Example Career: Business Intelligence Analysts

Career Description

Produce financial and market intelligence by querying data repositories and generating periodic reports. Devise methods for identifying data patterns and trends in available information sources.

What Job Titles Business Intelligence Analysts Might Have

• Business Intelligence Analyst
• Business Intelligence Manager
• Competitive Intelligence Analyst
• Manager
• Market Intelligence

What Business Intelligence Analysts Do

• Analyze competitive market strategies through analysis of related product, market, or share trends.
• Synthesize current business intelligence or trend data to support recommendations for action.
• Communicate with customers, competitors, suppliers, professional organizations, or others to stay abreast of industry or business trends.
• Manage timely flow of business intelligence information to users.
• Collect business intelligence data from available industry reports, public information, field reports, or purchased sources.
• Identify and analyze industry or geographic trends with business strategy implications.
• Analyze technology trends to identify markets for future product development or to improve sales of existing products.
• Generate standard or custom reports summarizing business, financial, or economic data for review by executives, managers, clients, and other stakeholders.
• Identify or monitor current and potential customers, using business intelligence tools.
• Maintain or update business intelligence tools, databases, dashboards, systems, or methods.
• Maintain library of model documents, templates, or other reusable knowledge assets.
• Create business intelligence tools or systems, including design of related databases, spreadsheets, or outputs.
• Conduct or coordinate tests to ensure that intelligence is consistent with defined needs.
• Disseminate information regarding tools, reports, or metadata enhancements.

What Business Intelligence Analysts Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.

What Business Intelligence Analysts Should Be Interested In

• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

What Business Intelligence Analysts Need to Learn

• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
• Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.