A business analyst, in simple words, makes data-based decisions to improve a company’s efficiency, maximize revenue and fortify its processes. Data generated by companies usually go to waste even though it’s generated every day at an excellent workforce cost. The only solution for this is to use this information so they can tell a story about the company they belong to.
Business analysts, data scientists, and other positions have appeared to fill this area and help companies tell the story about how to make them better. Business Analysts and Data Analysts may appear the same cause they both use data to make informed decisions to improve a company’s performance. However, data analysts focus on processing data to identify trends and generate ideas. They tend to have significant competition with programming and data mining. A business analyst’s primary function is to use data to resolve current problems. They tend to work under a Business Intelligence team.
A business analyst’s primary responsibilities are not always clearly defined cause every company has different needs, so they have other issues to work through. Their responsibilities can be classified into the following phases: evaluation, analysis, report, project management, and problem resolution. In the evaluation phase, they evaluate ways to improve the efficiency of a business. When the analysis phase comes, they need to gather all data and use statistical methods to define trends; they may use R or Python, and Excel mainly. In Reporting, they translate the information into manageable significant reports to visualize the problems. In Project Management, they work with Project Managers, Stakeholders, and a specialized team to follow up on project advances to solve specific issues. Lastly, the Problem-Solving phase allows the stakeholders to implement solutions.
Applied statistics
Applied Statistics is the area of Statistics applied to every other science, such as Medicine, Economics, Sociology, History, Biology, Marketing, Psychology, etc. All these branches depend on data analysis to push their evolution, build new knowledge, gain advantages, and make decisions. Applied Statistics has a primary role in the changes we are experiencing in society.
Thanks to the computer progress in the last few decades and the current information, we answer questions that we could not solve before. We live in a data-driven transformation world, and never have so many decisions been made based on statistics as today.
R as a business analyst tool
Currently, the work of a business analyst covers various areas. From the political to the social and business, the proper use of tools can make the job much more painless. R is a friendly and accessible programming language with a proprietary IDE environment. We can work and make data mining much more user-friendly and quickly and easily transform ideas into code. One of the advantages of this multi-platform tool is its numerous calculations, statistics, and graphs made in a way it interprets data is so considerably easy for the person who will receive it.
To sum up
After finding out what Business Analysts do while becoming a company’s hero and fixing all their problems using data, if this path still interests you, this is the job for you. Learn what R is and learn everything you can about applied statistics so you can realize how the world can improve with the power of your intellect.