In a recent survey conducted by IIBA, we asked our corporate members what the future skill needs were for business Analysts.  The answer was that the number one skill area in 3 years was Data Analytics.  This indicates that BA’s are challenged to learn more about this field.  It does not mean that BA become Data Scientists with deep technical and statistical skills.  The IIBA has done additional research supported by many recent articles that talk to the role of the BA in several areas that support Business Data Analytics.  One insight that we have seen is that when BA’s are involved in data analytics teams, the outcomes improve and the business is better able to utilize and consume the results. 

The BA involvement starts in a familiar way.  It starts with understanding the business problem.  It looks at what data is needed to understand and gain insights in the problem space.  It looks at creating and designing the data experiments and assessing the results. The BA then leverages their skills as the ‘translator’ to make business requirements make sense fo the technical and data scientists.  When the results are brought forward, the BA will work to create visualizations to explain the data, but even more importantly they work to do the ‘storytelling’ and what the data says, what are the insights and not just throw out statistical data overload but to craft the story in a way that the business can examine it, and evaluate how it corresponds to their experience and ‘gut’ based sense of the business. 

This presentation will highlight these aspects, and show how Business Data Analytics is a logical extension of the practice of business analysis, and as a real improved value proposition to business leaders into how to get better results from their investments in data analytics, and business intelligence.