WHAT DOES A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DO?
Published: May 22, 2025 - The Business Intelligence Professional collects, analyzes, and transforms data into actionable insights to support business decision-making. This role integrates tools, technologies, and processes to develop dashboards, reports, and performance metrics for strategic and operational purposes. The individual helps organizations identify trends, optimize processes, and drive data-informed growth.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Business Intelligence
1. Business Intelligence Analyst Duties
- Requirement Gathering: Gather business requirements and translate business needs into functional specifications
- Analytics Design: Define and assist in the design of analytics solutions across the enterprise
- Roadmap Contribution: Be an individual contributor to building out the analytics roadmap
- Architectural Planning: Provide architectural recommendations for designing, building, testing, deploying, and maintaining highly available and scalable analytics solutions
- Lifecycle Participation: Be a key team member within the reporting and analytics lifecycle, from requirements to daily operations
- Active Listening: Listening, translating wants into essential needs
- Process Optimization: Identifying points of leverage and efficiencies
- Test Management: Drive testing to ensure quality and repeatability
- Process Improvement: Gather collaborative input and participate in process improvement and automation for analytics solutions
- Vendor Coordination: Manage multiple vendors to deliver coordinated and integrated solutions
- Technology Evaluation: Identify and evaluate new technologies for implementation
- Solution Documentation: Support, maintain, and document solutions
2. Business Intelligence Analyst Details
- Dashboard Development: Build and develop dashboards, Power BI data models, and self-serve data pipelines
- Process Understanding: Understand business processes, provide recommendations, and scan for potential or active roadblocks to operationalizing new technology in support of the business
- Stakeholder Communication: Lead change impact conversations with business stakeholders using appropriate diagrams and metrics
- Report Automation: Ensure the organization is not flying blind by supporting ongoing delivery of automated reports via SSRS, Power BI, Cubes, Adobe Analytics, and other tools
- Code Reusability: Maintain queries and documentation to improve the reusability of code and the knowledge sharing in the team
- Data Validation: Guarantee the accuracy of your products by proactively and regularly validating against raw data using SQL
- Pipeline Automation: Generate efficiencies by developing data pipelines and automating processes with Python to support analytics products and dashboards
- Data Visualization: Create effective data visualizations, trends, and tables that intuitively convey insights in seconds
- Analyst Support: Enhance the work of analysts and data scientists by supporting them with the data they need to conduct ad-hoc analyses
- Analytics Training: Champion a data-driven culture by supporting the eCommerce department to raise its overall analytic IQ through formal training, workshops, insights meetings, and presentations to senior leadership
3. Business Intelligence Analyst Responsibilities
- RPA Maintenance: Robotics Process Automation (RPA) implementations and maintenance
- Report Development: Responsible for creating and maintaining the bank’s reports, applications, and interfaces, as well as streamlining business processes
- Solution Programming: Performing complete and specific programming activities, creating solutions that enhance or support the business activities
- Data Administration: Execute the administration, maintenance, and management of the data and data storage environments
- Coding Standards: Follows Banesco USA designing and coding standards to ensure the solution and the environment integrity standards are met, as well as the business requirements
- Requirements Documentation: Responsible for documenting functional requirements and the solution’s design and scope to comply with business needs
- Team Communication: Maintain constant communication with the team and cross-train with team members to obtain or provide knowledge of any new developments and/or solutions that fall under the team’s responsibility
- System Support: Assists with the support of systems to ensure applications’ operability and reliability
- Policy Compliance: Responsible for ensuring the bank’s policies and procedures are followed, for example, IT policy, Risk Management, etc
- System Enhancement: Responsible for reviewing, analyzing, and enhancing systems, including coding, testing, debugging, and installation of applications to support the bank’s systems
- Business Reporting: Responsible for supporting the business drivers and reporting needs with the following
4. Business Intelligence Architect Job Summary
- Data Warehousing: Develop and maintain a high-quality data warehouse solution
- Project Leadership: Lead and manage data warehouse projects
- Technical Documentation: Maintain accurate and complete technical architectural documents
- Team Collaboration: Collaborate with BI Developers and Business Analysts for the successful development of BI reporting and analysis
- Platform Development: Work with business groups and technical teams to develop and maintain a data warehouse platform for BI reporting
- Data Layer Design: Develop a scalable and maintainable data layer for BI applications to meet business objectives
- Standards Development: Develop standards, patterns, and best practices for reuse and acceleration
- System Maintenance: Perform maintenance and troubleshooting activities in the data warehouse
5. Business Intelligence Architect Accountabilities
- Database Ownership: Ownership of enterprise databases, both transactional and warehousing, in development and production environments
- Solution Design: Leads design, development, testing, and implementation for all new initiatives and modifications to databases, reporting, interface, and associated functionality
- User Collaboration: Works directly with end-users to understand business needs and design appropriate solutions
- Process Documentation: Documents existing and new processes, including business rules, logic, and processes
- Quality Focus: Focuses on quality, results, accuracy, performance, and security
- Vendor Evaluation: Participate in the vendor evaluation and selection process
- Team Mentorship: Provide oversight/mentorship for the work of junior team members
- Data Analysis: Using business knowledge, analyze data to ensure we are delivering the best results
- Performance Tuning: Performance tuning, improvement, balancing, usability, automation
- Technology Evaluation: Evaluate and identify new technologies for implementation
- Domain Expertise: Maintain domain expertise for the functional area, including tracking competitive product developments and best practices
6. Business Intelligence Consultant Functions
- Insight Generation: Analyzing performance through qualitative and quantitative analysis to generate data-driven insights by summarizing and joining complex, disparate data sources
- Program Management: Managing, designing, and developing effective programs for portfolio delivery metrics, ensuring clear communication regarding priorities, progress, schedule, and assessment of risks and issues
- Strategic Research: Conduct targeted, project-based research and analysis across product performance and business operations to inform internal operations, strategy, and data-driven decision-making
- Performance Review: Reviewing historical performance, identifying opportunities, delivering insights, and assessing the impact of strategic initiatives
- Executive Reporting: Contributing to executive presentation content, including building from scratch, adapting existing formats, clarifying requirements, updating, and providing feedback
- Market Analysis: Providing ongoing insight into trends and dynamics within our market as well as adjacent markets
- Stakeholder Partnership: Partnering with other stakeholders to drive data-driven change within the business
- Analytics Strategy: Helping to define and drive the analytics strategy and modeling approaches
- Analytics Adoption: Driving adoption of analytics in decision-making through user-friendly methods
7. Business Intelligence Data Analyst Job Description
- Data Storytelling: Supporting analytics deep-dives into large volumes of data and using it to tell stories for people with varying degrees of analytics competency
- Dashboard Ownership: Set up and ownership of various reports/dashboards
- Data Consistency: Ensure consistent measurement and use of data across teams
- Data Quality Control: Ensure quality control in data collection and improve confidence in the data
- Project Support: Support for various projects from conception to completion
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Maintaining strong working relationships across teams/squads and adding BI value
- Ad-Hoc Analysis: Ownership of various ad-hoc analytics and insights queries to support wider teams
8. Business Intelligence Developer Overview
- MI Production: Be accountable for the development and ongoing production of regular MI and KPIs
- Data Accuracy: Be accountable for the accuracy, integrity, and overall quality of MI produced
- Information Quality: Improve the quality and availability of the management information
- Process Improvement: Assist in the identification of MI areas for improvement across the business processes and systems
- Reporting Standards: Develop reporting design principles and development standards across the business
- Root Analysis: Dig deep to uncover the causes of problems and identify the most effective solution
- Tool Expansion: Expand the usage and application of data analysis tools, specifically Qlik Sense
- System Expertise: Act as an expert regarding the management information processes and systems/tools used
- Tool Familiarization: Quickly acquire a detailed understanding and knowledge of the reporting and analysis tools and data sets currently being used by the company
9. Business Intelligence Developer Details and Accountabilities
- BI Solution Design: Design and develop Business Intelligence solutions
- SQL and BI Tools: Applies best practice SQL scripting, SSIS integration, SSAS Cube or Tabular Model design, SSRS report generation
- BI Delivery: Ensure the delivery of reliable and accurate BI modules or entire solutions to clients
- Quality Assurance: Guarantee the quality of the BI modules delivered to clients
- Client Support: Ensure the effective support of BI modules to clients
- Tool Selection: Assists customers in the selection of Business Intelligence tools
- Developer Training: Conducts training programs for BI developers
- Development Methodology: Implement planning and development methodologies with a focus on productivity and results-oriented
- Lifecycle Monitoring: Monitors data modules throughout the development life cycle
- Standards Compliance: Ensures compliance with quality standards
- Project Strategy: Assists the project manager in establishing a clear vision and strategy
- Team Empowerment: Promote teamwork and empower employees
- Effective Communication: Develop to work with effective communication
- Automation Design: Design and implementation of automation and self-service elements in the solutions
- Technology Adoption: Incorporate new technologies or methodologies in BI processes
- Best Practices: Incorporate best practices and standards for BI development and operations
- Metric Implementation: Propose and implement SLAs, KPIs, and metrics for the BI solution
- Performance Analytics: Implement BI modules development and operation analytics elements to identify improvement opportunities
- Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement continuous improvement opportunities
10. Business Intelligence Engineer Tasks
- Technical Leadership: Be an end-to-end technical lead for multiple BI and Analytics projects including planning, development, strategy, and implementation
- Data Architecture: Design the data schema, build and continually improve infrastructure for Data Warehousing, BI, and Analysis
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Collaborate with analytics, data infrastructure, engineering, and product teams to deliver data that analysts and data scientists can rely on
- Solution Development: Gather requirements and build new solutions to solve the pain points of analysts and developers
- Infrastructure Improvement: Create and drive the improvement of tools and reporting/dashboard infrastructure
- Performance Tuning: Tune the performance of large data pipeline jobs and improve overall system design
- Dashboard Delivery: Design, build, launch, and maintain reliable dashboards that provide insights across cross-functional global teams
- BI Strategy: Work with Data Science leadership to define long-term BI strategy
- Scalable Solutions: Build scalable data architecture and re-usable analytics assets for broader consumption within the organization
- Process Optimization: Seek opportunities to improve data collection, reporting, and consumption based on business needs
11. Business Intelligence Modeler Roles
- Domain Understanding: Understanding the functional domain of a business line
- BI Mastery: Master the applicative BI domain of a business line
- Workshop Facilitation: Organizing and moderating workshops with the business client to define their business needs
- Requirement Gathering: Gathering the business requirements and defining solutions with the client
- Data Design: Designing the different data patrimonies and keeping them coherent in time
- Tool Assessment: Assessing new tools, new technologies, and methodologies
- Team Liaison: Explaining the functional contents of the projects to the development team (link between users and the development team)
- Design Validation: Validating the deviations needed in the design and ensuring they are documented
12. Business Intelligence Manager Additional Details
- User Consultation: Using information design principles and human-centered design, consult with clinical and administrative users to create knowledge and information to help solve business problems
- Strategic Input: Serve as a member of the Information Systems management team, providing strategic and operational input to the department
- Team Supervision: Provide direct supervision to business intelligence team members regarding project assignments and implementation
- Portfolio Management: Maintain a business intelligence portfolio using an Agile/Scrum framework
- Tool Development: Lead team to create flexible, production-ready tools that promote access to data and insight across the organization
- ETL Collaboration: Collaborate with the Software Engineering team to develop and maintain ETLs supporting reporting and modeling
- Quality Assurance: Oversee quality assurance testing and review to produce trusted, accurate data and reporting products
- Security Compliance: Ensure adherence to information security procedures and best practices, including but not limited to maintaining source control and documentation of team projects
- Data Governance: Support information governance initiatives (in conjunction with the Associate Director of Clinical Services and Director of Quality Systems) to ensure data quality and usability throughout the organization
- Administrative Management: Administrative functions such as supervisory documentation (payroll approval, Catalytic Coaching), budgeting, and office/team management
13. Business Intelligence Specialist Essential Functions
- Data Analysis: Understands, cleans, analyzes, integrates, and investigates internal and external data to deliver business value
- Business Translation: Work together to translate the real business need into an analytic problem that you can solve
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Work with stakeholders throughout the organization to identify opportunities for leveraging company data to drive business solutions
- Visualization Design: Identifies the right visualization model depending on the business requirements and data sets
- Decision Support: Seeks rationales that support operational and strategic decision-making
- Application Knowledge: Business applications / Digital applications
- System Analysis: Analyzes existing IT systems and solutions, taking into account both technical and business requirements
- Requirement Specification: Translates user requirements into functional specifications of the IT solutions
- Testing Development: Develops testing programs and techniques to guarantee the alignment between existing IT solutions and their intended specifications
14. Business Intelligence Sales Specialist Role Purpose
- Opportunity Alignment: Working closely with Account Managers for good-fit opportunities
- Executive Pitching: Pitching the BI propositions to Senior Executives and Managing Partners
- Account Growth: Working closely with the customer success manager to identify account growth
- Client Research: Researching firms to identify new clients
- Editorial Collaboration: Working closely with the editorial team to leverage experience
- Pipeline Reporting: Providing regular reports of pipeline and forecast via CRM
- Product Demonstration: Product demonstrations and support to potential customers
- Competitor Analysis: Analysing competitor developments and feeding back on product development