Here at Key2 Consulting we truly believe a career in business intelligence (BI) can be an amazing thing. We may be biased (we’re definitely biased), but that’s the truth.
There are different career paths within BI that you can take to achieve your goals, and these paths will each foster big opportunities for you to learn and grow.
Before we begin, let’s define business intelligence…
We define business intelligence (BI) as taking data and transforming it into meaningful information that is then used to make smarter business decisions.
The Foundational Skills of All BI Positions
The foundational skills of all BI positions entail data management concepts coupled with data manipulation skills.
The more traditional BI route involves mastering relational concepts coupled with SQL (Structured Query Language) as well as mastering non-structured concepts involving Hadoop coupled with Python. This knowledge is used religiously throughout any BI position – whether at the beginning or at the end of your career.
A great place to start learning the basics of SQL code for free is at Code Academy. And here’s a great resource to start learning more about Hadoop.
A quick note – if you’re reading this as a college student who’s trying to decide his or her major, Management Information Systems, Business Information Systems, Intelligence Studies, Statistics, and anything in Computer Science are excellent majors for a career in Business Intelligence & Analytics.
Two Different Paths One Can Take
There are two main paths to consider for a career in BI, and they are generally thought of as the “back-end” and “front-end.” Both of these paths are rich in opportunities. Furthermore, there are plenty of BI professionals that take a shot at both of these paths over their career as a way to gain more knowledge, broaden their skillset, and generate more opportunities.
Let’s discuss the back-end career path first.
Business Intelligence Career Path: Back-End Development
For back-end BI development, the foundational skills revolve around 3 primary capabilities.
- The ability to source data: This involves being able to collect data in whatever system, stream, location, and format it exists.
- The ability to manipulate data: The raw data you’re working with will need to be validated, cleansed, and integrated. And in some instances, business logic will need to be applied to the data. This is the first step in creating value from the data.
- The ability to create data structures and storage architecture: In order to make the data useful to an audience of users, it must be organized and structured in a way that makes it intuitive to the user audiences and responsive to requests and queries.
People typically call back-end work the “technical” side of BI. Back-end work is hardly noticed by the end-user, hence the name. Working on the technical side of BI involves less design of what you’re delivering for your company/client and more hands-on development, programming, and coding of the solution. That’s not to say that if you’re a back-end developer you won’t ever be doing architecture and design work. But for the majority of your time, you will be doing more technical tasks like development, and less design.
The back-end skill set from a general perspective is known as “Extraction, Transformation, and Loading” (ETL). ETL concepts can be easily studied and understood, but hands-on work with data and developing the code to move the data around is what really gains you valuable experience.
Business Intelligence Career Path: Front-End Development
And then there’s the other path for BI professionals: front-end development.
The foundational skill for “front-end” BI workers is the presentation of information.
Professionals from a front-end perspective must be able to access the needed data to support the reporting or analytics product for which they are creating. More importantly, the professional must understand the context for which the information is to be used – from both the problem it analyzes to the audience that’s consuming it.
The goal of front-end work is to place information into a context that allows the consumer of the information (the user) to use it to make smart decisions. Many of these roles use SQL (or a software tool that creates SQL for you) to both query and manipulate that data into a context that takes the form of reports or dashboards for your customer (internal customer or external customer).
***Outside of the traditional SQL tools, there are other options for front-end BI development, such as BIRT, Jaspersoft Community, Qlik Sense, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Public, and more.
People typically call front-end development the “functional side” of BI. It is in this position where your ability to interact and listen to your customers’ needs is extremely valuable. The technical ability to develop the interfaces in order to provide the reporting and analytics they have requested is vital to have as well.
Outstanding front-end BI developers are able to build reports and dashboards that are both very easy to use and visually appealing. Additionally, great front-end BI developers are able to present a company’s data in a meaningful way that shows users important trends in their company’s data. Doing so generates invaluable business insights and knowledge that would not be realized without business intelligence. These professionals also routinely provide support to users and ensure the proper configuration and management of the BI solutions they are responsible for.
Some common skills companies look for in front-end BI developers are a strong understanding of data visualization best practices, ETL experience, strong analytical and quantitative skills, and strong communication skills.
Popular Job Titles in Business Intelligence
– Big Data/Hadoop Developer
– Business Intelligence Consultant
– Database Applications Developer
– Data Warehouse Developer
– Data Warehousing Consultant
– ETL Developer
Have Questions About a Career in BI?
If you have any questions regarding a career in business intelligence, leave a comment or contact us and we will get back to you as soon as we can with an answer.
In order to get a major, the recomendation are: “Management Information Systems, Business Information Systems, Intelligence Studies, Statistics, and anything in Computer Science are excellent majors for a career in Business Intelligence & Analytics”. But if i want to specialize in Front-End Development ¿it’s there any recommendation?
Thanks a lot
Hi Carlos,
Thank you for your comment. If you wanted to specialize in Front-End Development, our top recommendation would be Computer Science. That’s if we had to choose one. And again, you can’t go wrong with the other majors we listed in our article.
Also, we noticed that your comment had some Spanish punctuation…so here’s our reply in Spanish as well:
Muchas gracias por su comentario. Si quiere hacer “Front-End Development’, le recomendamos estudiar las informáticas. Y una vez más, las otras carreras que mencionamos todavía son buenos opciones.
Please let us know if you have any more questions, and if you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to our blog!
Sincerely,
The Key2 Consulting team
I am a newbie in IT and my desire as a holder of bachelor degree in Accounting is to become a Business Intelligence Analyst.
what career path of Business Intelligence Analyst will be best suited for me as an accountant and how to be certified?
Your recommendation is highly required.
Many thanks and regards
Folorunso
Hi Folorunso,
Thank you very much for your comment! We recommend you start looking at Microsoft Power BI. It’s a free tool that you can use to quickly analyze any financial data you may currently have. If you want to become certified, we recommend obtaining a certification in Microsoft Power BI. You can find more info here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/mcsa-bi-reporting.aspx.
Hello,
Great Article!Your article explains key aspects of BI. I am a graduate student and I have immense interest in the field. I would like to get some career advice related BI profession.
Apart from Business domain knowledge what would be key technical skill sets that I should possess (except SQL). Is time come that SQL is no longer only technical skill required for BI ? and everyone is shifting to other frameworks or database?
What would you suggest(tips) to a freshly graduated student?
Best Regards,
Urmil Maru
Hi Urmil,
Thank you for your comment! It’s great to hear you have a lot of interest in the Business Intelligence & Analytics field.
To answer your question, SQL is a great skill to have but most curriculums focus on 3rd and 4th normal form. It’s also great to learn Star Schema architecture and/or denormalized architecture, as both are very beneficial for any reporting database.
Some Microsoft-specific skills we recommend proficiency in are SSIS development and SSAS Tabular (2016 and forward). Microsoft has shifted its reporting to focus on Dax, with Microsoft PowerBI and SSAS Tabular.
Additionally, C# or VB .NET development is great for custom development. And lastly, Javascript is always a great skillset to have.
We hope that helps!
– The Key2 Consulting Team
Hi,
I am considering a job opportunity as a BI consultant. My goal is to become a solution consultant/engineer in the future. I believe as a BI consultant you would get the technical and customer facing skills necessary for a presales consultant.
I would like to know your opinion on the matter. Would it be possible to move from one to the other and what the path would look like. My education consists of a BSc. in physics and an MBA.
Thanks
Hi!
Let me start off by saying thank you for the very informative article. But I’m curious as to the type of process I’d have to go through to begin a career in BI as a college Grad. I’m currently a college junior majoring in Intelligence studies and minoring in Business Admin. What do you think would be a good place for someone who is in college or just graduated to start?
Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.
Mack,
We are unsure if there is a step-by-step formula that we can give you for becoming a BI consultant. What we can tell you is that the way we look at potential candidates is by judging their aptitude and attitude. We believe that we can teach a person the technical aspects needed to be a successful consultant as long as they have the aptitude to learn and they are excited about learning, and that they have the kind of attitude that is eager to learn and work with others. The technical degree and excelling in those classes certainly gets your foot in the door, but aptitude and attitude is what will provide the foundation to make you successful.
– The Key2 Consulting Team
Sam, thanks for your question. Our response requires first giving a little bit of background on what we would consider to be the differences between a solution consultant/engineer and a presales consultant.
When you use the terms “solution” and “engineer” together, we believe you are describing someone who understands how to leverage various technologies and methodologies to provide a plan to solve a business problem. This requires a good bit of hands on technical experience under your belt, coupled with an excellent understanding of the process for gathering – or probably better described as ferreting out – requirements. A solution engineer must understand how the entire picture fits together at a very granular level.
When you talk about a presales consultant, we believe you are describing someone who has a deep understanding of a specific software product or product line. The presales consultant is there to help a client understand how the product works from a deep technical perspective (helping the client understand how the software is installed, how it can be integrated with existing systems, how it is managed or customized, and so on…) Many times, a presales consultant is called upon to build proof of concepts to allow the client to see how the product looks and performs on their specific data or under their specific conditions. Once again, this role is going to require that you have a really good understanding of the process for gathering (ferreting out) requirements.
To be successful at either of these roles you are going to need experience. More specifically you need to see what it looks like to have a successful project and understand how issues were either avoided or dealt with swiftly and effectively – essentially all the little things that go into making the project a success. You will also benefit from working on a project that has gone “off the rails” as you’ll that experience will (ideally) give you an understanding of how and why things went wrong. These roles can all come from having experience as a BI consultant. As a BI consultant you are going to be getting hands-on experience with technology and you will also get an opportunity to see different projects under different architects. Many consultants get a lot of different opportunities, really helping them grow their experience and knowledge.
– The Key2 Consulting Team
Hi,
This is valuable information.Since I began my career three years ago, I have been working as a Data warehouse developer (ETL with SQL and SSIS) and visualisations with Tableau. Now I am at a point where I should decide my further career plan and I get overwhelmed with the flood of BI and Machine learning information around. Weather focusing on R and Python as such would be beneficial or should I focus more on the other side (Big data,Hadoop etc)? So,in general what other paths are available going forward in BI space?
Thanks!
Hi Miliey,
Thanks for your comment! There are countless paths available in the BI space, which is likely why you often feel overwhelmed by the flood of information.
You will have to decide what you really enjoy doing within the Business Intelligence process.
So, do you like being “behind the scenes” with ETL development, building the database and understanding the intricacies of databases?
or…
Do you like interacting with the business and trying to understanding their needs and providing it through reporting?
Also, there are two habits that you need to foster as you continue in your career…
– Become an expert (in your current work)
– Master a specific skillset or toolset using a specific BI/ETL tool (SSIS, Tableau)
– Master a business subject area (Healthcare, Banking)
– Become a continual learner (for your future work)
– Continually learn new technologies that will provide you future opportunities
when you are ready to move forward
– Look for low cost courses on Coursera or Udemy to provide a high level but solid
understanding of new technologies
And just remember that there is not a single person who knows everything! Find a good community in which you can share ideas and grow in your expertise.
– The Key2 Consulting Team
Hi,
I have recently joined BI and analytics team for position of ” MIS report developer”. This is OLTP process. The tool we are using to develop reports is BIEE and database is ORACLE. We are not using ETL (olap) process. kindly suggest me good career advice ragarding this field.
looking for your response.
thanks.
I find this a great read.
I’m a BI Developer having worked on MS BI, ERP BI, and Power BI. I have crossed the ‘back-end’ and ‘front-end’ boundaries. I prefer the front-end side. When looking at job adverts for a BI Developer, almost, always specifies back-end skills and therefore I was searching to categorize what job role would be a front-end developer. I guess it still is a BI Developer but maybe the required skills are placed under a different role, maybe an Analyst of some sort.
Is it usual for a front-end developer to specialize in specific tools, maybe 1 or 2, or they expected to know a full breadth of toolsets?
For a front-end type role, what should you focus your energy on learning to maximize job opportunities?
Best.
Paul.
Paul,
Thank you very much for your comment! Glad you enjoyed our post.
To answer your first question, we believe the most important skill to master (when thinking about career decisions as a BI front-end developer / BI Analyst) is your ability to place information into context. Placing information into context demands that you keenly listen to and thoroughly understand the needs of the consumers of the information. It is your job as a front-end developer to turn those info needs (requirements) into a tangible artifact(s).
How successful you are in meeting the consumers’ goals depends on how easily they are able to use your artifacts to positively impact the job they do and the decisions they make.
To follow on the above.
I would consider Tableau, Power BI, Qlikview, SSRS, SSAS Tabular, SQL, M, DAX, and small dataset modelling as a good number of front-end skills. If you do not work with each then it will be difficult to master them in your own time. Is there a specific few to master to put one in good stead as a front-end BI Developer with a crossover to an Analyst type role?
What is the future trend saying?
Best.
Paul.
And to answer your second question!
Most of the font-end BI tools will use SQL. Being able to get accurate data out of your source system is very important! Power BI is free and is a great starting point. The Microsoft product can bring a lot of value to most companies (even if they own other BI products) because it’s free. Also, DAX would be great to know if you are working with Power BI.
SSRS and SSAS are cheaper than other BI tools, so many companies have them as a result.
Tableau is a good front-end tool and has strong demand in the market. It’s definitely an expensive product, so deep knowledge in the product will likely only help if you’re at a company that can afford it. With that said, learning Tableau will teach you some great dashboard modeling techniques.
Qlikview is interesting…the tool has its own backend language and methodology. And it definitely has a big following. Learning Qlik would obviously be great if the company you’re at owns the product. But outside of an environment that owns the tool, mastering Qluk will not have a ton of benefit.
Does that help answer your question? We hope so. Thank you again for your comments!
Nice share up there
Hi
I have 5 years of experience in runbook automation. I want to enter BI profile now. What is the best way for me to do it. I dont have any experience in SQL or other programming language but i have some experience with splunk.
Should i continue with splunk or go for PowerBI or SQL depending on job market in india.
Hi Kushagra,
Thank you for your comment! That’s great that you want to enter the BI industry. We can’t speak for the job market in India, but we can speak for what we would recommend doing in the US.
While there are a ton of factors to consider here (so it’s hard for us to answer), we’d recommend becoming highly proficient in SQL first. SQL is the foundation for BI. You can then add proficiencies and expertise in market-leading tools like Microsoft PowerBI once you’ve become highly knowledgable in SQL.
We hope that helps and good luck!
Thanks,
The Key2 Consulting team
Hi
I have 5 years of experience as SQL Server database Administrator.
I want to move to BI field now.
Could you suggest right approach to do that, Any certification or tool which I can learn .
Any suggestion will be really helpful.
I am a newbie in IT but have worked in the oil and gas industry for 5 years. My desire is to become a Business Intelligence Analyst.
what career path of Business Intelligence Analyst will be best suited for me and how do I get certified?
Your recommendation is highly required.
Many thanks and regards
Barbara