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What exactly does a data analyst/data analytics professional do? Are they the same? How similar is it to a business intelligence analyst?

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Sahar’s Answer

Even about 2.5 years after this question was asked, there's still no consistent definition across the field. Different companies use terms like data analyst, data engineer, data scientist, business intelligence analyst, etc to mean a lot of different things. In general, I'd say there are 4 different aspects to this particular field:

-engineering: building data pipelines, handling instrumentation, making sure the data goes where it's supposed to, etc
-analysis: gleaning insights from the data itself by doing data transformations and/or aggregations
-machine learning: using predictive algorithms to assist your analysis or predict future trends/possible outcomes from the data
-visualization/communication: taking the insights from the data and turning them into graphs or dashboards that can be consumed by non-technical individuals, communicating with stakeholders

A data-focused job can be any of these 4, or any combination of these 4 aspects. When applying for jobs in this field, it's always good to clarify with the company/recruiter/hiring manager what they think the job actually entails, and whether that's a good match for your skill set.
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Jodi’s Answer

These positions may be the same or different depending on the company and industry. They may also require different skill sets such as content or industry knowledge, programming languages, analytics software knowledge, and training in mathematics, economics, and statistics. You may consider narrowing down the types of industries that you have an interest in or prior experience with and connecting with folks in data analytics positions to better understand the tools, knowledge, and training that is commonly used in that company or industry.

In my industry, mortgage banking, data analytics has so many applications including: managing production pipelines in mortgage originations and servicing, economic trends impacting mortgage originations and housing markets, credit risk profiles of individual loans and large portfolios of loans, residential property valuation, pricing, and so much more. Statistical, financial, and economic analysis is often helpful to make sense of the data in this industry.

Jodi recommends the following next steps:

Research fields or industries that you are interested in learning more about.
Contact professionals for informational interviews to understand how data analytics are used in their industry and what you might do to prepare yourself for such a career
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Mohammed’s Answer

Data analytics and data analyst could be the same positions depending on the company and the scope of the position.
They would overlap because data analysis is a subset of data analytics.
To explain more,
Data analytics is the concept and practice of all activities and techniques related to data.
Data analysis a subset that focus on, transforming, modeling, and questioning data to find useful information.

The main difference between data analytics/analysis and business intelligence analyst, is that data analytics is more focused on the future, and business intelligence deals with the present.
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Hemachandra’s Answer

A business analyst helps managing the business with specific data sets to support various business functions. Business intelligence analyst , on the other hand, supports insights that help the business leaders to make strategic decisions about the growth of the company. BA analyst may be using data from multiple sources including some competitive intelligence about other companies to provide much needed insights into the competition and how it impacts the bottom line of the organization.
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Aishwarya’s Answer

While data analysts and business analysts both work with data, the main difference lies in what they do with it. Business analysts use data to help organizations make more effective business decisions. In contrast, data analysts are more interested in gathering and analyzing data for the business to evaluate and use to make decisions on their own.

“In the simplest terms, data is a means to the end for business analysts, while data is the end for data analysts,” says Martin Schedlbauer, associate clinical professor and director of Northeastern University’s information and data sciences programs.
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Keith’s Answer

analyst is a broad description of a professional position. The best approach would be to submit an inquiry to a company you're interested in, or to reach out to someone that does the kind of job you want to get more information on.

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