Mapping business analytics skillsets with industries: empirical evidence from online job advertisements

ABSTRACT As a large accumulation of data is captured and contained, organisations find that the invaluable information can be used to improve company performance, leverage competitive advantages, and create business values. Using business analytics (BA) job advertisements collected from a recruiting website, this study identified knowledge domains and skillsets of BA professionals. Additionally, it examined the relative importance of these BA skills in different industries such as Financial and Information Technology services. The results of Text mining analysis indicate that data modelling, statistical software, visualisation, forecasting, and database are the top ranked BA technical skills. In addition, process skills such as communication, project management, and financial techniques are crucial. The association rules analysis recognises the relative importance of BA skillsets across different industries. The findings contribute to the employability and professional development of new graduates; additionally, they provide insights to BA academic curriculum design and human resources management.