Business intelligence (BI)

Roles that need it

• Business Intelligence Analyst
• BI Analyst (Banking)
• Data Analyst
• FP&A Analyst
• Business Controller

Skills it belongs to

• Visualisation tools (Power BI, Tableau)
• Communicating data to non-technical audiences
• Defining and using KPIs

Related concepts

• Data warehouseA data warehouse is a central database that stores cleaned, structured and historical data from many source systems, organised for reporting and analysis. Data marts are smaller subject-specific extracts of it, for example for finance or risk.
• Key performance indicator (KPI)A KPI is a measurable value that shows how well a team, process or business is meeting a goal, for example straight-through processing rate or cost-to-serve. A key risk indicator (KRI) does the same for risk exposure. Good KPIs have a clear definition, owner, target and source.
• SQL (Structured Query Language)SQL is the standard language for defining, querying and changing data in relational databases, standardised as ISO/IEC 9075. Analysts use it to select, filter, join and aggregate tables; it is the most requested technical skill in finance data roles.

Sources

• BIRD technical guidelines 4.1, ECB (external site) accessed 31 Oct 2026

Updated 31 Oct 2026.