Nov 3, 2023
The Top 8 Business Analyst Skills for 2024
Explore the top technical and soft business analyst skills needed to succeed and how you can best showcase them in your portfolio and on your resume.
Business analytics is becoming a core pillar of any company. In today's data-driven business environment, growing and scaling a business without some analytical capabilities is no longer feasible.
The role of the business analyst has evolved from simple requirements gathering to a more strategic position involving optimization and innovation. As such, the demand for business analysts has never been higher than it is today. They are pivotal in bridging the gap between business needs and technological solutions, ensuring organizations make informed decisions based on data-driven insights.
In this article, you will understand the role of the business analyst, the essential technical and soft skills to succeed as a business analyst, and how you can best showcase your skills through your resume and portfolio.
Understanding the Business Analyst Role
The nature of the business analyst role varies depending on the company's size and requirements. Smaller businesses or startups may require the business analyst to take on various responsibilities, such as those of the data analyst, product manager, and systems analyst. However, for larger businesses with dedicated teams in IT and data, the role of the business analyst may be narrower and more strategic.
According to the International Institute of Business Analysts: Business analysts work across all levels of an organization and may be involved in everything from defining strategy to creating the enterprise architecture to taking a leadership role by defining the goals and requirements for programs and projects or supporting continuous improvement in its technology and processes.
You can learn more about how to become a business analyst by viewing our free webinar.
The Business Analyst vs Business Analytics Professional
While both roles deal with data, business analysts focus on optimizing processes and implementing solutions, whereas business analytics professionals emphasize analyzing and interpreting data to inform strategic decisions. Read our separate article to learn more about business analytics.
Business analysts form the bridge between business and analytics. While they do not typically get into the weeds of analyzing data, writing code, or building machine learning models, business analysts are vital in ensuring the success of analytical projects, from defining requirements to implementing the final result.
However, it is still crucial for business analysts to have extensive knowledge and experience in data and analytical systems, such as those used in visualization, data science, and database management. This is because they are responsible for developing innovative solutions across almost every business unit that may require implementing one or more of these tools. The business analyst must be experienced with these systems to identify the best approach to solving a business problem.
The Business Analyst vs Business Analytics Professional
We can break the responsibilities of a business analyst into four core components:
- Decode: Researching, finding, and implementing an efficient and often innovative solution to various business problems across an organization is the bread-and-butter of the business analyst's role.
- Optimize: From creating and implementing business processes that improve efficiency and productivity across multiple business units to analyzing and troubleshooting analytical systems, the role of the business analyst is always heavily focused on optimization.
- Document: Business analysts
