If you’ve ever dreamt of setting your own hours and being your own boss, consider switching to a career in business analytics. With time and expertise in this lucrative career, you can eventually strike out on your own to become an independent consultant.
If you enjoy research, collecting and assessing metrics, or crafting a narrative or prediction based on historical data, then business analytics might be your perfect niche. Read on for more information.
Who needs a business analyst, anyway?
Turns out, just about every business from Main Street to Wall Street needs business analytics to maximize their potential growth. Predicting future market forces and consumer trends is a vital part of staying relevant in the marketplace, and every single business owner can benefit from the insights provided by sound data analytics. Not every business owner, however, can afford to keep a full-time analyst on staff, however, which is why this is such a great career for experienced consultants.
Business analysts can investigate and predict things like supply chain issues with raw materials or manufactured components and help larger manufacturers improve logistics. They can analyze scientific data to find solutions for everything from environmental to manufacturing problems, discover new market niches, or determine where a volatile market might move next. Stocks and futures traders, money exchange traders, investment capital firms, and even governments need the services that business analysts provide.
No matter what market, industry, or profession interests you the most, business analytics plays an integral role in determining the evolution of products and services, as well as the flow of capital for innovation and production.
Potential career paths.
While a few people have the direction of their career planned out before college, many people stumble into analytics while on the job after earning their initial degree in economics, business administration, accounting, or statistics. In cases like these, you can earn your new business analytics degree online while continuing to gain expertise in your current field. You can also pursue specific certifications like a Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA). The skills you learn from your new degree will transfer seamlessly into your present career and can even translate to a promotion into a high-level administrative role.
Whether you move to a new formal position at your existing company or seek employment at a new company, you can use this time to thoroughly investigate the pain points, needs, and unique challenges of your chosen industry to start plotting your move toward independence as a consultant. Once you’re able to step out on your own, you not only have the flexibility to set your own hours and salary, but you can move into new areas of interest in your field at your discretion.
Business analytics professionals in action.
Online advertising is one of the fastest growing industries today. Effective advertising campaigns involve significant amounts of data on both consumer trends and interests. And you need to evaluate of that data to determine how companies can most effectively reach their target markets across multiple platforms including television, radio, mobile devices, and website interactions.
Analysts working in the energy sector are on the cutting edge of a massive revolution in technology, backed by extensive data on everything from climate science to nanoscience. They work to solve problems like solar panel and wind turbine efficiency enhancements, infrastructure improvements, and innovative use of emerging battery technologies.
Internet security represents a non-stop evolution in deployment strategies and threat assessment, which is continually becoming more complex as the industry moves into the quantum realm. There are hundreds more ways analysts move technology forward and increase our standard of living — your only limit is your imagination.
