What to Learn After Business Analytics

Business Analytics is a combination of practices, skills, and technologies that can help individuals study an organization’s performance by examining its data. This process helps Business Analysts gather insights to help their organization make more informed, data-driven decisions. If you already know how to use business analytics, you might consider learning data science or gaining experience working with business intelligence solutions like SAS Business Analytics and QlikView. We’ll cover each of these skills below so you have a clear understanding of what skill you want to tackle next. 

What is Business Analytics?

Business Analytics is a group of technologies and disciplines, such as quantitative methods, statistical models, and data analysis, which are used to solve business problems. It relies on iteratively and methodologically exploring an organization’s data using statistical analysis techniques to make better, data-driven decisions. This involves a practical application of statistical analysis geared toward uncovering actionable recommendations.

Many companies view their data as a business asset and continue to explore ways to use it for a competitive advantage. To be successful with business analytics, an organization must have good quality data, as well as Business Analysts who not only understands the business but also the technologies needed to transform its data into insights. Business Analysts seek to draw concrete conclusions about a company by finding answers to questions such as why certain events happened, what is expected to occur in the future, and what actions can be done in the present.

Most business analytics tasks are descriptive, predictive, or prescriptive. Descriptive analytics involves analyzing historical data to discover how an organization could respond to specific variables. Predictive analytics examines historical data to predict the likelihood of specific future outcomes. Prescriptive analytics is a combination of descriptive and predictive analyses; it involves formulating a process with which users can anticipate what is expected to happen, when it will occur, and why it will transpire. Business Analysts rely on tools and skills such as data mining, association and sequence identification, text mining, data aggregation, forecasting, optimization, and data visualization to gather and present these data-driven insights.

Read more about what business analytics is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Business Analytics?

Business analytics is one of the most versatile skill sets you can bring to the professional arena. All businesses, from small startups to multinational companies, seek those with a background in business analytics who can work with data to solve complicated problems, devise useful business strategies, and clearly communicate with stakeholders. Most Business Analysts have a background working with technology and programming languages like C++ and Java, as well as various databases and testing methods. These individuals typically possess technical and business skills, making them high-demand among recruiters and employers. 

Business Analysts are typically good problem solvers. They can analyze problems and apply critical thinking to propose innovative solutions that consider variables such as market trends. These individuals also tend to have an analytical mindset, which allows them to apply statistical models to analyze large datasets. Their analytic skills help Business Analysts perform tasks like understanding consumer buying decisions and behaviors and using this information to formulate a marketing strategy.

Business Analysts are usually expert communicators. They can clearly communicate their data findings and present these insights to different teams on both the business and technical sides. This often requires adapting their communication style to best reach different audiences. These individuals also possess time-management skills to balance multiple project deadlines and perform under pressure.

Skills to Learn After Studying Business Analytics

If you already have a solid understanding of many of the most common business analytics tools and practices, you may consider branching out to related fields, like data science. In addition, you may want to learn more about various business solutions that can increase efficiency and improve productivity, like SAS Business Analytics or Qlik View. 

Data Science

Similar to Business Analysts, Data Scientists are tasked with analyzing vast amounts of data. These professionals use data mining and programming skills to locate meaningful insights for their organization. This process requires a multidisciplinary approach, combining the skills in various other related fields, such as statistics, math, AI, and computer engineering. Data Scientists seek answers to important organizational questions, such as what happened, why it occurred, what is expected to happen in the future, and what actions can be taken.

Noble Desktop’s Data Science Certificate is a great learning opportunity for those who want to learn data science in a hands-on environment. Participants in this rigorous program receive guidance on core data science skills, such as using Python for data analysis, creating data visualizations and machine learning models, and using SQL to query databases.

Business Intelligence Tools

Business intelligence tools can play an integral role in the business analytics process. They have applications that extend beyond data analysis and can identify organizational weaknesses, address problems, notify policymakers about unexpected events, and provide forecasts about future performance. These tools can improve customer satisfaction and ensure that an organization can attain its business goals by increasing its competitive edge. 

One such BI tool is SAS Business Analytics. This product has a range of applications for performing different kinds of analyses, as well as data modeling and reporting. It also provides users with predictive modeling capability, interactive dashboards, and the tools needed to create powerful data visualizations. SAS-based business analytics software includes high-grade text analysis capabilities that can evaluate and transform unorganized text into relevant information, which can then be explored to locate useful insights. In addition, SAS Business Analytics also comes with an assortment of statistical tools that provide users with an easier way to perform real-time analysis on large datasets. This BI platform can also be used to predict trends.

In addition, QlikView and QlikSense also provide useful analytics solutions for data professionals. QlikView relies on guided analytics. This product offers a more traditional, technical-based tool for data analytics, reporting, and sharing BI tasks. On the other hand, QlikSense is a platform for more modern data exploration. It has a range of applications for self-service data discovery and provides a way for users to design bookmarks, new apps, and interactive data visualizations.

Key Insights

• Business Analytics is a family of skills and technologies used to examine an organization’s data. The insights analysis provides can then be used to help the organization make more sound decisions.
• If you’ve already learned business analytics, you may consider studying business intelligence tools like QlikView, QlikSense, and SAS Business Analytics.
• Some individuals with a background in business analytics may also transition to learning data science skills, such as programming or data mining, which have applications in both professions.
• If you’d like to learn more about business analytics, Noble Desktop provides in-person and live online courses.

Learn Business Analytics with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

If you want to study business analytics, Noble Desktop offers several excellent classes to prepare you to work as a Business Analyst. Noble’s Business Analyst Certificate is available in both the in-person and live online format. Participants in this hands-on course learn how to work with tools such as Tableau, SQL, PowerPoint, and Excel to analyze and visualize data. All participants receive live, project-based instruction from industry experts and can retake the course for up to one year to revisit the material.

For those who want to learn more about working with big data, Noble also has an in-person and live online Data Analytics Certificate. All participants receive one-on-one mentoring with tuition. This course is available in the full-time format that spans six weeks, as well as the part-time format of 24 weeks of evening classes. This project-based course covers core data analytics concepts and skills like collecting, wrangling, analyzing, and visualizing data. In addition, participants prepare for a career in business analytics or data analytics by reviewing case studies that incorporate both predictive and prescriptive analytics.

Those interested in comparing learning options can also browse Noble’s in-person and live online data analytics and data science classes to find the perfect class.