Business Analyst Or Business Analytics : Know Before You Choose
Business Analytics is a science that deals with a combination of Data Analytics, Business Intelligence and Computer Programming. In simpler words, it is a science of data analysis find out patterns that will help develop new business strategies or the science of dealing with data of past business performance and coming out with meaningful insight that can be applied to new planning, business modelling, fact-based management for improved decision making process.
MBA in Business Analytics combines the fields of management, business and computer science. The business part involves a high-level understanding of the business as well as the practical limitations that exist and need to be considered. While the analytical part brings insight on an understanding of data, statistics and computer science.
Therefore such kind of combination of the two fields i.e. management and technology allows business analysts to bridge the gap between management and technology. Apart from this, effective communication and problem-solving abilities are the elements business analytics learn that help them to translate insights from data to information that can be easily communicated to concerned stakeholders across a business.
Students of Business analytics are able to make extensive use of analytical modelling and numerical analysis as well, including explanatory and predictive modelling. This they combine with fact-based management to help in better decision making.
The analytics can be used as inputs for human decisions or may be used to drive fully automated decisions. Business analytics professionals can reply to questions like what happened and why, what will happen if this type of trend continues (predict), and what are the best possible actions that can be taken (optimize).
Business analysts Vs Business Analytics Professionals: The difference?
Many try to confuse between the two, especially the aspiring students.
Business Analysts have less to do with data and focuses instead on analyzing and optimizing the processes and functions that make up a business. Typically, they analyze what a business needs to function optimally, then find out what it needs to improve, and then work to implement solutions (which may include improving processes, changing policies or introducing new technology).
Their working environment and partners are different. For example, a business analyst may work a client, with a particular requirement and also the development team (that either builds a product or delivers a service to meet that requirement).
As against, Business Analytics professionals focus on data, their statistical analysis and reporting to help investigate and analyze business performance, provide insights, and finally derive recommendations to improve performance.
Even if they work with internal / external clients, their main focus remains on improvement of a product or service (marketing or customer experience) by deriving insights from data (instead of analysing processes and functions). So data remain the main focus always for business analytics.
MBA in Data Analytics or Data Science and Business Analytics is still at a nascent stage in India although the field now is gaining popularity among management aspirant. Many of the prominent colleges in India have started offering data science courses
However, mostly students who opt for such courses are usually those who have some level of work experience take up Data Science and Business Analytics courses. This is also one of the reasons why in India Data Science and Business Analytics students mostly opt for such courses at postgraduate level.
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