What is a Business Analyst?
A business analyst is like a guide who aids in enhancing various business processes, services, and products. A business analyst role plays a huge role in bridging the gap between business and information technology or IT to find different ways to improve efficiency within an organization.
What does a Business Analyst do?
A business analyst can be classified as a member of a team that ensures a business can keep its promises to its customers, no matter how many. The customer could be in hundreds, thousands, or millions. A person with a business analyst job should be willing to sustain in a dynamic environment, where the matter of significance is to drive important decisions to get the necessary results. It comes under the jurisdiction of business analyst skills to help bridge the gap in thorough understanding between an organisation’s management and complex data and technical systems that various businesses use to improve processes and decision-making.
Are you interested in becoming a significant part of a team and taking an organisation forward with some much-needed guidance? A business analyst job might be the answer for you!
Business Analyst job duties include:
• Production and delivery of standard reports, organisation’s regularly-used tools, etc., are all helpful for performing business analyst duties and making key business decisions.
• Supporting, creating, and constantly enhancing reports and metrics to bolster business operations.
• Transforming data into necessary insights and using intelligent and usable information using several relevant tools like Tableau.
• Curating and delivering crucial metrics and reports, along with relevant indicators using which business performance could be assessed.
• Studying large data sets thoroughly and answering key business questions with the use of SQL, Excel, and additional manipulation languages.
• Directly working in sync with business teams to utilise important metrics and analyse improvement opportunities.
There are a few tools for a business analyst that one must be familiar with, including:
• SQL (Oracle and Redshift)
• Quicksight
• Excel Advanced VBA
• Tableau
• Internal report scheduling tools
Job role for Business Analyst
Innovation is key to any environment that seeks to take itself forward and ensure the trust of its clientele. Whether your goal is to drive meaningful decisions and become an important part of a much bigger team or to have the ability to solve a business’ complex problems, a job for a business analyst sounds like a direction you might wish to move forward in.
One must keep in mind various responsibilities to safeguard their place as a crucial part of the team. Being able to have the necessary business analyst job skills also plays a huge role in helping you get the job and make the necessary decisions and come to key conclusions to move the business in the right direction.
A business analyst job requires one to have all the significant qualifications along with relevant experience in the field to perform several functions.
Responsibilities of a Business Analyst
As mentioned above, a business analyst job has a few responsibilities that one should take upon themselves like:
• Having all the requisite information of the stakeholders and business owners to have them acquainted with the current, past, and future status of the business’ various operations.
• Must have to take care of financial planning and pricing
• Should define various business requirements
• Must create different business and variance analysis
• Outline problems, solutions, and business opportunities
• Must forecast and adhere to budget allocated and forecast business goals
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Requirements for a Business Analyst Job
Here are a few of the must-have business analyst qualifications and requirements that one must have in order to land the job:
• Experience with ETL or SQL
• Experience in defining major requirements along with usage of relevant metrics and data to come to necessary conclusions related to business
• Must show relevant work experience in a role for applying analytical skills in order to integrate them into the business
• Joining multiple datasets along with ETL DW concepts to create complex SQL Queries
• Must showcase strong analytical skills, which can aid in analysing the correct data, ability to ask right questions, and conclude as per appropriate assumptions
• One should have experience with reporting & with Data Visualization tools, for example, Tableau, Quick Sight, Power BI, etc.
• A business analyst job requires one to have an advanced ability to draw insights and conclusions based on the data available with them and communicate them clearly to the business’ stakeholders and senior management as per their requirements.
• Should be self-driven with an ability to deliver on projects which are ambiguous and have incomplete data.
• An ability and interest in working in a fast-paced, ambiguous and rapidly-changing environment
• Solid communication skills and team player
• Must have applied knowledge to manage as well as prioritise workload
Business Analyst Qualifications
• A Master’s Degree in Statistics, Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or Mathematics
• Have experience to use very large datasets
• 3+ years’ experience in a BI role, preferably with a technology company or any financial institution
• 3+ years’ experience in curating complex Excel VBA macros
• Knowledge of automation scripting (like Python, Ruby, Perl)
• Knowledge of using Python / R, etc. for data analysis and statistical tools like SAS
Average Salary of a Business Analyst
The average salary for business analysts in Malaysia can vary based on experience, location, and specific employer.
General Salary Overview
- Entry-Level (0-2 years of experience): Approximately RM 50,000 - RM 80,000 per annum.
- Mid-Level (3-5 years of experience): Approximately RM 80,000 - RM 120,000 per annum.
- Senior-Level (5+ years of experience): Approximately RM 120,000 - RM 200,000 per annum.
Salary by City
| City | Average Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| Kuala Lumpur | RM 100,000 |
| Petaling Jaya | RM 90,000 |
| Johor Bahru | RM 85,000 |
| Penang | RM 80,000 |
| Kota Kinabalu | RM 75,000 |
Salary by Industry
| Industry | Average Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| Information Technology | RM 110,000 |
| Financial Services | RM 100,000 |
| Consulting | RM 95,000 |
| Manufacturing | RM 90,000 |
Salary by Top Employers
| Company | Average Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| Maybank | RM 180,000 |
| CIMB Bank | RM 170,000 |
| Accenture | RM 160,000 |
| Deloitte | RM 150,000 |
This overview indicates that business analysts in Malaysia can expect varying salaries based on their experience and the type of employer. The demand for skilled professionals in business analysis is significant as organizations focus on leveraging data to drive decision-making and improve processes.
Business Analyst Skills
Apart from the basic qualifications, one must have these key skills for a business analyst job:
• Knowledge of trends and identifying the “whys.”
• Deal with ambiguity and taking up challenges
• Teamwork and ease of work
• Multitask on projects and drive them to closure
• Technical knowledge to extract results using necessary insights and data
• Present and report the happening effectively to leaders
Why pursue a career as a Business Analyst?
The job of a business analyst is one where an individual can hone their skills in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment. Taking a business analyst job as a career is perfect for ones who would love to put their skills to better use by extracting some necessary information with insightful data.
How to Become a Business Analyst?
In order to have a lucrative career in a business analyst job, one could go for the following courses:
• A Diploma course in business analysis as a major after completing 10+2 education from a recognised education board like CBSE.
• An Undergraduate program course after passing 10+2 from an authoritative or recognised education board.
• A postgraduate program in the field of business analytics spanning 3 years. An aspirant is required to complete their graduation beforehand.
More Resources : Business Analyst interview questions | Business development executive interview questions | Business Analyst vs. Data Analyst: Choosing the Right Path
