Expand your career opportunities with a Master of Business Analytics

19 Feb 2020

More than just a new buzzword, business analytics is now top-of-mind for forward-looking businesses.

In Australia, non-IT business analytics jobs are the fastest growing jobs in data science.

In fact, according to a report from Deloitte Access Economics, Australian workers with big data skills are expected to earn almost AU$20,000 more on average by 2022 than they do today.

Not to be confused with data scientists, a business analyst will focus on driving data-driven business decisions, solutions and operational insights.

It calls for more of a business-savvy mindset, and the ability to communicate the importance of data to executive leaders and teams.

Growing in demand across a range of business units and industries, such as government, marketing and financial services, a Master of Business Analytics graduate can now choose to branch out into various career paths.

Here are just three roles that might be the perfect fit for you:

BUSINESS CONSULTANT

A business consultant can work across diverse fields and is primarily interested in strategic planning, forecasting, assessing business models and optimising workflows.

For example, a government organisation would call upon a business consultant to help understand the flow of resources and the requirement of transport infrastructure, and match that to the needs of the public and industry, especially in rapidly-evolving economies.

A basic understanding of technical skills such as algorithm-building and coding is necessary for this role, but always in a business application context. It’s critical that professionals possess soft skills that will help in communicating data insights and influencing business leaders to improve processes.

According to a McKinsey report titled ‘Skills Gap 2019’, HR professionals report the top three areas of missing soft skills are:

Problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity (37 percent)
Ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity (32 percent)
Communication (31 percent)

Education pathway

The Master of Business Analytics offered at Kaplan Business School has a strong focus on addressing soft skills through subjects such as Innovation and Creativity in Business Analytics. Students can benefit from learning how analytics can drive creativity and innovation across an organisation (and vice-versa).

Source: Kaplan Business School

MARKETING ANALYST

Marketing analysts help companies and organisations decide which products and services to sell, to which customer segments, and at what price.

They investigate market conditions, buying trends, competitor activity and consumer behaviour to inform strategic decision-making. For example, information about user actions on the website or bottlenecks in the sales funnel, can all contribute to improving marketing processes.

A marketing analyst will work closely with the marketing team and ensure campaigns are tracked properly. They create dashboards and produce reports based on analytics data and other marketing metrics.

Education pathway

To best prepare graduates, our Master of Business Analytics teaches Social Media Analytics and Digital Marketing and Competitive Advantage, where students can practise using marketing analytics techniques and tools to gather social media data, gain insights into consumer behaviour online and develop a digital marketing strategy.

DATA ANALYST

Companies are increasingly recognising that success with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics require cross-functional analytics teams, including the important role of a data analyst.

Source: Kaplan Business School

A data analyst can help a business team identify and prioritise business problems, based on the value that can be derived from each solution. Data analysts then leverage their knowledge of AI and data analytics to convey these business goals to data professionals who will create models and solutions.

Visualisation tools and software are critical for organisations in helping to spot patterns, trends and correlations. Data Analysts present large amounts of information in ways that are easy to interpret, useful and combine data sets across multiple sources.

These types of analysts tend to be in high demand by banks, specialist software development companies, consulting firms and telecommunications companies.

Education pathway

To help students succeed in this type of role, the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning subject of the Master of Business Analytics investigates advances in data-intensive artificial intelligence techniques.

Want to create real value through data initiatives?

A Master of Business Analytics at Kaplan Business School will give you the education, practical know-how and industry connections to pursue a range of career paths in the business analytics space.

You’ll gain an understanding of business analytics tools in a supported example-based format, a strong background to business disciplines like marketing and finance and have the opportunity to develop creativity and soft skills.

Click here for more information or to apply now.

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