What Does a Data Analyst Do? how good a career can be made with this?

Data Analysis is a branch of science which mainly deals with raw data. Although the role of a Data analyst is very specific it may vary according to the company and the way they are handling its data. In today’s business where there is cutthroat competition and staying prominent and ahead of competitors is not the only core area of work. Data Science provides provisions to keep an organisation ahead of its competitors.

Being a data analyst, you need to help your company or the organisation by simply retrieving the bulk data and using various algorithms and programs to make sense of that raw data known as information. 

There are various skills that you need to master if you want to pursue your career as a Data Analyst. Some of these skills involve strong analytical abilities which include mastery of fundamentals of mathematics, computer science and relevant IT skills. Apart from all these skills, it would be best if you had business acumen also, and you must be goal-oriented and one who is proficient in various IT tools including working on databases.

Another important skill that you may require is working on software known as SAS (Statical Analysis System) or SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). This is a very rapidly growing field where opportunities are immense, always keep in your mind that if you want to enter this field you need to be very adaptable to the growing technology. In today’s world, “Data” is given undivided importance. Being a Data Analyst, you daily have to deal with it, identifying patterns in it so that you can forecast and by using various pictorial tools like Excel, and Tableau you can communicate with the stakeholders and other teams in the organisation.

Who is a Data Analyst?

A Data Analyst is a professional who uses data to make informed decisions and, in this way, they can help the company to be competitive, productive and customer friendly. The data analyst works for an organisation which collects data from various online databases, organise that data and tries to generate meaning out of it by successfully managing it. To be a Data Analyst, you need to be graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science or any related field like IT, Mathematics and Stats etc. 

To be a well-reputed data analyst you need to have the following skills:

• Proficiency in Mathematics especially in Stats.

•  You need to be very well-versed in MS Excel especially dealing with spreadsheets.
• You need to handle any amount of data, especially having proficiency in dealing with Big Data.
• You need to have very good presentation and communication skills, and some data presentation software like MS Excel and Tableau.

How Can I Make a Career in Data Analytics?

I am very sure that by now you are pretty sure about for opting a career in Data Analytics. To be a successful Data Analyst you should have a neck for technology mathematics and statistics. These basic things will act as a foundation for your career and eventually help you to understand how data is being captured, analysed and represented. 

Further, it is very important to have experience working with different computer and database languages like SQL and various platforms like Oracle DB, and MySQL. While you get comfortable working on these skills which will eventually help you to deal with original raw data and various complex aspects of the project.

These are not the only thing that required you to become a Data Analyst. You should have very good communication and presentation skills. These skills play a very important role as you need to convey the information to the other departments. They can take a well-informed and precise decision based on your finding.

Other important skills you need to master to be a successful Data Analyst

Proficiency in Data Science

World around us is changing rapidly. The way things were done previously necessary is not done in the same way. Traditional ways of doing business have taken 360 degrees turn as data is considered the most important thing to understand various business aspects. More and more companies around the globe moving towards Data Analytics to have a better understanding by interpreting the data. Data is created by many sources as technological advancement people are investing most of their time over the internet. 

Various types of businesses are being done online, though there are social media platforms that are a major reason for staking all this data. Nowadays people are doing online shopping, buying online educational courses making social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Due to all these technological advancements data is consumed and floated at a rapid rate. Businesses around the world need to predict that data and generate information from it so that they can take well-informed business decisions.

This is the first and most basic requirement that I have shared with you that a company wants to include data science in their businesses. Being a data analyst, you have to be proficient in SQL Server, Python, SAS and R.

Machine Learning

It is a technological advancement technique in which computers are enabled to learn automatically from past data. It uses different algorithms for building mathematical models. These all things are done to predict successfully or forecast the future. 

Machine learning is used to improve the speed and accuracy of the analysis of data. The Data Analyst uses a huge amount of data from relevant different sources and by successfully utilising machine learning and algorithms they want to compare historical trends with real-time data. They may use Hadoop or Spark to develop custom algorithms. If you are interested to make a career in Data Analytics you should miss the course that teaches you about machine learning and DBMS (Database Management System).

Data Visualization

To be a successful Data Analyst you need to be proficient with a data visualization tool. As data is gathered in a pool it is jumbled and does not make sense. Data Analyst uses various visualising tools to plot that data to extract meaning from it.

The importance of Data Analytics is not just to read the complex data, but to successfully derive a meaning out of it is important. There are various data visualization tools some of them are:

1. Tableau
2. Dundas BI
3. JupyteR
4. Zoho Reports
5. Google Charts

Conclusion

By far you must have been convinced that the career of a Data Analyst is very bright. This branch of science is in huge demand these days. It requires you to be technically efficient with data being your favourite thing. You also need good mathematical and analytical skills just to correlate things better. You should also be a good communicator and presenter, you are not just liable to interpret the data but needs to successfully represent and simplified that data so that others can make meaning out of it.