Growing your job and career
As covered in the Understanding the business intelligence opportunity section, there are many exciting jobs and roles available in the business intelligence market. In addition, the jobs and roles available form a potential career path, from starting as a business intelligence analyst, developer, or project manager to becoming the CDO of an organization. However, there is even more diversity when it comes to a career in
the business intelligence space. Let’s dig deeper into the different jobs and career paths available to business intelligence professionals.
Understanding the employment and career opportunities
It is important to understand that organizations deliver business intelligence solutions to the business in one of two ways:
- Leveraging internal employees that fulfill the jobs and roles identified and explained in the Understanding the business intelligence opportunity section
- Leveraging consulting firms that employ business intelligence professionals
In terms of you as someone that is new to the business intelligence world, it is important for you to understand that there are two very different career paths ahead of you, that of an internal employee within an organization and that of a business intelligence consultant employed by a consulting services firm. Understanding the use of internal employees is rather straightforward. However, understanding the employment and career opportunities with consulting firms deserves further explanation. Let’s take a closer look.
Consulting services
Consulting firms deliver business intelligence services to other organizations in a business-to-business relationship by providing organizations with specialists in the following roles:
- Business intelligence analysts
- Business intelligence developers
- Business intelligence administrators
- Business intelligence project managers
- Data warehouse architects
Consulting firms do not typically fulfill the following types of roles:
- Business intelligence managers
- Business intelligence directors or CDOs
However, within consulting services firms, there are somewhat equivalent roles within business intelligence teams. Larger consulting services firms have managers and directors that oversee the overall health and operation of the business intelligence consulting services practice within the consulting services firm. Thus, there are equivalent career paths even within consulting services firms, and it is not uncommon for successful business intelligence consultants to eventually become employed by organizations in leadership roles within business intelligence teams.
Consulting firms that deliver business intelligence services typically deliver those services in one of two ways:
- Staffing
- Project services
The two approaches to providing consulting services are very different from one another, and it is important to understand these differences and why organizations choose to employ one or the other.
Staffing
Staffing refers to when an organization contracts with a consulting firm to fulfill a specific role within the organization. The business intelligence professional is contracted through a consulting firm for a fee per hour. Under a staffing contract, the business intelligence professional serves at the direction of internal organizational employees to complete tasks on behalf of the organization. The business intelligence professional generally completes tasks and behaves as if they are part of the organization, but the business intelligence professional is actually employed by and paid by the consulting services organization.
Staffing contracts typically only specify a required set of skills and not a specific scope of work or specific expected deliverables (things that should be completed). In addition, staffing contracts are typically set to be a service length of six months to a year and are often renewed multiple times.
There are a variety of reasons why organizations will employ a staffing strategy instead of hiring their own internal employees:
- The cost of hiring and turnover can be high.
- It reduces the risk of making a bad hire.
- Industry talent shortages.
- Scale issues caused by rapid growth.
In many circumstances, organizations choose to take a staffing approach in order to reduce the costs of fulfilling a position, reduce the risks associated with hiring internal employees, and address issues of scale caused by rapid growth or a shortage of talent within the market.
Project services
Consulting organizations also provide business intelligence expertise and resources through project services. Project services are fundamentally different from staffing engagements, as projects completed under a project services approach generally have the following traits:
- The project has a defined scope of work and specific deliverables.
- The project may be as short as four to six weeks, although many projects may last months or years.
- The consulting resources comprise all, or a significant portion, of the business intelligence team, and the work is mostly managed by the consulting services organization in coordination with the customer’s internal management resources.
Under a project services approach, organizations create a request to achieve a specified outcome. Consulting services firms respond to this request with a proposal or statement of work that defines how they intend to approach the work, the required work tasks, risks and assumptions, and a timeline, duration, and cost to complete the project. Consulting services organizations may propose completing the identified scope of work on either a time and materials or fixed-fee basis. Time and material proposals include an expected range of hours for each required role in the project, as well as an hourly cost for each of those resources. Fixed-fee proposals provide a single cost for completing the identified work.
Understanding the differences between consultants and employees
There are various differences, pros, and cons between being a consultant and an internal employee when it comes to choosing a business intelligence career path. One of the biggest differences is in the breadth and depth of experience gained.
As an internal employee, you are likely to become an expert regarding the business intelligence needs and goals of a particular organization and develop deep knowledge of how that organization operates. Th s, in turn, provides a way to gain industry expertise within the particular industry in which that organization operates, such as fi ancial services, manufacturing, and so on. In addition, internal employees are more likely
to fulfill a single job function or role within the business intelligence space, such as a business intelligence analyst or a business intelligence report developer. Th s does not mean that internal employees may not switch job functions or roles during the course of their career, but they may often spend years fulfilling their designated role before switching roles or advancing. Thus, the focus of internal employees tends to be around acquiring a depth of expertise in a particular business intelligence job role, industry, and organization.
Conversely, business intelligence consultants tend to acquire more breadth of knowledge since consultants generally work across many industries, organizations, and even job functions or roles during their careers. Since most consulting services firms work across different industries and with many different customers, consultants have the opportunity to witness and understand a diverse set of business intelligence needs and goals. In addition, consultants often fulfill different business intelligence jobs or roles, depending upon the needs of the customer. This means that a business intelligence consultant may serve as an analyst on one project, a report developer on the next project, and a project manager on the project after that.
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing a career path within business intelligence. Different individuals have different goals and may find one of the other career paths, consultant or internal employee, more suited to their individual temperament and desired outcomes.
Now that you understand the different employment avenues, let’s next cover some tips for finding and getting a job in business intelligence.
