Business Analyst Professionals- What are the Key Intrinsic Skills They Need?

With all the buzz about data and its huge potential for businesses these days, it’s no wonder that so many young professionals are choosing to make a career in business analytics or data science. Are you one of those aspiring data enthusiasts? And are you wondering about the intrinsic skills if any, that a business analyst must possess in the Analytics domain?

Well this article will cover what essential skills are expected from a business analyst and what can differentiate an average analyst from an exceptional one.

Quality and Timeliness

Business analysts will be expected to deliver results on time and keep to deadlines which are jointly set with their manager and clients.

Quality work is as important and involves delivering results in a specified format, being detail oriented regards output and performance and doing all this without hampering the timelines.

It is therefore important to be focused and review the outputs before delivering it to the clients. It is necessary that the results make sense and are error free, thus managing client expectations.

Skills and communication

A business analyst is expected to possess basic communication skills and have the ability to express the results in a clear and concise manner.

It is important as one progresses along their career path, that they can handle communications independently.

Logically oriented

Since analytics involves a lot of numbers, data by itself is meaningless. It is important for an analyst to sort through and make sense of the data that is received from the clients, and see if the data logically makes sense. This is where domain knowledge comes in. Logical application of domain knowledge combined with technical skills involving statistical tools and concepts are important components of a good business analysis.

Since the analysis in many companies is driven using statistical software programs, code error solving also becomes essential. Business analysts must be able to understand the syntax and logical errors as they run the codes.

Going Above and Beyond…

On an average, every business analyst delivers quality scores well in time because that is the basic requirement. But what differentiates a consistently high performance that will add to their bonus points during the year end appraisal process are:

Perception Management

How your manager, your team and your client perceives you is an important factor that determines your growth as a business analyst. A manager/client always likes to work with analysts who are cooperative and who can take feedback impersonally. It is therefore important to maintain cordial relations with your fellow team members as interpersonal skills play a big role in people and perception management as you climb the ladder. It is a fine balance to be warm and helpful to your colleagues but not too personal and emotional.

Proactiveness

Proactiveness is the willingness to take the lead and start on things before you are even asked. It is said that to be lucky it is important to meet luck half way. It is so important to stay alert and always think in terms of how one can add more value to deliverables. Essentially it means to go one step forward and do something that is not usually expected from you. This can also be applied to learning new concepts and skills that will add value to your current scope of work.

If you think you have these skills, take the next step forward and look at how you can develop the other skills need to be a business analyst. You will need to get trained in popular analytics tools and techniques like the language of SAS or R and Hadoop. The future is bright and you can look forward to excellent remunerations and a fast career path.

 If you are interested in Big Data Training, take a look at the blog post by Sanchita Lobo. Titled Why join Big Data Training?, the article tells you about the skills you need, what the job entails and a few key reasons why you should invest in Big Data training.