In smaller organizations, these job titles are sometimes used interchangeably to describe roles involving data or systems analysis. Larger organizations, however, typically employ both data analysts and business analysts to perform unique duties, making the differences between the two careers important to understand.
Data analytics involves analyzing datasets to uncover trends and insights that are subsequently used to make informed organizational decisions. Business analytics is focused on analyzing various types of information to make practical, data-driven business decisions, and implementing changes based on those decisions. Business analytics often uses insights drawn from data analysis to identify problems and find solutions.
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.
Did you find this post useful? Please, share and comment
