Data is a collection of facts such as numbers, words, measurements, observations or even just descriptions of things.
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it.
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming and modelling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making. In today’s business world, data analysis plays a role in making decisions more scientifically and helping businesses operate more effectively.
As a fresher who wants to build their career in ‘Data Analyst’ will need to know all aspects of knowledge and skills before stepping into this field. They should do research on what are the essential skills required, roles and responsibilities, the important tools etc. They should also invest their time in reading articles, blogs, watching videos and reading the latest news so that one can understand the scope and demand of data analysts in present companies and also what will be the demand in future. The best way of doing research is to have conversations with people who are already working as a data analyst in their respective companies. In this blog, I have done the same thing. A few analysts working in different companies were asked questions through LinkedIn and conclusions were made from those conversations which will help the individual who wants to pursue their in data analyst.
The questions were asked are as follows:
Roles and Responsibilities
“I work as a data analyst in Speed Engineering Solutions Pvt Ltd. Here, we do analysis of engine’s sub system data like fuel system, air filter, pressure gauge etc. For a particular engine, there are lots of sensors attached so we do analysis of data we get from sensors and by doing analysis we can find out if there is any fault. For example if there is any variation in pressure value so by doing analysis we can find the cause of that fault, at what time it is varying and by doing this we create a model which predicts that when components are failing. The data which I analyse is all mechanical based data like data of an engine, turbo machinery and other mechanical components.”
Vilas Tade, Data Analyst at Speed Engineering Solutions, Pune.
“I work as a data analyst in a pwc company which is known for its outstanding corporate finance accounting services which provides services like audit, tax analysis, business compliances etc. Before giving data to the data analyst, data engineers work on it. They provide sources like where the data is coming from and our responsibilities are to clean it, make reports from that data and communicate with all the stakeholders who are involved in the project. Our work is to find what type of problems or errors it consists of. We look for duplicate, inaccurate, unwanted and hidden data and provide the solution to those problems. We present our solutions by creating reports or dashboards which transform the raw data into more interactive, efficient and easy to understand with the help of charts, graphs, filters, slicers, etc.”
Mayank Sharma, Data Analyst at pwc, Kolkata.
“The responsibilities of a data analyst may vary from team to team, from person to person, and from organisation to organisation. I work for an e-commerce company, in our organisation my role is to support a guest analytics team so what I do is take my guest data and find insights on top of it like what is the spend pattern, what’s the behaviour of the guest as they are shopping etc. Our main role is to analyse customer data which helps to predict trends or next best selling products. So it helps our company to come up with innovative pricing strategies for each and every product rather than simply relying on customer’s prices. The data which we analysed is retail data, in-store data, shopper data, brand data and other related data categories used in e-commerce analytics and marketing.”
Anonymous, Data analyst at e-commerce company, Bangalore.
Important Tools and Skills Required
“I work in Capgemini company as a data analyst. The most important skills which are needed in order to become a successful data analyst are excel, SQL, visualization tools like power bi or tableau, python or R programming. Microsoft Excel is still widely used in the industry for doing data analysis. As a data analyst you are often involved with data exploration, data collection and all those operations, so having sql skills will be extremely useful. Visualization tools allow you to connect with the data sources and you can pull that data into these visualization tools and you can build a lot of useful dashboards. You can learn these skills from online learning platforms like udemy, coursera and certification from those courses will give you an edge over the competition.”
Ajith Kumar, Data Analyst at Capgemini, Tamil Nadu.
“To become a data analyst you should know SQL, power bi or tableau and python. These tools are the most important ones and you can learn these tools from various learning platforms, also from you tube. Beside these tools, you should possess good communication and presentation skills. Data analysts should have excellent communication skills across a variety of mediums, including writing, speaking, presenting and listening. Presentation skills are important as it helps to convey information from a speaker to an audience or to your clients. Mathematical and statistical knowledge also plays a significant role as you have to deal with large numbers in your dataset and also use formulas so that you can perform calculations and other operations.”
Tamijuddin Aymadar, Data Analyst at EY, Bangalore.
Is it Important to be from an IT or CS Background?
“I’m from mechanical background and I work as a data analyst in Duxes Labs Pvt Ltd. To be honest you can build your career in data analyst as a domain without any IT or CS background but you cannot escape from it you will have to learn the required tools like sql, python and any other visualization tools to basically compliment your data analysis skills so that you can perform the necessary analysis of the data and present it through final reports. You just need to know the tools and should have other important skills like problem solving, mathematical and statistical knowledge and good communication skills. If you have these sorts of skills then it is just enough to become a successful data analyst.”
Ankit Dongare, Data Analyst at Duxes Labs Pvt Ltd, Bangalore.
“I did my B.tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering but currently work as data analyst in Latentview Analytics. There is an advantage for them as some companies ask for degrees in IT or Computer Science Engineering but there will be very few companies who will ask for that specification. But the data analyst role is open for everyone who are from Engineering or non engineering backgrounds. There are many data analysts who are from BSc, BA and BCOM. The only thing that a data analyst role demands is to know the tools which are required to do analysis like SQL, power bi or tableau, excel and python. Other than that you should also need to have a good presentation and communication skills, data presentation, creative thinking and logical reasoning.”
Drupad Patidar, Data Analyst at Latentview Analytics, Bangalore.
Conclusion
As more and more data is generated and collected, data analyst is becoming one of the highest in-demand jobs worldwide. The role of data analyst is very clear, as a data analyst you are expected to be the person in between the data and usually a business team. A data analyst is responsible for maintaining databases and data systems which also includes fixing any errors in codes and other problems. They reorganise data from primary and secondary sources to make it more readable. They use statistical tools to understand data and pay attention to trends or patterns that could be valuable for the company. To become a successful data analyst, we need to learn the tools and skills which are required. The most important tools are Microsoft Excel, visualization tools like power bi or tableau, SQL and python. The primary skills which we need to have are communication skills, presentation skills, good mathematical and statistical knowledge, creativity and problem solving skills. The data analyst post is open for everyone, only it demands the required tools and essential skills.
