Certificate Programs in Business Intelligence Fill Surging Demand of Skills With Data Analysis

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For the past few years, organizations are having the hardest time to find talent that can meet their demand. This is increasing at an unprecedented rate today as well. Considering reports, the amount of data generated by the world will reach 163 zettabytes annually by 2025. And this magnitude of data will lead to an increased need of a workforce with skills in analysis.

As data increasingly become indispensable to business success, Business Intelligence here comes at center stage that continues to grow in importance. With a robust BI strategy and team, companies can perform the varieties of analysis essential to make data-driven business decisions.

BI comprises various roles and encompasses a combination of business analytics, data mining, visualizations and tools, and the infrastructure and processes, enabling businesses to make decisions based on data insights instead of anecdotes. It has a wide range of professional applications and those certified in it will likely have the opportunity to work in different areas in the IT sector. The skills learned in this field might also be beneficial in other industries that handle a huge volume of data.

Roles in Business Intelligence

In a company, BI drives effective and constructive decision making, which makes the field a high priority and putting analysts in high demand. According to PayScale, the average salary of a BI analyst is US$67,650. BI analysts provide application analysis and data modeling design for centralized data warehouses. They also extract data from databases and data warehouses for reporting, among other tasks.

Top job positions in BI are Business Intelligence Manager, whose average salary is around US$102,000 as per PayScale; BI Developer who work with databases and software to develop and fine-tune IT solutions – average salary US$79,218; and BI architects who assess and deploy BI for their organizations, with determining platforms, and building and maintaining data warehouses – average salary US$112,043.

Certifications in Business Intelligence

Learning the latest BI tools and technologies to work with large datasets is an essential part of BI training. Thus, many professionals are turning to BI certificate programs, which provide them to get an edge by proving their right skillset to employers.

Graduate Certification in Business Intelligence 

This certification program is designed to bolster students' skillsets and careers. It is also intended to meet the industry's overwhelming demand to convert raw data and information into business intelligence that is used to drive efficiency, maximize the technology investment and fortify customer relationships. The program explores, evaluates and distinguishes the value of data, makes predictions by leveraging cutting-edge modeling techniques and performs decisions strategically to improve organizations' performance. Several national and international institutions and universities offer Graduate Certification in Business Intelligence such as St. Mary's University and Virginia International University for instance.

CBIP Certification Program

The Certified Business Intelligence Professional (CBIP) certificate program is designed for senior-level personnel in the information systems and technology industry with a focus on data management and business analytics. The certification has two levels – Practitioner and Master. This certification program demonstrates that a candidate is up-to-date with BI technologies and is well-informed about its best practices, solutions, and emerging trends. For this program, professionals will need two or more years of full-time experience in computer information systems, data modeling, data planning, data definitions, metadata systems development, systems analysis, enterprise resource planning, application development, and programming, or information technology management.

IBM Certified Designer: IBM Cognos Analytics Author V11

This certification program demonstrates an aspirant's ability to make advanced reports, active reports, and dashboards using relational data or uploaded files, with enhancing, customizing and managing professional reports. For this program, candidates should have basic knowledge of database concepts and SQL, visually data presentation, and JavaScript. The certification requires passing the IBM Cognos Analytics Author V11 exam delivered by Pearson VUE.

Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite 11g Certified Implementation Specialist

The certification program is designed for intermediate-level implementation team members and demonstrates their skills in areas of installing Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, building the BI Server metadata repository, making BI dashboards, constructing ad hoc queries, defining security settings, and configuring and managing cache files.

SAS Certified BI Content Developer for SAS 9

This certification program from SAS demonstrates the candidates have the skills required to create reports, analyses and dashboards using SAS 9. The program requires candidates with skills in information consumer reporting applications, data management, creating information maps, building a SAS BI Dashboard application, creating stored processes and leveraging multidimensional (OLAP) data sources. For this certification program, candidates need to give an exam, which is administered by SAS and Pearson VUE and involves 60 to 65 multiple-choice questions, where the candidate must attain a score of 70 percent correct to pass.