Welcome to The Career Force. I'm Jen. Today we're talking about the
differences of a business analyst vs data analyst. There are a lot of
similarities between these roles which can cause them to be a little confusing
to people. There are a few key differences though. Are you ready for an
analytics career? Get the comprehensive guide "How to Become a Data Analyst".
Topics include key skills and how to build them, career paths, gaining
experience, and launching your career. Check out the link in the description
for more. Let's take a look at business analyst vs data analyst. We'll talk
about what they focus on, who they mainly interact with, and the main skills that
are needed for each of these roles. First, let's look at the focus of a business
analyst vs data analyst. The main focus of a business analyst is
analyzing the organization, processes or problems through a business lens. As the
name implies, they're heavy on the business aspect. On the other hand, while
the work at data analysts does is used to make business decisions, their focus
is primarily on the data side of things and analyzing that data. Because business
analysts focus heavily on the business side of things, they're going to need
strong communication and leadership skills. In many cases this leadership is
going to involve influencing without authority or influencing people even
when you don't manage them. This means your powers of persuasiveness
are especially important as a business analyst. You need to be able to relate
and connect with people and communicate the importance of the work you're doing
and get buy-in of why it's valuable for that person to participate all as part
of doing your job as a business analyst. Sure there are times when management's
going to dictate that certain people have to provide things or have to work
with you but you're going to be a much stronger business analyst if you work on
those persuasiveness and influencing skills. Data analysts need skills that
are stronger in the data area. While you do need communication and leadership
skills to be a really outstanding analyst, it's equally as important or more
critical even that you have skills when it comes to working with data whether
that's programming or math and statistical skills. That's going to be
your primary focus area as a data analyst. Still spend time building those
communication, leadership, persuasiveness, influencing skills. They're great to have
as a data analyst. But also spend a lot of time on how you analyze data, how you
visualize data because these are going to be key components of how you
communicate and what you communicate to the rest of the organization. Business
analysts will also spend some time analyzing data and visualizing data,
however, not to the degree that a data analyst typically will. They're
either dealing with simpler data sets to work with or doing simpler
visualizations, but in general - in most roles - they're not going to be spending
the amount of time that a data analyst is on this visualization and data
analysis part. Let's look at the type of background you need to be a business
analyst vs data analyst. A data analyst will typically have some sort of
math or programming background though not always. They will have some stronger
technical skills than most people in the organization though. There are data
analytics and data scientist degrees available now but it's safe to say that
most people entering these jobs don't have one of these specialized degrees
because they're just not as widespread as math degrees are which you can get at
most colleges and universities. And if you graduated more than five years ago
then you probably didn't go to the handful of colleges or programs in the
country that offered a data analyst degree. You could also transition into a
data analyst career if you have a strong technical background and have built up
your data analyst skills over time. A business analyst on the other hand is
more likely to have a business background though some business analysts
have that same background as a data analyst. It really comes
down to what you choose to specialize in. It's extremely common for people to
transition from business analyst to data analyst or data analyst to
business analyst during their career based on which aspect of the job they
found more enjoyable and that they tend to be better at. A business analyst
who really likes the programming or the data side of things may decide to
transition into being a data analyst and a data analyst that really likes to work
on solving practical problems may decide to transition to a business analyst
where they're more hands-on in the business. There's also some variability
depending on how companies implement the role and how you personally perform the
role. There are definitely business analyst roles out there and people in
business analyst roles that tend to be very technical business analysts. And
there are people in data analyst roles that tend to be very business oriented
data analysts or very problem-solving focused data analysts. In terms of pay,
both of these positions are fairly similar with pay starting out in the
high 70s to low 80s. Data analysts tend to pay a little bit more because they
tend to need more specific technical expertise that's not as widespread
available as business analyst backgrounds. There are more people
graduating with business degrees than with data analysts and math degrees so
the pool of candidates tends to be larger for business analysts than data
analysts which also drives a slightly higher salary. At the end of the day,
there's not a huge difference and you shouldn't make a decision on which of
these fields you go into based on the pay because it's within a few thousand
dollars of each other. And if you're an outstanding business analyst your pay is
going to go up better over time then if you're not that great of a data analyst
and you're just doing it because you start out with three thousand dollars
more a year. With the numbers we're talking about in terms of pay, you'll be
well paid and what you decide to spend your money on is going to make a much
bigger difference than the actual salary difference between
those two positions of business analyst vs data analyst. those are the key
differences and some similarities between a business analyst vs data
analyst. Were you surprised by any of them?Let me know in the comments below.
Or if you have other questions about the differences or similarities let me know
below. I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you so much for watching. Please like and
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