The major upcoming field which is found across all industries is Business Analytics. As the volume of data grows, so does the potential to gain valuable information out of it that could change the course of business.
There is a reason for an ever-increasing demand of Business Analysts as in the present day, they hold the key to provide those right insights that allow the decision-makers to take the correct one.
In order to become successful Business Analysts one needs to have knowledge over a range of subjects which is imparted through various online and academic courses.
Learning is a journey and before taking on a journey, one needs to know of the essential knowledge that they must possess to go through it and come out successfully.
When it comes to undertaking a business analytics certification course, a candidate must keep in mind some pre-requisites that will allow them to maximise their grasping capabilities and heighten their learning experience.
Major Pre-requisites to Keep in Mind Before Undertaking a Course:
Understand the Role
It is never a good idea to become someone or do something just because others are doing. It is important to understand the role of a Business Analyst, their position in a company, the kind of challenges they face and are expected to solve.
It is highly advisable to do a bit of research on the nature of the job that Business Analysts have and understand if it is something you would want to pursue
Career Goal
In continuation, if the role of a business analyst is interesting enough for you to pursue, the kind of value addition it will give to your existing career is also an aspect that you must consider.
In continuation, if the role of a business analyst is interesting enough for you to pursue, the kind of value addition it will give to your existing career is also an aspect that you must consider.
People working in the field of Banking, E-Commerce, Logistics, and Supply Chains, Finance, Insurance are the prime candidates for having a career in Business Analytics.
Still, as all the major businesses are deploying analytics for their strategic decision, there is a position for business analysts on almost all companies but whether having such a position acts as a catalyst to achieve your career goals is something that you must introspect.
Communication Skills
The role of communication is important in every filed but it is particularly important in the life of a Business Analyst.
The job requires you to understand and analyse the business problems, gain important insights and then eventually create reports through which the insights can be communicated.
This communication is the key as the right information conveyed in a wrong manner can create more problems than solutions. So having at least intermediate written and verbal communication skills are necessary for this role.
Basic Computer Skills
Business Analytics course make the learners get accustomed to new tools that allow them to perform data mining, visualization and reporting.
To learn new software, applications and even basic language, It is imperative to have at least basic IT knowledge.
The candidate for a Business Analytics course is at least expected to have basic knowledge of computers and should possess the ability to learn about new computer applications.
Some Microsoft Tools
Apart from the basic use of computers, a candidate is required to have at least some knowledge of the basic Microsoft tools such as Word and Powerpoint. These are the most basic software that the candidate should know of as this is highly important to come up with reports along with other miscellaneous usages that would be understood while undertaking the course.
Skills That are not Mandatory and One May Learn Them as Part of The Course.
Meaning of some jargons
It may sound extremely basic and many of these things are usually covered in a comprehensive Business Analytics training, but having some idea of what do terms such as Visualisation, Report Generation, Data Mining means helps as it gives you a good start and an overall idea of what this field is all about.
Additionally, having some basic idea about what kind of graphs exist for visualization, what are spreadsheets, the structure of a data frame for data mining and how text is formatted, and presented for report generation can help in undertaking a business analyst course.
Basic Summary Statistics
As Business Analysts always deal with numbers, having a basic idea of descriptive statistics is highly important.
Simple concepts such as Sum, Cumulative Sum, Product, Average, Proportion, Percentage, Frequency, median, the mode is expected from the candidates to know of already. Thus having basic to intermediate arithmetic skills is recommended for excelling in this field.
Domain Knowledge
Business Analytics is not a stand-alone field as it could be understood by the name itself as it has the term “Business” in its name.
To properly analyze the business, one must know the basics of the business. Thus, it is expected from the candidates to read and learn about important business domains that are out there and to have a basic knowledge of how they function, the type of data they deal with, and the typical challenges that they might face along with having some basic understanding of the terminologies used in the industry.
For example, for an extremely common field as Banking, a candidate must know of the basic idea of the bank is of providing loans and charging interests for profit, the data belonging to the loan holders or of potential applicants of loan, the problem of correctly identifying the type of people defaulting and terms such as ROI (Rate of Interest ), NPA(Non-Performing Assets), etc.
Various capstone projects in the course also give the candidates exposure to key business domains.
You may also like to read about the role of an IT Business Analyst
Dedication and Conviction
Lastly, a soft skill that is the most important pre-requisite is the requirement of sheer will and commitment to learning the art of Business Analytics. Lastly, a soft skill that is the most important pre-requisite is the requirement of sheer will and commitment to learning the art of Business Analytics.
Learning anything new is never a straightforward task but it can become possible and even enjoyable if the candidate has the required dedication to learn and the combination to stay on course till the very end until the objective is achieved.
Business Analytics demands a range of basic to intermediary skills that one must possess to undertake a course on it. All the mentioned pre-requisites focus on the different areas of the learning experience and one must overcome them to be able to start on the journey of becoming a Business Analyst.
You may also like to read: Evolution of Business Analytics | Business Analytics Future
