There is no doubt over the fact that every business analyst is always in need of using certain Business Analytics tool in order to succeed. Business analysts use these types of tool for different work purpose. This includes collaboration with other organizations, project management, using case analysis, creating prototype, and workflow management.
As a business analyst, it is very important to have a good understanding of the leading Business Analyst tools for BA. And that is why, in this article, our main focus is to highlight the top tools being used by business analysts. By taking a look at what these tools are and what they do, a business analyst can get a good idea as to how to use these tools. So, let us take a look at the key business analytics tools for business analysts.
Statistical Data:
Business analytics tools have boosted the capabilities of different businesses and here are some of the statistics that prove our statement.
- 83% of the businesses have started to pursue big data projects for seizing a competitive edge.
- 63% of the organizations have claimed the use of big data and analytics to create a competitive advantage for their business.
- Similarly, use of Big Data can increase the average profit to 8% thereby reducing the overall cost to 10%.
- In addition, the average Return On Investment for different organizations or enterprises who have used business intelligence and analytics have been found out to be 1300%.
As you can see, use of big data and business analytics tools can help increase the overall productivity of a business. More related Business Intelligence tools Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, MicroStrategy, Cognos, Looker and more. You can find a good comparison of different features of these tools here.
Key Business Analytics Tools for Business Analyst:
In this section, we shall take a look at the key business analytics tools for business analyst.
Trello:
First on our list in Trello which has proven itself to be a very effective project collaboration tool. What Trello uses is the Kanban-style approach for managing and prioritizing different tasks. By using Trello, you can easily track your tasks, plan different projects, and evaluate the progress of key activities that have to be completed.
Microsoft Visio:
Microsoft Visio is known to be another competitive tool that is used for business modeling and project management. This type of tool can be easily used for creating use case diagrams. With that, you can also use this tool for projecting flowcharts and schedules. Other purposes of using this tool are processing the flow charts and data modeling.
Pencil:
Pencil is a very effective business analytics tool that has been used by different business analysts for decade. This tool is used for modeling and diagramming different models. With that, business analysts also use this tool for creating decision models. With the help of this tool, multiple stakeholders are able to interact and track their changes thereby making modeling a seamless collaborative process. In addition, pencil is also used for wireframing why because it allows different clients and stakeholders to evaluate the project’s requirements in the early stage of planning phase. Other popular wireframing tools used along with pencil are Balsamiq and Axure.
Microsoft Office:
Microsoft Office is a very important business analytics tool that includes important business tools in it. It includes
- Excel most importantly.
- Word
- Outlook
- PowerPoint
And many more. Microsoft Office is without any doubt a must-have skill that is essentially unavoidable in any office environment.
Even though Excel is a common requirements management tracking tool, yet there are many other similar tools for larger businesses like Orcanos, Rational Requisite Pro, ReQtest, and Jama.
Wrike:
Wrike is known to be another important and effective business analytics tool that is considered to be a work management app. This is a type of tool that includes a variety of useful features which are mentioned below.
- It offers live editing and file management.
- Then it offers budget management.
- Similarly, it gives out a workload view.
- Lastly, it offers schedule timeline diagramming.
Google Docs:
Among so many business analytics tools that we have mentioned above, Google Docs is another important one. It is a very powerful document sharing and collaboration tool that is used widely by Business Analysts. Using Google Docs, business analysts are able to share all types of files and documents with stakeholders. Whatever the business analysts enter in the Google Docs will be easily accessible to the stakeholders. This makes it easy to share important information with stakeholders.
Jira and Confluence:
Both Jira and Confluence have found out to be very compelling collaboration tools and that is why it is highly likely that every business analyst would be familiar with the basics of Jira and Confluence. Use of Jira and confluence leads to effective project collaboration and requirements sharing. All the documents are stored in a centralized repository in Jira. And the business stakeholders have access to it so that they can see the status of the projects and then communicate with the diverse teams using Jira and Confluence.
Conclusion:
As you can see no matter the size, every business is in need of keeping a proper track of their performance. With that, they also need to develop a strategy based on the available data. And for all these purposes, they badly need plenty of business analytics tools that are readily available for business analysts. By using these plenty of business analytics tools, business analysts are able to make their working even more efficient and easier. So, read this article today and take a look at the details of the key business analytics tools for business analyst. And don’t forget to stay safe, stay home, and never stop learning.