November 19, 2020
April 28th, 2023
The Global Big Data Analytics Market was valued at US$ 37.34 billion in 2018 and expected to reach US$ 105.08 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 12.3% throughout the forecast period (2019-2027).
By 2020, 90% of business professionals and enterprise analysts say data and analytics are key to their organizations’ digital transformation initiatives.
Source: finance.yahoo.com
But, an alarming finding from one survey states something different.
According to NewVantage Partners’ 2019 Big Data and AI Executive Survey of 64 c-level executives at world-famous organizations, 72% of survey participants report that they have yet to forge a data culture. Lack of data-driven culture, right internal process, and right skills explain this difference.
Source: newvantage.com
This is where the need for Business Intelligence and Analytics professionals arises. The demand for BI consultants is increasing and it is one of the most sought-after skills in upcoming years.
In this article, we are talking about a business intelligence consultant. This article is your one-click answer to all your queries related to BI consultant, roles & responsibilities of BI consultants, salary, scope, and required skills to become one.
BI and analytics tools are making data analysis easier than ever before. Many popular BI tools like Power BI and Tableau are making it easier to extract insights, establish a data-driven strategy, therefore, accelerating the growth of today’s organizations.
Let’s start with the basics of BI.
Business Intelligence consists of strategies, approaches, technologies, and tools used in the analysis of business data. It includes tools and processes for collecting, analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data. BI aims to convert data into actionable insights and offer predictive views based on past and current business records.
Good Read: What Is Business Intelligence? Explained In 200 Words
A Business Intelligence consultant helps organizations in enhancing the data strategy and internal processes of the organization. They evaluate existing data and analytics systems and plan a better ‘BI roadmap’. They help organizations establish a data-driven strategy by recommending the best way to organize, analyze, and present data.
They work with the ultimate goal to increase efficiency, facilitate decision-making, and improve performance by aligning business requirements and data strategy.
There are several possibilities regarding the responsibilities of a BI consultant. The role of BI consultant differs from company to company and according to business requirements.
If a company has BI tools and systems in place, a BI consultant is responsible for reviewing current architecture, optimizing strategies, and work with the technical team to identify or predict key events for better decision-making. They constantly monitor processes, progress, and parameters, helping organizations to make the best use of data.
If a company has no existing BI capability or tools in use, they design a complete BI roadmap and suggest the best BI tool/technology as per business requirements. They work with the management and form a data-driven strategy across the organization to meet BI goals.
Business Intelligence consultants may be independent contractors. A number of IT firms are also offering hiring BI developers/consultant services with flexible hiring models. They are hired for assessing BI systems and ensuring optimum use of business intelligence to set benchmarks and performance goals.
The duties of a business intelligence consultant may vary according to the needs. Despite the difference in responsibilities, one thing that is clear they tend to be data experts. Without data literacy, they will not be able to guide/recommend plans for making data more accessible, visible, and useful.
The list can be different from organization to organization. A BI consultant is one of the key positions in any organization for its strategic and analytical role in better decision-making.
Let’s know what is required to become a BI consultant.
To become a BI consultant, you will require to have a vision of seeing data as a valuable asset of the company. You should be able to understand it, manage it, and maintain it.
If you are interested to become a BI consultant, the following skills are mandatory:
This role demands possessing hands-on experience in the following:
A BI consultant should be able to develop a data warehouse and data mart. They must have knowledge of various database functions, models, and processes. They work with database administrators and analysts to provide data visibility to the team. They should be able to manage current data warehouse systems and enhance functions.
Knowledge of BI tools is must-have for business intelligent consultants. They should be able to build interactive dashboards with drill-down capabilities by using tools like Power BI, Tableau, Qlikview, SAP BI, and so on. They should be well-acquainted with all data analytics and BI concepts to better interpret data.
SSAS is Microsoft’s SQL Server’s Analysis service, SSIS stands for SQL Server Integration Services and SSRS is SQL Server Reporting Services. For any BI consultant, knowledge of OLAP processes and tools like SSAS is required. They must have experience working with SQL server stack.
Good Read: Get To Know SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) In An Easy Way
A large number of companies are hiring BI consultants across the world. They can be varied in experience, role, rewards, and responsibilities assigned. Establishing data-driven culture has become a top priority of today’s organization and that’s the foremost reason BI consultants are in demand.
There are specific tools related to titles available for BI consultant. Also, many job titles are similar to the role of BI consultant because of analysis and visualization skills.
Here are some titles similar to the role of BI consultants:
The above-mentioned titles/job roles are high in demand at various levels of the organization. The authority level of these posts includes fresher, junior, mid-senior, senior, and leader.
How much you will get as a BI consultant again depends on experience, requirement, skills, and region. It is one of the highest paying jobs across the world but the salary differs from country to country and even cities.
According to Glassdoor, The national average salary for a Business Intelligence Consultant is $76, 402 in the United States.
In India, the national average salary for a Business Intelligence Consultant is ₹11, 18, 726. Skills and experience greatly affect the salary of BI consultants. Source: glassdoor.co.in
This image shows how years of experience is affected salary level.
As you become experienced and go ahead with more responsibilities and high-authority roles, you can easily adapt to new roles and make some progress in their careers.
They can choose to become a BI Architect, Solution Architect, Lead Analyst, Team Leader, Data Architect, or Data Engineer.
As we have said earlier that this role is more rewarding along with experience. One can become a Business Intelligence Consultant after working as a BI developer, Data Analyst, Senior Software Engineer, SQL developer, or any suitable data-specific role.
Both titles are very popular in today’s data-driven environment but it seems that there is a mix-up of these roles and organizations are hiring candidates as per their requirements, paying less attention to the difference between these roles.
After research, we can sum up the difference between BI consultant and BI developer like this:
A BI developer is a person who thoroughly knows BI technology/tool he/she is working with. He must possess complete knowledge of the coding part, mapping, and implementing part. He is responsible for linking data sources and BI tools along with performing the process of collecting, refining, and presenting data.
On the other side, a BI consultant is similar to an expert role as he/she is ahead in knowledge and experience. BI consultant’s role is more inclined towards problem-solving and monitoring rather than end-to-end implementation. He/she knows everything from the requirement to analysis to presentation.
Though, the ultimate skill of both these roles is to help organizations to convert raw data into actionable insights.
There are many BI tools available in the market. Here is the list of top BI tools:
The career as a BI consultant is lucrative as business intelligence is becoming more like a necessity for industries like finance, retail, e-commerce, logistic, hospitality, marketing, and so on. With increasing dependence on data, almost every company will require data and business intelligence solutions to obtain better insights that help them become a data-driven company.
The future scope of BI seems profitable as eventually, every company requires BI to make good decisions. Comparatively high salary, growing demand, and a strategic role in making data accessible and useful – these are some of the factors that make BI consultant one of the most sought-after skills in the upcoming year.
The demand for BI consultants and developers is high as organizations have started realizing the importance of data-driven culture to improve the process and stay competitive.
Power BI, Tableau, SAP BI, Qlik Sense, Pentaho – to name a few.
BI can solve problems related to poor performance, losing customers and sales, and inefficient day-to-day operations.
The duties of a BI consultant include monitoring and reviewing existing data analytics system, develop/modify data warehouse systems, and help organizations with collecting, refining, and presenting data to improve decision-making.
BI is critically important for today’s organizations as it helps find answers to prominent questions and help improve decision-making based on past and present data.
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