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Published: 08 Apr 2008
I'm graduating with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Systems. All of my experiences thus far have been in the areas of Web and database development. I have recently been learning the theories and techniques of data mining and data warehousing in business intelligence systems. BI has really sparked my interest and I want to know if I enter into the job market as a Web developer, could I ever make the transition to the BI job market -- or should I start now?"
You can definitely get to a business intelligence (BI) career from
Web development. As a matter of fact, BI may come to you with the way the markets are converging. I wouldn't be in a rush because Web development career experience provides a good foundation for deploying BI tools, most of which are deployed on the web platform. You could specialize in this aspect of BI potentially.
BI, as a term, has come to be pretty broad so it's easy to say somebody's in BI these days. At an entry level, you will not be responsible for all of data access/OLAP (traditional BI), data mining and data warehousing. Bide your time, be excellent and look for the opportunity to add value to the business by applying BI techniques. Then look to shift your role. And keep reading and learning! I was a DBA who got into DW/BI from reading about it and finding a good use for it at my company. I knew a good thing when I read about it. It's not the way they teach you to do it, but it worked out for all.
Again I'll say the one thing that will open up the possibilities you want, no matter what they are, is excellence in what you do. It will give you the greatest leverage.
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