Data analytics is a trendy term that might have caught your attention. If you are interested in technologies and the digital world, this might sound like a perfect career to pursue. But what do data analysts really do?
To answer this question and give you more clarity about the work of a data analyst, we asked few questions to our own Nikolay Kolev, who is Data Analyst Team Lead here at Flat Rock Technology.
Nikolay joined Flat Rock back in 2015 as a Web and Data Administrator. After six months of work, he was offered to form and lead the data analysts team for one of our BPO clients. Together with his manager, Nikolay defined the work model and business processes, created a detailed onboarding procedure and specific communication standards that suit the client's business model. Today he has five years of experience working as a data analyst TL and is leading a team of more than 40 data analysts.
You are leading a team of data analysts, what exactly do they do?
We are working with an industry-leading company that provides cutting-edge e-commerce solutions to its clients around the world. The Data Analysts team in Flat Rock helps our clients customers list their products across many online marketplace sites worldwide. We maintain the quality of those listings and troubleshoot them to promote them using digital marketing campaigns.
Most importantly, we compile various reports such as - inventory management, listing quality, sales, campaign performance, etc; to turn data into readable information that the client can use for decision making.
What is your responsibility and role as a Data Analyst Team Lead?
Simply put, my job is to allow and help the team do their job most efficiently. A long time ago, I realized that I could not have all the skills and knowledge that each team member can have (even if I tried my best).
Since then, my main responsibility is to find out what my team members are good at and help them utilize their skills the best. This approach helps me distribute the tasks in a way that each member uses their skills and knowledge and has room for improvement and development
In your words, what is data analytics? What do data analysts do?
Every data analyst should be able to communicate complex/technical information to non-technical people in a readable format, so I would say that data analysis is taking raw data and creating useful information.
We live in the Information/Digital age where we are constantly being flooded with data. People need to use this data to make all kinds of decisions. From personal things like: "Google says that there aren’t many people who visit my favorite shop on Tuesday, so I will go on Tuesday." to strategic business decisions of billion-dollar companies.
What are the key responsibilities of data analysts?
Different types of data analysis require different steps to follow but primarily, data analysts collect, clean, transform, analyze, and visualize data in a readable format to support decision making. Some additional responsibilities are identifying trends and patterns in the data sets, making predictions, etc.
What are Data Analyst Challenges and Difficulties?
From my perspective, one of the biggest challenges for each data analyst is to work with inconsistent or unstructured data. Not every dataset is clean and well-structured. There are often gaps in the data that make it hard to collect and process.
What Skills do Data Analysts Need?
As I mentioned above, there are different types and levels of data analytics. Respectively, there are various skills and tools a data analyst can utilize, but I would say that if a person wants to pursue a career in the data analytics field, learning Microsoft Excel, attention to detail, critical thinking, and data visualization are a must.
Why Become a Data Analyst?
The demand for data analysts has spiked significantly for the past few years. The increase in data generation requires a larger number of people who have the skills and knowledge to process this data; And this is an amazing opportunity for everyone interested in data analytics.
Becoming a data analyst gives you a wide list of options for career development - Business analyst, Social media data analyst, Budget analyst, Sales analyst, Fraud analyst, Credit analyst, Machine learning analyst – they all work with data. All industries use data analytics to some extent.
What do you think is the role of data analytics in today's business world?
It is a real game-changer. Every decision-maker should have access to data before making a big decision. Today’s business world is more dynamic than ever. Dynamics means changes. Changes bring new questions and problems. The more changes, the more questions. The more data analytics, the more answers.
What advice would you give to people who are interested in data analytics?
First, everyone needs to accept that no matter if they like it or not, data is all around us. We must analyze it for different purposes. Data analytics help people make data-driven and informed decisions not only at work or in business but in their personal life too. Be curious and never stop learning!
We are hiring! Become a Data Analyst
Do you want to become a Data Analyst? Nikolay's team is hiring a data analyst. If you love working with numbers, know excel, and have excellent spoken and written English join our young and motivated team!
