Career Advice
Paul Brown
27.11.20
1. Job security
With organisations becoming more data-centric every day, BI consultants have become a sought-after asset to businesses. A role within the Business Intelligence field is relevant to every industry, as it is a medium between technological understanding and business thinking. FDM’s BI Consultants are the link between business users and the data itself, helping stakeholders to interpret structured and unstructured data and make better decisions.
As the volume of data becoming available to organisations is ever-growing, so is the need for professionals who can understand and interpret it. Therefore, roles within Business Intelligence and data are set to become more and more in demand as they are crucial to making business operations smarter and more profitable.
2. Exciting career opportunities
Pursuing a position within Business Intelligence presents many opportunities for a satisfying and exciting career. BI consultants are essential for decision making on all levels within companies and are highly valued by senior stakeholders. With the insights they derive from data, BI professionals reveal trends, opportunities, problem areas and information that shapes the future of businesses.
Business Intelligence consultants often work on exciting projects towards the development of new technologies or organisational strategies. Many of our clients are financial institutions who take their data very seriously. At FDM, we have consultants working for major European banks as data stewards and visualisation tool experts, but we also have non-finance related placements.
For instance, we’ve partnered with a power station client to work on a new project where our BI consultants help gather a vast array of data, from weather forecasts to social event information, so that the power station is able to make intelligent predictions on the level of power demand on any given day. On another exciting project, our consultants have supported a client in the media sector, working on an international digital advertising platform.
3. Career paths and job prospects within BI
The FDM Academy provides the fundamentals of BI concepts and uses industry standard Microsoft tools to teach them in action. Once you have completed your training, you will have the basis and the knowledge to pursue a career in BI across a variety of job prospects depending on your skills and interests. Once you have reached two to four years of experience, you can easily move on to a more senior role managing your own teams and projects, such as Head of BI or Data Insight. Here are some of the most common roles within BI:
- Business Intelligence Analyst is responsible for the understanding of large sets of organisational data. They develop business processes and strategies based on their findings.
- Business Intelligence Developer is more technical. They are responsible for the building and/or improving of BI solutions and transforming source data into consistent formats ready for dashboards and reporting. They are also responsible for managing database applications.
- BI Engineer works together with BI Analysts and Developers as well as clients, customers and various internal departments. Their job involves the improvement of data-based processes and tools as well as their implementation.
- Business Intelligence Project Manager is accountable for the successful delivery of a variety of projects, including the coordination of a team to successfully build and deploy data warehouses, portals, apps and other BI-reporting deliverables.
Other roles can include SQL Server Business Intelligence Developer, BI Semantic Model Developer, Data Analyst and more.
4. Opportunities for personal development
Organisations have realised the benefits of BI and those practices are now applied in every industry, from IT and software to healthcare, retail and government projects. This gives our consultants the opportunity to pursue a BI role from a range of areas or industries that they have personal interest in.
Our BI training teaches our consultants how to use popular industry tools. However, these tools are constantly evolving and changing, and it is very likely that you will have to learn new tools and constantly challenge yourself to stay ahead of industry trends.
5. You don’t need to have a technical background to be successful in BI
In order to launch your career in BI, you don’t necessarily need a background in IT. You already have some of the most important skills and qualities required from your university or work experience that can be easily applied to a career in IT. Some examples are:
- Communication skills in order to understand requirements and present finding to business users
- Teamwork skills and the ability to cooperate with others
- Problem solving and ability to work under pressure
- Attention to details
BI consultants are the links between business users and the data, and therefore you must have a passion for IT and data as well as the ability to learn SQL, databases and other technologies needed to perform the duties of a BI Consultant.
Does a role as a Business Intelligence Analyst sound like the right career prospect for you? Check out our Business Intelligence Graduate Programme and discover the first steps you need to take to secure your role in this exciting field.