BI skills deficiency mounting

There is a surge in demand for highly-skilled business intelligence (BI) experts despite a skills shortage due to blurred roles in the industry.

Sean Eekhout, BI specialist working at the IQ Business Group, says there is a shortage of BI skills globally and that the success of BI comes from people and not so much from the technology.

During the upcoming ITWeb BI Summit to be held on 22 and 23 February at Vodaworld, Midrand, Eekhout will provide on overview of the BI skills, competencies, roles and responsibilities that exist within BI environments.

“The massive growth in data volumes, changing regulatory environments and increasing pressure from business to show tangible benefits from investments in BI technologies has resulted in a surge in the demand for BI resources,” says Eekhout.

“International research agencies list data warehouse and BI analysts as two of the top 10 jobs globally for 2011. In our experience, both from internal recruitment for our BI competency as well as in assisting clients with resourcing requirements, there is a general lack of clarity with regards to specific roles and responsibilities and the associated skills and competencies within most BI environments.”

Over a four month period (September to December 2010), Eekhout found over 1 300 advertisements placed for BI positions on one of the largest local online recruitment Web sites, that stemmed from both IT and business domains.

Eekhout explains that more than 70% of the outcomes that determines the success of a BI initiative are not technology related, but rather due to sourcing the right people.

He points out that a skills shortage exists because it is difficult to define roles in the BI space. He says it is also difficult to plot a trajectory of the career path for these careers.

Eekhout adds that it is also a difficult environment to work in because of the stress of a constant changing environment, managing unstructured data, and maintaining suitable governance and compliance over data.

The consequence of poor BI skills, Eekhout says, is that if IT cannot provide the insight from incomplete data, business will make assumptions. He adds that this will have disastrous consequences on businesses as was seen during the global economic meltdown.

“In the last couple of years, BI has been fixated on technology, which has advanced in leaps and bounds, but is driven by vendors with deep pockets that drive the presentation around the technology side. But we need to see more of the business-side of things being driven.”

Eekhout predicts BI analysts will require an extensive knowledge in not only data environments and IT tools, but also a deeper understanding of the business environment. He says if there is not significant effort being driven from both IT and business, the gap between the two will widen.

“Currently, a lot of BI analysts start as technology people; this will have to change. BI analysts are going to have to reverse this and are going to have to come out with solid business understanding.”