Have you ever wondered how the government intelligence agencies, such as the FBI, work?
The agencies work by collecting intelligence within and outside the organization. They acquire the information from people, places, and various sources to come up with data that helps to unearth a situation.
If you are in business, you also require intelligence to help you collect and analyze data to make crucial business decisions. Every business needs business intelligence because you need to know the emerging trends in the industry that are likely to influence the market. If your business has been experiencing revenue loss, you need to have the skills required to understand why it is happening and the appropriate steps to take. To acquire those skills find a Business Intelligence course for you from the best learning platforms out there.
So, who is a business intelligence developer, what are the job description, the average salary, and what are their responsibilities and skills? Also, what does a business intelligence analyst do?
What Is a Business Intelligence Developer: Role Description, Responsibilities, and Skills
Business intelligence refers to the different technologies and strategies companies and organizations use to get actionable information. The crucial information is then provided to managers and the executives in the company to make informed business decisions.
Business intelligence is an integral part of running modern organizations. Companies collect massive data during their day-to-day running of the organization. The data can come from conducting market surveys, company budgeting, sales volumes, collecting customer information, etc.
After collecting the data, a business intelligence developer comes in to help leverage the data. They use BI tools and software to get useful insights from the data collected, and the insights are used in making crucial business decisions.
Business intelligence is significant for an organization. It helps to identify opportunities for business growth, determine employees' productivity, detect risks and threats, raise the profit share, and reduce costs and wastage in the company.
The BI tools used by business intelligence developers help to analyze data and present analytical data findings to the company's management. The analytical data can be presented in graphs, maps, dashboards, summaries, and charts that help the company managers and executives understand the state of the business.
The position of a business intelligence developer is found in the offices of large IT firms and corporations. It requires a combination of technical skills such as programming, database, analyzing, communication, among others.
It also helps a lot if the business intelligence developer has a head for business as it allows them to come up with insights with business in mind.
The most critical role of BI developers involves critical thinking and problem-solving. As a BI developer, you spend a lot of time researching and coming up with solutions to the company's problems, including loss of revenue, emerging market trends, and dealing with stiff competition.
The developers work with databases, both relational and dimensional, and they also have the responsibility of building online analytical processing (OLAP).
Skills of a Business Intelligence (BI) Developer
The job of a business intelligence developer requires skills that can vary depending on the type of project. For the sake of the full business intelligence developer job description, here are some of the skills that you need:
Experience With Business Intelligence Developer Tools
As a business intelligence developer, you are responsible for building and maintaining BI interfaces. You also need to have experience in the software development of business intelligence products or configuring existing ones.
If you customize a BI product, you need experience in scripting languages, python knowledge, and data visualization. You should also understand data integration tools, ELT/ETL processes, and data warehouse architecture.
BD/DBA Background
A business intelligence developer should have experience dealing with databases like SQL Server/NoSQL queries are the main subjects of concern. The business intelligence systems require the business intelligence developer to deal with data models or data distribution in various databases.
Business Analysis Skills
Having business analysis skills is crucial in business intelligence. At the beginning of a business intelligence project, having business analysis skills helps you set precise requirements for software requirements and make essential strategic decisions.
Data Analysis
It is not a requirement for business intelligence developers to be data scientists. However, experience in data science comes in handy in warehousing such as warehouse design and data modeling.
Data analysis also helps the business intelligence developers to understand business intelligence system requirements.
Software Engineering
It is also crucial for a business intelligence (BI) developer to have software engineering skills. The skills will depend on the platform you wish to launch your BI system on.
Most business intelligence platforms are multiplatform, meaning you can access them on your browser, or as an app on your desktop or mobile device.
Your knowledge of programming language will depend on the platform you use to launch the BI system.
Troubleshooting and Debugging
All the stages in developing BI systems, including designing, developing, and maintaining the system, require you to have troubleshooting skills.
You need to know how to deal with data complexities, including data access, updates, security, and BI system maintenance.
Communication Skills
While most of the skills above are hard and technical skills, business intelligence developers require soft skills such as communication skills.
As such, the BI developer can explain the challenging business intelligence concepts to company managers and executives in a way they can understand. This is especially helpful if the company managers are not knowledgeable in BI systems matters.
BI Developer as a Career
What are the business requirements to join business intelligence as a career?
To become a business intelligence (BI) developer, you must have at least a bachelor's degree in computer science or programming. It will also help if you have a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). An MBA requires professional experience, enhancing your career prospects as a business intelligence (BI) developer.
The most critical traits of a BI developer include:
- Excellent analytical skills
- Business skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Firm decision maker
- Organization skills
The average salary of a business intelligence (BI) developer in the United States is $84, 430 per year, or $41 per hour. The BI developers at the top 10% can make more than $104,000 per year, while the bottom 10% make under $67,000 a year.
If you get a job as a business intelligence (BI) developer, your focus in the organization is to solve problems.
You'll research the available solutions and plan how to execute them to solve current and future problems.
You will also use relational and multidimensional databases to build online analytical processes (OLAP).
The most common duties and responsibilities of BI developers include:
- Providing BI reports and tools
- Preparing technical documents on BI systems content
- Mapping the different databases in the company
- Designing, developing, and analyzing data architecture and data warehouses
- Perform SQL queries to create useful information
Business Intelligence Tools
Business developer tools refer to software used in data analysis. The business developer tools help the organization to understand trends in their data.
The tools can process large amounts of structured and unstructured data for analysis. A business intelligence (BI) developer uses the analysis to prepare dashboards and create reports and data visualizations.
Business intelligence tools employ advanced analytics such as big data analytics, data mining, statistical analysis, and predictive analysis.
You can also use modern business intelligence tools such as simple UI interfaces or flexible back-ends. The modern tools are easy for people to use instead of having specialized data architects to read them.
The purpose of the business intelligence tools is to effortlessly collect, analyze, and submit the company management's data findings. There are lots of business intelligence tools in the market, but the most popular ones include SAP Business Intelligence, Zoho Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, and Tableau.
Business Intelligence Developer certifications
Certifications are not required for business intelligence developers. However, having the certifications gives you a competitive edge over other developers, and it is proof to potential employers that you are qualified to handle the task.
Some of the certifications of a BI developer include:
- Certified Business Intelligence Professional (CBIP). The certification is intended for senior personnel in the technology and information system industries, focusing on business analytics and data management. The certification shows you are conversant and up-to-date with business intelligence systems and technologies. It also demonstrates that you are knowledgeable about the emerging trends, best practices, and solutions
- Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate. The Microsoft Certified Data Analyst Associate certification proves that you are an expert in the subject matter. It shows you can design scalable data models, provide business value and transform data. You need to pass the Analyzing Data with Microsoft Power BI to pass the certification exam
Conclusion
If you did not know what a business intelligence developer is and what their responsibilities are, search no more. You can find all the information about what a BI developer is and the requirements and certifications you need to become one. Additionally, you'll find the developer's roles, which include analyzing data and presenting to the company management in a format they can understand. Apart from critical and analytical skills, the developer should have communication skills to communicate their findings effectively. The data findings are essential in making vital decisions regarding the company's growth.
