Business Intelligence in a glance
(Bản tiếng Việt tại đây https://medium.com/%40hanhnguyen_84363/business-intelligence-l%C3%A0-g%C3%AC-5a33ed529c2c)
Hi and welcome to my very first blog about thing I think I know the most (but I don’t!!!): Business Intelligence (BI) and Data.
I always think about writing a blog about BI, but also afraid that I will show all my weakness to the world and never get a job ever again.
However, after getting a lot of questions from people around about my work, I decided to take it serious, and share my experience and my point of view about BI and data.
Hence, let start with some very basic but popular questions:
1, Simple but always there: what does a BI/BA do?
I can also do a research on internet and giving you most relevant answer I can find. However, as a person with a pride, I will give you my own answer of it, by taking you through this whole long story about myself (yes, I really like taking about me)
Let take this as example, one day my friends planned a trip together, and I was in the group chat. But I never paid any attention to it, so when I suddenly really wanted to (pretend to) contribute, I jumped in and asked “Hmm…what’s the plan of Phuket next month?” All my friends paused for a minute, then they all laughed. Finally one said “Oh so you still don’t know where we go? Then we might can sell you to a brothel” And one another friend added up “ If we sell her there, she will immediately does the report to see which time of the day they have biggest number of clients, when the client is most generous, who is the biggest spending…and later on, maybe she can be the most successful prostitute”.
Opzzzz, a little bit late reminder but please don’t read the story if you are under 18!!!
Come back for a more formal answer, the BA/BI will be the one who keep track of all the metrics that reflect the business situation, tell what happen in the past, predict the future performances and to support all the high level decision.
2, What is business intelligence/business analytics and what is the difference between them?
For me, the most relevant and easy to understand answer for this question, which can be found on Internet (yes, I’m tired being a person with a pride) is from Mark van Rijmenam — CEO/Founder of BigData- Startups
“To me the difference between Business Intelligence is looking in the rearview mirror and using historical data from one minute ago to many years ago. Business Analytics is looking in front of you to see what is going to happen. This will help you anticipate in what’s coming, while BI will tell you what happened. This is a very important distinction as both will provide you with different, not less, insights. BI is important to improve your decision-making based on past results, while business analytics will help you move forward and understand what might be going to happen”.
But one thing can’t be separate from other. As what P.Wong, one of the Vertical Head of one classified sites told me, in the last time we met “I don’t need BI team to keep track of daily numbers for me, I can totally do that. I need someone to tell me things I don’t know, such as while I focus too much in A, my clients mainly come from B. And we need more predictive models, that can tell me to change my plan accordingly to hit the target”
3, I’m working as… I’m learning as… can I change my career path and become a BA/BI?
My philosophy in life is “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” (the saying of Audrey Hepburn- if you really want to know — and yes, I really want to be fashion blogger but I can’t). So yes, yes, yes, the opportunity is always there for you if you want to.
How to start the change? It much depends on each individual’s situation, however, you can always start to learn essential skills (which will be introduced in the next question), and join any data challenge you can find on internet, around you, at your current workspace, going to meetup groups, conference, events, bootcamps… — or taking it more seriously by finding an intern/ part time/ full time job for a fresh to have experience in the field.
4, What kind of education I need to become a BA/BI?
If you are going to a formal structure education system — such as university, there are several choices for you. I tried to look for it on Internet, however I really can’t support you much as I left university years ago, but I believe FPT/ UIT…surely has the related courses for you.
Some of you asked me about online certificate, yes, you can consider learning Master online — I know there are trusted source also. However, for me, I don’t really encourage people to learn online (if you want to pursuit a degree), as going to classes will help you to meet new people, having different perspectives about almost of everything, widen your network, and giving you more opportunities after graduation.
Now if you decide to learn by yourself, one of the learning path I always recommend is:
Python/R/Analyzing data tools and Statistics are the must for your future career as a BI/BA.
Above are 4 questions that I receive the most from people around me. I will come up in the next blog for more detail subjects (which I’m not too stupid to talk about)
If you have any question, please contact me at hanhntt313@gmail.comand please expect a delay time in response. I’m really a busy person with all my gossip groups.
Have a nice day.
