Business Intelligence Analyst: A Powerful Career Choice
In recent years, the demand for data intelligence analysts has surged significantly. Why? Today’s companies are awash in data, and nearly every organisation is awakening to the power of data-driven decision-making. This demand for data generation has also created a growing need for professionals who can understand complex datasets and transform them into actionable insights that drive informed business strategies.
If you’re tech-savvy and have a curiosity for problem-solving, then choosing a career as a business intelligence analyst could be your golden ticket! In this guide, we will walk you through becoming a professional Business Intelligence Analyst. Also, we will discuss the role, skills, and experience required to become a BI Analyst.
Table Of Content
A Business Intelligence Analyst’s Main Responsibilities
5 Steps to Become a Business Intelligence Analyst
Advance Your Business Intelligence Analyst Career With Jaro Education
Final Thoughts
Frequently Asked Questions
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A Business Intelligence Analyst’s Main Responsibilities
The BI analyst’s primary responsibility is to turn data into knowledge to make better business decisions. Here’s a quick breakdown of the responsibilities of a BI analyst:
- Data Gathering and Structuring: A business intelligence analyst gathers data from a variety of sources, including sales data, customer surveys, and what users do in their applications. Once obtained, data is often massaged into shape to ensure its quality and usefulness.
- Data Analysis and Data Storytelling: Once data is prepared, a business intelligence analyst uses their analytical skills and applications to identify trends, patterns and hidden insights. Analysts do more than analyse data; they convert findings into stories that tell a wider narrative. BI Analysts tell the story through reports, dashboards and by delivering engaging presentations.
- Strategic Recommendations: Ultimately, the organisations use data-driven recommendations to make informed decisions. A business intelligence analyst seeks to lay out strategic recommendations for organisations that can affect product development, marketing strategy, resource allocations, and customer service improvement recommendations.
5 Steps to Become a Business Intelligence Analyst
As we have already discussed above, what are the main responsibilities of a BI Analyst? It’s time to bring your attention to how you can start your career to become one. But before that, do you know that in India, the business intelligence analyst salary varies based on experience, location, and the specific company? Well, yes, the average salary ranges from ₹3.2 Lakhs to ₹18.6 Lakhs per year, with potential for higher compensation in top companies or specialised roles.
So, if you want to enter this thriving field, let’s focus on 5 easy steps to becoming a business intelligence analyst.
Step 1. Focus on your Key Skills and Competencies
To be a BI analyst, you must create a solid base of your technical and analytical skills. Apart from these two, specific soft skills are also important, such as great communication skills, collaboration, and overall business knowledge. All these skills will help you succeed as an analyst.
Now, let’s talk about some of the most important skills in detail.
Technical Skills
For a BI analyst, having command of their technical skills is of utmost importance. In fact, more than 75% of the companies look for professionals who are proficient in their technicalities. Here are the major technical areas where, as an analyst, you have to show your abilities:
- Data Visualisation: Your ability to visualise the data is also a key component of your success. Tools like Power BI and Tableau allow BI analysts to relay data into interesting stories for audiences of all technical backgrounds to understand and appreciate.
- Programming: While coding is not always necessary, being familiar with languages such as Python or R can add depth to your analytical skillset. Are you wondering if business intelligence analysts should learn how to code? There is a post dedicated to this topic to explore why learning coding is worth considering for your career. To get started with it, check out our Python Programming or R Programming skill tracks and take your data analysis to the next level!
- SQL: The ability to efficiently work on any given queries for the database while using the SQL platform will improve your pursuit of excellence as a business analyst. Querying databases and efficiently manipulating data are essential as a BI analyst.
Analytical Skills
What is the major responsibility of a BI analyst? Undoubtedly, to analyse data and draw meaningful insights by using their technical abilities. So, apart from technical skills, the answer to “how to be a business intelligence analyst” comes with critical thinking and problem-solving.
So, given below are some of the major analytical skills for BI Analysts:
- Statistical Analysis: Mastering statistical methods is vital for analysing data sets effectively. Key components include understanding distributions, conducting statistical tests, and performing regression analysis. These skills enable analysts to draw informed conclusions from data.
- Data Extraction and Exploration: This involves examining large datasets to uncover patterns, trends, and relationships. Analysts utilise techniques such as clustering, classification, and association rule mining to gain deeper insights into the data.
- Data Cleaning and Preprocessing: Preparing data for analysis is critical. This process includes addressing missing values, identifying outliers, and normalising data. Effective cleaning ensures that the analysis is reliable and the results are valid.
- Predictive Analytics: This skill allows analysts to leverage historical data to forecast future trends and behaviours. By applying machine learning techniques and building predictive models, analysts can provide valuable insights that guide decision-making and strategy development.
Soft Skills
Besides technical skills, effective communication and collaboration are typically neglected yet critical traits of a highly successful business intelligence analyst. Below, we list a few significant soft skills that you need to develop:
- Communication: You will have to share your data insights clearly to prospectively numerous audiences and often collaborate with multiple stakeholders within your organisation.
- Problem-solving: You need to be able to think both critically and creatively about complex business problems as a data-driven solution..
- Attention to detail: You should maintain the accuracy and reliability of your analyses and identify subtle yet important trends and patterns in the data.
- Teamwork and Collaboration: Since a business intelligence analyst typically works in teams, you will need to work alongside data scientists, IT specialists, and maybe even business folks, so collaboration and cooperation are fundamentally important to results.
Step 2: Get Qualified and Advance your Skills
Once you have worked on your skills, it doesn’t mean that you have made yourself apart from other qualified BI analysts. To stand out, you have to make sure that you keep advancing your knowledge and skills as an analyst.
In order to begin working as a BI analyst, you will likely need a bachelor’s degree in a field such as computer science, information technology, or statistics, as most postings will probably require this level of education. However, more and more companies and universities are offering specialised degrees in business intelligence, data science, or analytics, which will provide you with an education that is geared towards exactly what you’ll find in the role.
In addition to obtaining a degree, certifications can help set you apart from other candidates. Certifications show that you have gained the technical skills directly applicable to positions you are looking to apply to; they also show that you are working towards continuing your professional development. Whether you are just starting out or trying to move up, here’s one of the most popular online business intelligence analyst courses offered by a prestigious institution:
Professional Certificate Programme in Advanced Analytics & Business Intelligence offered by IIM Kozhikode in association with Jaro Education.
The programme is designed for professionals who are looking for opportunities to accelerate their analytics and business intelligence. The programme also helps participants working in business management to enhance their data science skills, upskill data-driven decision making and offer rigorous theoretical, practical and hands-on training on various data handling techniques.
Step 3. Gaining Practical Experience is Important
Without a doubt, a degree and certification are important, but they can only boost your resume. To become a BI analyst, you need practical experience to show your abilities by working on real-world projects.
You can gain experience through Internships and entry-level positions
When just starting out, internships in BI or related fields are a great first step, providing:
- Hands-on experience.
- Exposure to real projects.
- An opportunity to work with professionals in the industry.
You can also look for entry-level positions, or those marked as ‘junior,’ that involve working closely with data but only require a little prior experience. These roles often serve as stepping stones to BI positions.
Projects and Case Studies
To show your skills, you can work on different projects where you can apply your skills in real-world scenarios. There are many Tableau and Power BI projects that can help you to enhance your portfolio, demonstrate your analytical capabilities, and showcase your ability to transform data into compelling visual stories. Engaging in these projects will not only deepen your understanding of data visualisation tools but also make you more attractive to potential employers by illustrating your practical experience and creativity in solving complex data challenges.
Networking and Mentorship
Get to know new people by joining BI forums and communities, and by participating in industry events, webinars, and conferences. Networking provides avenues for you to meet veterans in the field, hear about their journey, and find some mentorship along the way.
Mentors—experienced BI analysts—can offer guidance, share insights, and provide practical knowledge to help you navigate the field effectively.
Connect with other data experts on social media and through communities to build new relationships, which can lead to new work opportunities and continuing support as you grow your analytical capabilities. You could even earn a certification by registering through Jaro Education and accessing our exclusive alumni Community, which is the perfect avenue for meeting like-minded people with whom you can continue to develop professionally.
Step 4. Don’t Forget to Build Your Professional Portfolio
An exciting professional portfolio is necessary for any job seeker in technical professions. A portfolio should not only attract employer attention but also communicate your skills and abilities.
So, as you begin to go through the process of “how to become a Business Intelligence Analyst”, consider our four major approaches:
- Consistency is the key: Your portfolio should be free of grammatical mistakes and typographical errors and have a consistent branding message, both on your resume and LinkedIn profile, as well as within your portfolio.
- Tailor your Portfolio according to your Target Job: You should create your portfolio to showcase the specific skills and qualifications in the job descriptions. I want to make it easy for employers to see how you might fit with their organisations. In addition, when targeting a specific industry, make sure that the projects you include consider the specific issues and challenges in that industry.
- Document your Work: Add your best projects that you have worked on. This shows the employer that you have the right skills for various scenarios. In addition, give a clear and detailed description of each project, including the challenges, solutions, and tools used.
- Create a Strong Online Presence: Nowadays, online presence on various channels is crucial. It shows employers that you have strong technical and analytical knowledge, even if you’re in your learning phase. There are many platforms like LinkedIn and GitHub, where you can build your stunning profile and share your professional journey and achievements in a matter of time.
Step 5. Understand the Job Market
Once you have the skills, knowledge, educational qualification, certification programme, and hands-on experience, this is the right time to enter the job market. But wait? It’s not as easy as you think. Today’s businesses have become very tough, and finding a job in this market is daunting. So, whether you’re a beginner or switching careers, here we have mentioned some of our tried and tested methods to overcome the job search challenge.
Explore online Job Boards
There are many online platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor, where you can receive non-stop job notifications based on your profile. In fact, you can also visit some of the career pages of companies where you’ll find job opportunities.
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Advance Your Business Intelligence Analyst Career With Jaro Education
Ready to take your career to new heights? Register for our Professional Certificate Programme in Advanced Analytics & Business Intelligence offered by IIM Kozhikode and succeed in the dynamic world of business analysis.
Jaro Education is India’s leading online higher education and upskilling company, bringing the right online degree courses and certification programmes for students to enhance their careers. We collaborate with some of the prestigious universities and institutions that offer quality education and an industry-relevant business intelligence analyst course. Not only this, but we are also here to extend our support by offering the right academic guidance and career counselling services that help participants understand their goals.
So, if you’re enrolling for the Professional Certificate Programme in Advanced Analytics & Business Intelligence offered by IIM Kozhikode through Jaro Education, you can get access to the “Jaro Advantage”, where you can get:
- Unparalleled career guidance and support
- Dedicated student support
- Immersive and lifelong learning experiences
- Alumni Network of 350,000+ Professionals
- Access to alumni events & other benefits
- Stay up to date with the latest insights from your alma mater
Final Thoughts
Becoming a business intelligence analyst in 2025 is an exciting path where one must be technically skilled while utilizing essential soft skills. Indeed, BI analysts must be good communicators, collaborating with partners and stakeholder decision-makers with a good understanding of the business context, therefore providing insight into the decision-making process.
In addition, as mentioned in the blog, while applying for jobs, gaining work experience is vital. It also helps to have a great professional portfolio stand out and have a plan so you are ready for the interviews. There is no shortage of opportunities for BI analysts as organisations increasingly need to derive actionable insight from data, to set their organization apart from the competition.
If you are thinking about getting into business intelligence, you’ve made the right decision. So, kickstart your career today with Jaro Education and get the opportunities you have been waiting for to thrive in this dynamic field!
Frequently Asked Questions
