Business Analyst: Expectation vs Reality 2020
Any business worth its salt in the current age should definitely be leveraging business analysis in their operations, something backed up by the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com. Business analysis is the aspect of businesses that links their IT side of things to their business objectives. This is where business analysts come into play. A business analyst, as discussed in detail over at the excellent RunRex.com, is the professional in a company or business who analyzes information, investigates the company’s goals and issues and makes recommendations on how to improve their efficiency and optimize costs. Many businesses out there are able to attribute their profitability to business analysts which is why we have seen their popularity increase. However, the role of a business analyst is constantly changing with companies relying on data more than ever to advice their business decisions. With all these changes, could it be that expectations do not match up with reality for business analysts going into 2020? Well, this article will look to take a deeper look at this and try and answer this question.
The role of a business analyst is extremely technical, requiring one to be highly knowledgeable and skilled on matters data. The expectation therefore is that, as a business analyst, the hard skills of the trade such as analyzing data, pulling data, reporting the various data trends and so forth, will be at the core of your operations at work. However, as per the gurus over at RunRex.com, the reality of a business analyst going into 2020 is that soft skills are just as important as the hard skills of your trade. These are the social and people skills that will enable you interact with your colleagues from other departments as you carry out your duties. Companies now more that ever are putting a lot of weight on the people they hire, and how they interact together to create a good working environment for others. As a business analyst, the reality is that you need to have excellent communication, networking, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills among others on top of your hard skills. As per the folks over at RunRex.com, you will need these skills as you interact with the various departments in the course of carrying out your duties, especially the IT department and even the customers.
Another expectation of a business analyst is that they are among the highest paid professionals out there. This expectation, as per the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com, matches with reality as the average salary for a business analyst is just under $68,000 per year. If you are looking to become a business analyst, then you should consider working in San Francisco and New York as these two cities offer the highest salaries for business analysts in the country. San Francisco is where the highest paid business analysts work, with the average salaries of business analysts here being 28% higher than the national average. New York is second with 18% with Boston third with 7%. Obviously, the pay you will receive as a business analyst will depend on your job title. For instance, business management analysts earn about $60,000 per year on average while senior IT business analysts earn about $90,000 annually. Another expectation of being a business analyst is that your skills will mostly suit working in a business setting. However, the reality is that business analysts, especially going into 2020, have now got skills that are transferable to various industries out there. These include not only in business, but also in industries such as the banking industry, insurance industry, utilities industry and many others. This means that, as a business analyst going into 2020, your options are limitless and you should therefore expand your horizons when looking for an industry to work in.
Given that the discipline of business analysis is relatively new, the expectation is that there are not so many certifications available for business analysts looking to improve their skills and boost the resume. The reality however, is that there are actually many certifications out there available to business analysts. These certifications include the IIBA Entry Certificate in Business Analysis, ECBA, PMI Professional in Business Analysis, PBA, IQBBA Certified Foundation Level Business Analyst, CFLBA among many others, offered by the IIBA, PMI and IQBBA respectively. There are many other organizations other than the ones listed above which also offer certifications for business analysts, all of which are discussed in detail over at RunRex.com, where you can head to for more information on how to earn any of these certifications. There are also a number of boot camps available for business analysts looking to learn new skills or sharpen up the skills they have. Contrary to expectations, there are actually a number of pretty good boot camps for business analysts out there, for what is a pretty new field as mentioned above.
As ever, if you are looking for more information on this topic, as well as more on how and where to go to for certifications and boot camps as a business analyst, then the highly reliable RunRex.com is the place to go to.