Business Intelligence

Question : Which one adds more value and has more pay?  Answer : Firstly, big data is a buzzword. There is data, and there are processes to derive information and insights from data. Business Intelligence is the concept/process of deriving information and insight from data to enable fact-based decision making to improve a business. So if you see it from that context, BI is an umbrella term and therefore all activities that are to do with deriving information and insights from data falls under BI. However, currently because of the hype almost every organization wants to showcase that they are also making use of big data, truth is, some of these companies have not even made use of basics (“easily available data”). I know at least two companies in Europe (Germany) where people were hired as big data developer but there was nothing for them to do there as there was no big data tech stack yet. So the answer to your question depends on which organization and what stage of data journ

Question : As an aspiring BI analyst which tools should I learn? Answer :  Please note that there are differences between a BI Analyst , BI BA , Data Analyst and Data Scientist. I will keep that for another post if you are interested. In general for a BI Analyst it is not mandatory to have programming skills or SQL skills. So based on this, here is the list as of today. SQL (must have) Python (good to have) Experience with at least one of the below listed tools is a "must have". Good to have experience in multiple tools. Power BI Tableau Microstrategy Desktop and Enterprise MS Excel (advanced) Google Sheets Google Data Studio Qlik Sense IBM Cognos Analytics Apart from these it is also important to have good communication and presentation skills. 

Question from a BI aspirant " Can I switch from Finance domain to BI? I have been working in Finance for 3 years, do I have to do masters in Business Analytics or Business Intelligence to get into BI? " Answer : Doing a masters in Business Analytics or Business Intelligence is one of the ways to get into BI and therefore is not mandatory. Please note that BI has various roles, for example ; BI Developer (Frontend/Reporting and Analytics platform, Backend/ETL developer), BI Analyst, BI BA, etc. So the path you take depends on the role you are interested in.

This week (on 19th Feb 2020) I completed 3 years of IBI. To celebrate it I have created a Dashboard in Google Data Studio. So from now on instead of using the charts in the Google Sheets I will use the Dashboard. Google Data Studio is more user friendly and mobile friendly too, also it comes with easy to use filters and drill down/up capabilities. PDF version of the first 2 pages of the shareable dashboard is attached below. I am happy to share the first 2 pages of the IBI Dashboard, reach out to me if you would like to get the Google Data Studio IBI dashboard. Once you get the dashboard (without my data of course) you can make a copy of it and point it to your IBI data (assuming you have started), add more charts, pages, etc., and use it for your benefit. Like with every year, this IBI year too I have learnt a lot about myself, made new mistakes, changed several things about me. The benefits of IBI is much more than we can think of. Use it to know it. And what are some of the