WHAT DOES A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST DO?

The Business Intelligence Specialist serves as an advocate for BI, data, and analytics across the organization, promoting their usage to relevant departments. This role involves developing and implementing BI Training Program, providing technical support, and administering the user community portal and SharePoint site. The specialist also leads projects in the implementation and use of new BI, data, and insights software tools, while developing and supporting reporting standards and designing dashboards, alerts, and reports in collaboration with business and development teams.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Business Intelligence Specialist

1. Business Intelligence Specialist Details

  • Detail Documentation: Document keystroke level detail, identify exceptions, and document escalation instances and processes.
  • Requirement Sign-offs: Obtain sign-offs on BRDs and specifications, and facilitate work estimation and sizing for requirements.
  • Liaison Role: Serve as liaison between Project Teams and Business Owners to ensure that all targets are met.
  • Project Review Participation: Participate in ongoing project review meetings, and ensure that tasks remain on schedule and within budget.
  • Operational Excellence: Focus on operational excellence, execution, and prioritize tasks effectively.
  • Task Monitoring: Monitor task deliverables and progress through continuous communication with project members.
  • Gap Identification and Escalation: Identify and escalate gaps and ensure gaps are rectified in compliance with requirements.
  • Risk Mitigation: Remain aware of any potential problems and work to mitigate any risks.
  • Issue Dissemination and Escalation: Disseminate information on any problems or potential delays and escalate issues to management's attention.
  • Progress Reporting: Prepare reports of project progress, known issues, and daily activities against the project plan or schedule.

2. Business Intelligence Specialist Responsibilities

  • Business Requirements Understanding: Interact with Business users and understand their requirements.
  • Project Planning Input: Provide input to project planning, status, and review meetings.
  • Tableau Dashboard Development: Develop, design, and support interactive Tableau Dashboard reports for operational and executive users.
  • Team Capability Development: Develop and grow the capability of the Data Visualisation team in using Tableau.
  • Database Object Creation: Create database objects like tables, and views, and maintain data efficiently.
  • Timely Report Delivery: Deliver reports to the Business team on time.
  • Data Analysis and Documentation: Perform and document data analysis, data validation, and data mapping/design.
  • Multi-source Data Access: Access multiple sources, specifically data residing in data warehouses.
  • Learning Culture Fostering: Foster a learning culture that actively benchmarks and challenges existing practices.
  • Work Product Review: Review work product to ensure accuracy, quality, and compliance with standards.
  • Reporting Tools Education: Provide education, training, and assistance regarding reporting tools.

3. Business Intelligence Specialist Job Summary

  • Customer Interaction: Interacting with the customer success team to understand the needs and requirements of the client's key metrics.
  • Data Processing Environment: Creating the necessary environment for data processing, and monitoring data consistency and reliability.
  • Data Integration Models: Using the most efficient technologies/methodologies for building accurate data integration models to transform raw data into results.
  • Technical Issue Resolution: Working with the IT departments to fix technical issues and configure the system required for BI processes.
  • SQL Query Optimization: Helping the development team tune their complex SQL queries in the most performance-efficient way.
  • Data Reporting Solutions: Collecting, manipulating, and synthesizing data to create meaningful reporting solutions to support decision-makers.
  • Data Understanding: Understanding data sets, sources, and structures within their domain.
  • Requirement Gathering: Gathering business requirements and delivering appropriate standard, ad-hoc, and analytic reporting solutions.
  • Report Review: Reviewing system-generated reports and queries and escalating identified issues.
  • Inquiry Response: Receiving and responding to internal and external inquiries and requests.
  • Quantitative Analysis: Providing routine quantitative analysis and data visualizations to support decision-makers.

4. Business Intelligence Specialist Accountabilities

  • Questionnaire Design: Support business group to design and implement questionnaires to check for compliance and completion rates of new tasks and projects
  • Questionnaire Analysis: Analyze questionnaires collected and help make recommendations to a business group
  • Data Solutions: Identify business/operation needs and translate them into data solutions to support business decisions
  • KPI Report Generation: Generate Key Performance Index (KPI) reports for business groups regularly
  • Inventory Management: Assist in inventory management and analysis of stocks on hand, and New Product Launches
  • Administrative Support: Administrative matters including printing of documents, assisting in recruitment, receiving shipments
  • Training: Conduct in-house training and preparation of training materials
  • Report Consolidation: Consolidate reports and liaise with Field Managers on various project completion status
  • Data Analysis: Analyze data collected and present data insights to clients regularly to provide operational insights for internal and client
  • BI Reporting Expertise: Serve as the BI reporting subject matter expert and support the full cycle of BI reporting from requirement analysis, design and development, deployment to maintenance

5. Business Intelligence Specialist Functions

  • Communication: Works closely and effectively with the CD to keep well informed of upcoming commitments and responsibilities.
  • Analytical Support: Support the CD, including providing analysis, research, and recommendations for the preparation of business meetings.
  • Project Management: Lead, organize, and manage executive-level special projects to explore and implement changes across businesses in conjunction with functional leaders.
  • Relationship Building: Develop and demonstrate relationships within and across business units and external clients to achieve the objectives of the organization.
  • Meeting Coordination: Responsible for organizing on and off-site internal and customer meetings.
  • Report Distribution: Collate and distribute reports/documentation such as month-end reports or business presentations.
  • Systems Development: Assist in the development and implementation of systems and procedures.
  • Financial Planning: Support preparing annual plans and budgets, and complete analysis of monthly reporting activities.
  • Confidentiality Maintenance: Maintain confidentiality of all sensitive or proprietary information.

6. Business Intelligence Specialist Job Description

  • Data Analysis: Analyse business cases and challenges, providing conclusions and advice based on data analysis.
  • Report Support: Participate in the BI implementation and the day-to-day support of reports.
  • Project Automation: Work closely with Business Teams to conduct data/report automation projects.
  • BI Administration: Participate in the administration of BI systems, and Business Intelligence projects.
  • Technical Development: Participate in technical BI development to support the projects.
  • Cross-functional Reporting: Develop and maintain cross-functional reports in various business areas.
  • Technical Skills and Creativity: Work across disciplines and organizational levels to leverage technical skills, business judgment, and creativity.
  • Automated Data Solutions: Support the development of automated data solutions that provide business insights for key stakeholders.
  • Functional Analytics: Comprehend and provide analytics in the given functional area and produce reporting consistent with industry and company practices.
  • Primary Modeling: Function as a primary modeler in the BI department to ensure data alignment.
  • Data Modeling: Create and maintain data models to enable a better reporting experience.

7. Business Intelligence Specialist Overview

  • Requirements Elicitation: Responsible for eliciting, validating, and documenting Technology and User support requirements for developing Reporting and Data Analytics solutions.
  • Requirements Documentation: Gather, validate, clarify, and document requirements, and prioritize requirements into functional areas.
  • Process Analysis: Analyze, map AS-IS and create TO-BE user processes in detail, describing involved systems and files.
  • Requirements Management: Manage and own requirements to understand the change process and traceability.
  • Needs Evaluation: Evaluate, identify, frame and structure underlying needs from explicit user requests.
  • General Understanding: Abstract from particular issues to a more general understanding.
  • Information Aggregation: Investigate facts and additional information, aggregate, enhance, and prioritize requirements.
  • Conflict Reconciliation: Reconcile conflicting requirements, and break down high-level information into constituent details.
  • Risk Identification: Identify all relevant process exceptions and potential risks/challenges related to the implementation and arrive at the best possible solution for the client.

8. Business Intelligence Specialist Details and Accountabilities

  • Request Authorization: Reviewing, prioritizing, and authorizing requests from users to create new and modify existing reports through control of the business glossary and KPI library.
  • Expert Reporting Skills: Providing an expert level of skills and knowledge in the evaluation, development, testing, and delivery of new reporting solutions.
  • Data Catalog Management: Ownership of a data catalog, data dictionary, and master data management domains to define the data and identify assets within their data domains.
  • Business Requirements Translation: Translate business requirements into specifications that will be used to drive data store/data warehouse/data mart design and configuration.
  • Report and Dashboard Optimization: Design and guide the build and optimization of easy-to-use reports and dashboards through coaching, mentoring, and technical leadership to super-users and support teams.
  • Legislation and Policy Alignment: Ensure data, processes, and reports are aligned to current legislation, KPMG local and global, and security policies.
  • Data Compliance and Security: Ensure compliance and security of the data, while providing information on potential risks and regulatory controls.
  • Policy and Standard Maintenance: Establish, maintain, and update internal data and analytics management policies and standards.
  • Access Control Enforcement: Enforce policies and procedures along with tight control over the access policies, define, and maintain users’ roles and teams’ access.

9. Business Intelligence Specialist Tasks

  • Data Warehouse Development: Design and development of the company’s Data Warehouse with emphasis on Business Analysis and Data Modelling
  • Technical Specifications: Understand and translate business requirements to technical specifications for the Data Warehouse
  • Data Mart Design: Design Data Marts by creating ERDs and high-level data models and by implementing physically the database objects
  • BI Application Design: Design BI Applications such as PowerBI reports and dashboards
  • Ad-Hoc Reporting Support: Support ad-hoc reporting, and analyze and resolve data issues
  • ETL Process Development: Participate in the design and development of ETL processes
  • Report Management: Report scheduling, notification, and publication, and owner the "business approved" standard reports
  • Functional Specification Design: Analyze user requirements and, based on findings, design functional specifications for BI front-end applications
  • Issue Resolution: Resolve day-to-day issues and exceptions that occur with BI Scheduled Processes
  • BI Tools Troubleshooting: Troubleshoot BI tools, systems, and software, and performance-tune these applications

10. Business Intelligence Specialist Roles

  • Evangelize BI Benefits: Act as an evangelist for BI, data and analytic benefits across the organization, and promote BI usage to relevant departments.
  • BI Training Program: Develop and implement Zespri’s BI Training Program, and provide technical support.
  • Portal Administration: Administer the user community portal and SharePoint site.
  • Promote BI Brand: Help develop and promote the “BI Brand”, develop and support reporting standards.
  • Project Leadership: Support, direct, organize, and lead projects in the implementation and use of new BI, data, and Insights software tools and systems.
  • Report Development: Develop reports and report definitions as well as develop graphs and portal interfaces.
  • Dashboard Design: Work with business and development teams to design and document dashboards, alerts, and reports.
  • Database Design: Assist in the design of databases and data warehouses to ensure interoperability with BI solutions.
  • BI Product Research: Support research and make recommendations on BI, data and insights products, services, and standards in support of procurement and development efforts.
  • Strategic Goal Assessment: Support the Head of Analytics, Data and Enablement to assess and cultivate long-term strategic goals for BI, data and analytics development in conjunction with end users, managers, clients, and other stakeholders.