and what its goals are are found.

A business intelligence expert is someone who knows how to use BI tools, technologies, and systems, as well as computer programming languages. BI analysts set business-critical goals and needs, define KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), implement DW (Data Warehouse) strategies, and find BI (Business Intelligence) by mining Big Data with advanced software and tools.

The main goal of a business intelligence analyst is to give decision-makers accurate, real-time, actionable insights that improve the efficiency and productivity of the workforce, boost the market position, improve the competitive edge, and improve the customer experience.

Skills for Bi Analyst

The bi-analyst needs a wide range of skills to be able to do these jobs. They need both hard and soft skills to use the technology they need for the job and to explain to clients and coworkers the complicated data they analyze. If you want to play this part, it’s important to learn the skills you’ll need. The following are the skills of a bi-analyst

#1. Data Analysis

A bi-analyst primarily evaluates vast amounts of data; hence, data analysis is a necessary ability in this field. They must be able to look at different sources of facts, see how they are related, and come to correct conclusions based on what they see.

#2. Data Tools

Business intelligence analysts use a range of tools to access, analyze, and display data. They might need to know Structured Query Language, or SQL, which is a tool that allows researchers to ask questions of databases and get the information they need. Business intelligence analysts might also use software like Tableau and Power BI to pull data from different sources and make visualizations like graphs.

#3. Programming

One of the skills important to the bi analyst is programming because it helps them make scripts or sets of directions, that can do things like find and change specific data automatically. This can help them keep track of their tasks and get things done faster. Business intelligence is often done with tools like SQL and Python, which is an advanced computer language.

#4. Domain Knowledge

Domain knowledge is what you know about the business you work in. Business analysts can better understand the data they look at, make more accurate interpretations, and come up with useful answers if they know about the subject area. For example, an analyst working in the insurance business should know what causes sales to go up and down so that they can make suggestions for improvement that can be put into action.

#5. Business Acumen

If you have business sense, you can understand and deal with business situations so that they turn out well. Because business intelligence analysts have to come up with solutions based on how they study the data, their business sense can help them come up with useful solutions and ways to measure progress.

#6. Communication

Business intelligence analysts’ main job is to turn data into knowledge that other people can understand. They must be able to convey data, explain how they interpret it and lay out possible company actions depending on the interpretation. In this process, you might have to explain complicated technical ideas to people who don’t know the language or systems involved.

#7. Problem-Solving

Business intelligence analysts analyze data to find problem areas and come up with answers for those problems. The job is to come up with ideas that can be put into action to improve operations and help people make better decisions.

Bi Analyst Salary

Business Intelligence Analysts in the US make a median salary of $87,809. A Business Intelligence Analyst in the US gets an extra $7,065 in cash on average. In the United States, the average salary for a Bi Analyst is $94,874

What are the Top 10 Highest Cities for Business Intelligence Analyst Jobs?

We’ve found 10 places where the average salary for a Bi analyst job is higher than the average salary for all jobs in the country. Berkeley, California, is at the top of the list, followed closely by Daly City, California, and San Mateo, California. San Mateo, California, is $23,444 (24.7%) above the national average, and Berkeley, California, is another $28,583 (30.1%) above the average of $94,924.

Since the average salaries in these 10 cities are better than the national average, it seems like a Business Intelligence Analyst could make a lot of money by moving to a different city.

Lastly, another thing to think about is that the average salary for these top ten places doesn’t change much from Berkeley, CA, to San Francisco, CA. This shows that there isn’t much room for wage growth. When weighing location and salary for a career in business analysis, consider the prospect of a lower cost of living.

We found at least five jobs similar to Business Intelligence Analyst jobs that pay more per year than the average Bi Analyst salary. A business intelligence solutions developer and a business intelligence director are all good examples of these jobs.

Importantly, all of these positions pay between $38,869 (40.9%) and $55,846 (58.8%) more per year than the typical salary of $94,924 for BI analysts. If you are qualified, getting hired for one of these connected Business Intelligence Analyst jobs could help you earn more salary than the average Bi Analyst job.

Bi Analyst Tools

Bi-analyst tools gather, process, and analyze a large amount of structured and unstructured data from systems that are internal as well as external. Documents, images, emails, movies, journals, books, social media posts, files, and more could all be sources of data. BI tools use searches to find this information and can show it in ways that are easy to understand, like reports, dashboards, charts, and graphs.

The tools can perform a variety of operations, including data mining, data visualization, performance management, analytics, reporting, text mining, and predictive analytics. So, employees can use this knowledge to make better choices based on forecasting, market trends, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Here are the Bi analyst tools:

#1. Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft’s Power BI is one of the most-used business intelligence (BI) analyst tools. This tool is software that you can download, so you can run analytics either in the cloud or on a reporting server. With this interactive tool, you can sync with sources like Facebook, Oracle, and more to make reports and screens in minutes. It has built-in AI, an Excel interface, and data connectors, and it can encrypt data from end to end and keep track of who is using it in real time.

#2. Tableau

Tableau is known for its easy-to-use charts, but it can do more than just make pretty pictures. Their service includes live visual analytics, an interface that enables users to quickly spot trends in data by dragging and dropping buttons. The tool works with data sources like Google Analytics, Microsoft Excel, Box, PDF files, and more. It can connect to most systems, which shows how flexible it is.

#3. QlikSense

QlikSense is also one of the business intelligence (BI) analyst tools that focus on self-service. This means that it can be used for a wide variety of analytics use cases, from guided apps and dashboards to custom and integrated analytics. It has an easy-to-use interface that works well with touchscreens, advanced artificial intelligence, and high-performance cloud systems. Its Search & Conversational Analytics associative exploration feature lets users ask questions and find useful insights, which helps people who are new to using BI tools learn more about data.

#4. Dundas BI

Dundas BI is a BI tool that has been around for 25 years and works in a browser. Like Tableau, Dundas BI has a drag-and-drop tool that allows users to analyze data without help from their IT team. The tool is known for being easy to use and flexible, with dashboards, reports, and visual data that are all interactive. Since its start as a data display tool in 1992, it has grown into a full-stack analytics platform that can compete with new BI tools.

#5. Sisense

Sisense is a BI tool that is easy to use and focuses on being simple and straightforward. You can share data from Google Analytics, Salesforce, and other places using this tool. It can handle data faster than other tools because it has technology built right into the chip. One of the most important features is the ability to add white-label analytics, which means that a company can fully customize the services to meet its own needs. It allows you to drag and drop, just like others. Sisense helps you share reports and screens both inside and outside of your team.

Difference Between Bi Analyst and Data Analyst

A business intelligence analyst uses data to find business-related ideas, while a data analyst uses data to solve problems. A business intelligence analyst looks at data to find business-related insights and makes business decisions based on those insights. They are focused on adding value to the business. The first step in a business intelligence analyst’s job is to figure out what the business end-user needs. A BI analyst combines this information from the different databases to find needed trends and answers.

A data analyst uses analytics and statistical models to help a company gain insight, solve problems, and make decisions. They depend a lot on software for programming, statistical models, and displaying data.

A data analyst’s job usually starts with working with stakeholders to figure out what they need. Then, they collect and clean original data sources that can solve the quantitative problem, make charts, and show them to stakeholders along with suggested solutions or improvements.

There are many differences between a BI analyst and a data analyst, including different duties.

Here’s what makes a business analyst different from a data analyst:

The main job of a business intelligence analyst is to create business insights.
A data analyst looks at large sets of complicated data to find patterns and trends that can help business groups.
A business intelligence expert only looks at data that has been organized.
A data analyst works with both organized and unorganized data.
A business data analyst should know a lot about what has happened in the past.
A data analyst’s job is to predict what will happen to goods or processes in the future.

Is a Bi Analyst a Good Career?

Like most tech jobs, becoming a business intelligence expert is a suitable option because it has a lot of room for growth and pays well. As a trained BI analyst, you can work in many different areas.

What Is a Bi Analyst vs Data Analyst?

Business intelligence analysts have a broad focus on the business and everything that affects it, while data analysts concentrate on answering specific questions and automating their reports so the same study may be done on a regular basis.

Is Being a Business Analyst a Tough Job?

It can be hard to be a business analyst. Being a business analyst might be difficult because you will have to provide inputs or outputs for a project at some point in your career, despite dealing with numerous challenges and impediments.

How Much Does a Business Intelligence Analyst Make at Google?

Business Intelligence Analysts at Google can expect to make an average of $178,854 per year. This number is the median, which is the middle point of the ranges in our Total Pay Estimate model and is based on the rates that our users have given us.

What Is Business Intelligence?

The term “business intelligence” refers to a broad range of occupations, including those who work as business analysts, customer analysts, data analysts, data engineers, economists, and researchers, among others. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that customer insight analysis is one of the jobs in the US that is growing the fastest.

BI ANALYST: Definition, Skills, Salary, Tools & Difference

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Bi Analyst