As you start this new year.
Maybe there are a few things you are excited about.
One of those could be the possibility to earn a side income or
full-time income as a Power BI Consultant,
but you most likely also have some fears and doubts,
especially whether this is really the right time.
I'm going to share three key insights with you. Plus a bonus one,
on 2021 trends you must know about if you're considering this
path of a Power BI Consultant. I'm Avi Singh,
Power BI Pro and Microsoft MVP.
And I've been involved with Power BI consulting,
pretty much since the year Power BI was born.
And not only have I helped a lot of companies.
I've also trained and coached others to become successful
Power BI Professionals. If you would like to find out more about that program,
then just click the link in the description or in the corner. Now,
before we even talk about Power BI consulting,
let's first acknowledge that Power BI has become a
dominant force in BI industry.
And that's not just because it's a great tool, but of course,
Microsoft strategy to pretty much give it away for free by
bundling it with their Office suite of software.
Now agreed there is competition, but trust me,
that is a good thing because that is going to encourage Microsoft to keep
innovating. If we look at Microsoft's track record,
they seem to do the worst when there's no competition around.
So overall Power BI does itself seems to have a bright future ahead.
Now let's talk about the three specific trends that are going to impact Power BI
Consulting. The first key factor, which is going to impact the,
this path of Power BI consulting is the big elephant in the room.
The pandemic. Now this has certainly been an extremely challenging time,
not just on a personal level, but certainly for businesses worldwide as well,
but there is a silver lining. Now,
if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture,
economic cycle does go through this boom and bust and boom and bust and as
painful as it may seem right now,
we do eventually come out of it and we come out stronger and better.
We have seen this in the past. In fact,
if we were to take one example of one of the biggest crisis in the world,
which is the second world war,
we can draw some parallels between that and this from an economic perspective.
Now there are three factors here. The first of which is this massive investment.
And of course, in, during the world war,
that was focused on arms and ammunition, defense and so forth, right?
Right now in the current circumstances,
the massive investment has been made around the healthcare sector,
but there are other factors as well.
During these unprecedented times you know what they say,
necessity is the mother of invention. So there is always a lot of innovation.
In fact, a lot of innovative companies have been founded during the recession.
That's been true over the times and that's been true.
Even if you look at the most recent financial crisis of 2007 to
2009, so a lot of innovation tends to happen. And of course,
that's what we saw in the second world war. And we are going to be seeing now,
and we are seeing now in the current circumstances.
And the third factor is that the spillover effect.
So even if the focus during the world war was just in defense,
but it spilled over to all of the sectors. Once the you know,
we went from bust to boom cycle, right? It spread to other sectors,
automotive manufacturing and so forth. And that is inevitably,
what's going to happen with you know, with us going forward as well,
is that the massive investment and innovation that has happened in healthcare,
but in other industries sectors as well,
it's going to spill over to other sectors as well. Now, of course,
some may benefit more than the others,
but it may also spawn new areas and sectors,
which nobody can think of right now.
Just as the research and investment into defense gave birth to
the internet.
The key message here is that there are these boom and bust cycles
and breakthroughs come from breakdowns.
So we're going through the hard phase right now, but the boom is coming,
but how does it impact really the life of a Power BI consultant?
You're going to see that when you combine this first factor with the second
and third insight that we're going to mention.
The second key factor that's going to impact the path of Power BI Consulting are
layoffs. As we've gone through this crisis,
the economy has contracted really fast and people have lost
millions of jobs across the world and as painful as it has been,
believe it or not,
this is actually going to be a positive factor for somebody considering the
Power BI consultant path. And that's because of two reasons,
the first one being that the way the economy contracts,
isn't the same way it expands.
When it contracts as we have been doing for the past several months,
it sheds off these jobs, right? I mean, there are massive layoffs. And again,
depending on the size of the company,
companies have laid off hundreds to thousands,
to tens of thousands of employees.
And that can happen quite suddenly and painfully. But when the, and again,
we've talked about, this goes back to our first point, which is,
which are the bust and the boom cycles.
So when a boom cycle follows and economy is growing and
it's really hot, well, and of course BI is a key sector.
Any company that's moving fast,
that's growing fast are going to need a lot of analytics on how things are
going, where things are changing and of course, how their competitors are doing.
So they're going to need all of that. They're going to need this,
those personnel,
but you can't hire everybody as fast as you have laid
them off, right? It's just doesn't work the same way.
Anybody who has been on the hiring side of a company knows that. I have,
it's painful. You have to go through all the approvals.
You've got to go through HR, then go through the interview process and all.
It takes time.
It can take sometimes an year or more to find and hire the right candidate.
So of course, in a boom cycle, they're going to have the need for,
for this people, this manpower around business intelligence, data intelligence.
So they're going to look towards the consultant, the part-time folks,
and so forth, right? So that's the first factor.
And the second factor is something which has actually already been in play
even before the pandemic. Now,
this is a trend that companies are kind of stepping away from this
employee mode and hiring more kind of part-time full-time side
gig economy workers. So again,
this trend has been in play even before the pandemic,
but with the pandemic,
this is simply going to be accelerated so layoffs have been painful,
but because of these two factors that's actually going to help somebody who is
going to be on the path to Power BI consultant.
Let's see how number one and number two,
link with a third key trend.
The third tip that I'm going to share before we get into our bonus tip is
about Remote Power BI consulting.
Now I've been in this industry for a long time,
and I have students all over the world. And before the pandemic,
when companies would reach out to me looking for a resource,
I would often try to connect them with one of my students.
But sometimes they would be very insistent. They would say that, Hey,
we need a local resource.
We need somebody who can come into our office and work with us. Now,
things have certainly changed now because companies have been forced to work
with a remote workforce. But for the most part,
there are some challenges, but people have realized that it can be very,
very effective. And in some cases it can open up a lot more options.
So it's a great option for companies to open up to this remote workforce,
to open up to this idea of remote consulting, remote work, because for one,
they can tap into a global workforce,
but it's certainly also great for the consultant.
Now that's one thing that I've always enjoyed about that kind of work because it
gives you a lot of flexibility.
You have the flexibility to choose who you work with because you can now work
with pretty much anybody, any company, anywhere in the world,
you have the flexibility of where you work geographically. So I know for me,
sometimes I'm based in India here in Seattle, in USA,
but sometimes I visit my parents in India.
And as long as I have a high-speed internet access,
I can really be helping clients from anywhere in the world. And lastly,
of course, is that you have the flexibility to choose your hours,
choose your time.
You don't have to punch in the clock from nine to five or anything.
I would typically check in with my client once a week,
but then I'm free to choose the hours when I work.
And when I spend time with my family or on some other activity. Now,
before we move on to the bonus step,
I do want to share that enrollment to our training and coaching program
for Power BI consultants is going to be opening soon. This is for again,
for somebody who's looking to earn a side income or full-time income as a Power
BI consultant,
you can find out more information by clicking on the link in the description or
in one of the corners up here. So we've talked about these three key factors,
which is going to really fuel the growth on this path of Power BI Consulting.
First is this big trend that you know,
this economic cycles of boom and bust, and we are going through a hard time,
but the boom is coming next.
And of course the second factor was that the companies have shrank really fast,
but they can't grow that fast.
So they must supplement their workforce when they need.
Especially around Power BI and data analytics with consulting or part time
staff.
And the third factor was this openness towards remote Power BI
consulting. The last bonus trend or factor I'm going to mention is
about supply and demand. So these three factors, as you can see,
are going to greatly fuel the demand for Power BI consulting, but of course,
supply and demand go hand in hand. As soon as something becomes really hot,
a technology or something; well, the supply is going to pour in.
And if you look at that, it's already happening. I mean,
Power BI is a hot technology. And if you just look at the LinkedIn activity,
there are a lot more people interested in Power BI, trying to learn Power BI,
trying to upskill on Power BI than ever before.
So of course, now that is a bit of a double-edged sword.
In a way that's good because those people are,
which is going to fuel this growth in the sector.
How do you compete with that? If you do go on this path,
how do you make sure that you can continue to earn clients
even as other talent kind of pours in how do you you know,
how can you avoid having to keep cutting your rates and,
and working for less money as this new talent pours in?
And so that's the kind of the double-edged sword of this.
So I just wanted to make you aware of that,
and we're going to dive deeper into this topic and how you can not
only side step this,
the supply and demand game,
but turn this into your favor, have that work in your favor.
We're going to cover that in our second video as part of this series and it's
going to be about "Why *NO ONE* should be a Power BI Consultant".
I'll see you in the next video until then Power on my friend.