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Post By Admin Last Updated At 2021-04-22
Business Analyst Vs Data Analyst: Understanding key differences

While comparing the roles and duties of a Business Analyst vs Data Analyst is quite confusing. Sometimes in many business units, both roles are identical as they mainly deal with numbers, data analytics, and systems. From the business perspective, there are some key distinctions between Business analyst vs data analyst roles. The name suggests that a DA mainly deals with data analysis within an enterprise where a BA deals with different business processes and their analysis. Thus, in this blog, we are going to analyze the important contrasts between these two roles and their various aspects. 

Choosing the right path is very difficult for a business unit and also for a student getting into making a career. Likewise, BA and DA are also two emerging and great areas to explore in the business domain. 

Before we go in-depth in this discussion, we should know about a BA and a data analyst in brief.

What is Business Analyst?

A Business Analyst is a person within an enterprise who prepares a strong solution to deal with various business issues. He is generally accountable for the various practices in business. Such as-

  • Locating business needs, issues, and building solutions.
  • Describing various business cases.
  • Helping in decision-making.
  • Involving in project management and development.
  • Interacting with different teams of an enterprise.
  • Getting updated with the latest technologies and suggest business management adopt them.

What is Data Analyst?

A data analyst is a person who analyzes business data through the use of various tools to make informed decisions. But the role sounds similar to the BA role but a data analyst direct deals with the business data. He mainly deals with building and maintaining databases and data systems. Data mining, cleaning, and making clear reports from the extracts and convey the same with various stakeholders. 

Hence, this is in brief about Business Analyst vs data analyst and their aspects. Let us know the detailed analysis of both in further context.

Business analyst vs Data analyst

Business analyst vs Data analyst which is better

Here, we will check the key distinctions between Business Analysts vs data analyst in different areas. Also, we will try to know which is better in making a great career among the two.

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A typical Business analyst uses various strategies to analyze business ethics, processes and makes a detailed analysis. He might review different types of data like work habits, work challenges of employees, technology changes identify, etc. Also, he brings in the solution for those issues and applies it to work out positive results. He involves in making Quality testing, validating solutions, project handling, and its development process, etc. 

Similarly, a DA gathers important business data, stats, and other information that helps him to build reports. He mostly spends his time in data analysis and making relevant reports on them. Moreover, a data analyst presents those reports to the different teams of an enterprise. This helps them to work more to achieve great results. A data analyst generally performs data entry services, preparing dashboards and managing them, building various client-facing reports, etc. These reports and docs are the basis for making good and informed decisions.

These are some of the prospects of both areas in the business context. Let us know the key contrasts between Business analyst vs Data analyst in different segments.

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Business analyst vs Data analyst roles 

Whenever a business needs a strong solution for its existing and future issues, the role of a Business analyst becomes crucial. He needs to build a strong firewall solution to protect the existing business and improve it well. Moreover, he should perform the following things-

  • Good data research and analysis for making solutions from a large amount of data.
  • Use the technologies to identify business data and its process very easily.
  • Identify and understand various problems of stakeholders and business users.
  • Documenting business needs and analyze them well.
  • Furthermore, he should make sure of various business needs available.
  • Locate problematic areas of business and understand them to build a solid solution.
  • Also, manages the various challenges and changes that a project lifecycle face.

Within the Business analyst vs data analyst, a data analyst needs to check the various facts of business. He (DA) mainly deals with data research and explanation. But out of that, he is responsible for many other performances. Such as-

  • Conducting thorough analysis and research of customer data.
  • Getting useful insights from the large business data storage.
  • Working keenly on the customer-centric algorithms and models.
  • Perform good quantitative analysis to support daily decision-making.
  • Offer support to build reports and analysis, financial reports, KPIs, and dashboard maintenance, and advancement.
  • Moreover, he should apply his skills to transform the analyzed data into visuals, metrics, etc. for easy understanding.

Thus, these are the different roles of both BA and DA in detail. Now we have to know the important skills behind their growth within any enterprise.

Business Analyst vs Data Analyst skills

Every position needs certain skills to deal with either simple or complex tasks within an organization. 

In the Business analyst vs data analyst comparison, the skill set that a BA should possess is a graduate in business admin, finance, economics, etc. Also, there are some essential skills that a BA should have to execute his daily tasks. Such as-

  • The person should have extreme data research expertise.
  • He should have a quantitative mindset, analytical thinking, problem-solving, etc.
  • Exposure to the latest technologies like SAP, SQL, along with MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, etc.
  • He possesses strong knowledge of project management.
  • Skills to identify crucial data much faster.
  • He should be able to convey well with business leaders, team members, etc.

Then coming to the Data analyst skillset, he needs to concentrate more on numerical data and a Masters’sDegree is good enough. They typically possess skills in coding languages, data modeling skills, and predictive analytics as a core. Rather than these skills they should have-

  • Good analytical and reporting knowledge with soft skills.
  • Able to mine data from different resources, knowledge of data frameworks, etc.
  • A data analyst should have coding skills like Python, R, SQL, ML, etc.
  • Also, he should be good in numbers, applying agile development methods, and have the interest to learn modern technologies.

Hence, these are the important skills that both BA and DA should possess. On the basis of these skills, one can judge the perfect candidate for the suitable role. Let us move further to learn more qualities of them.

Business analyst vs data analyst salary

Salary is an important part of every working people working for an enterprise, company, firm, etc. Getting a decent salary is the ultimate purpose of any employee. Thus, a business analyst generally earns an average annual salary of $78,500/p.a. And it is the highest one across industries. The other factors that affect the BA’s salary are the candidate’s experience, work profile, location, company standards, etc. With a higher qualification and skillset, a Business analyst can earn up to $110K/p.a. 

On the contrary, a data analyst earns an average global annual salary of $723K/p.a. In India, a data analyst can earn p.a. Rs.424K/- having mid-level work experience. A well-experienced and matured DA can earn up to Rs. 900K/p.a. within India. 

Hence, in the coming days, we can see good growth in the wages/emoluments of both BAs and DAs. Many business units are changing their phase of doing business with the changing trends. So, we can say that BAs have a good chance to have a successful career in the Business analyst vs data analyst battle.

Business analyst vs data analyst-Responsibilities

There are a number of duties that a business analyst & data analyst have. The following duties are the important ones for a Business Analyst.

  • His major role is to deal with a large amount of data.
  • Addressing various business needs and resources is a very crucial task.
  • Business escalations relating to various issues and finding solutions.
  • Locating different business advance areas.
  • Helping business management in decision-making and process evolution.
  • Moreover, suggesting suitable solutions to business leaders.
  • Resolving complex issues by an alliance with internal and external teams.
  • Identifying and analyzing critical data to assess the latest business trends.

Similarly, there are also have some important duties of a perfect Data Analyst.

  • He should acquire sufficient data from different sources.
  • Manage database properly and apply data filters to locate issues.
  • He is responsible for locating different latest data set trends and patterns.
  • Locating and fixing bugs and other coding issues.
  • Also, he should look after the algorithms and statistical productivity.
  • Moreover, he should help in improving business processes and operational activities. 
  • He should alliance with different team members also like DS, IT Dept., and Data management for better business reporting.

Hence, these are the various duties of BA and DA’s in Business analyst vs data analyst comparison. This might impact the minds of youngsters in choosing the best career.

Business analyst vs data analyst -Career path

While choosing the best career path among Business Analyst vs Data Analyst, the following points would help better.

Professional experience and qualification- 

To become a perfect business analyst, a person needs a simple degree in business admin, finance, etc. Also, there are management, marketing, economics, etc. includes in the qualifications for him. Later he can pursue a course in BA to get good exposure in his career. If he has previous work experience in any of the above fields, he is perfect to choose BA as his career.

On the other side, a data analyst should have good skills in maths, science, databases, coding, statistics, etc. Moreover, predictive analytics, data modeling skills also help in this regard. These qualities will help him to get into a prosperous career.

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Analyze the desired career path- 

Since there are some similarities among the Business analyst vs data analyst. But there is a slight distinction in their career path and the pay scale. A typical BA’s salary starts with $80k/p.a. and goes more than that depending upon seniority and skills. 

A data analyst needs to have good coding skills and have the potential to earn more than $80k/pa. Also, a senior data analyst can earn up to $120K/pa through his latest updated skills and experience.

Hence, these are different career paths for both in the battle of Business analyst vs data analyst. But both areas are good for making an excellent career for the upcoming youngsters.

Conclusion

I hope you got the basic idea of both career prospects and their key distinctions in Business analyst vs data analyst. But there will be still a little confusion in mind for everyone to choose between the two. Both have to involve in every aspect of business deals for analysis purposes. Since both fields related to the data domain but with different skillset, roles, pay package, and career paths. So, you can choose them depending upon your background in various aspects that are discussed above. 

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