Career in BI.. Whats next for the resume?

[mwaltercpa]

looking for some advice.. im a CPA that has made a career in Excel.. now that im hooked on PowerPivot and DAX,id like to move further from Acct and closer to a career in BI. i habe lots of Excel (heavy logical formulas and pivot), navigate well in PP (pivot, maps)... whats the next skill to add to the resume? i see lots of BI people habe MS SQL??. thanks and Merry Christmas!!

 

[etaf]

i would say you need to get some of the other BI tools - if you want to move into BI
perhaps also in excel make a few dashboards
then
Sql would be useful
Access can be an easy starting point - so you can understand databases and the relationships
business objects
if you want to stay within the finance field - then cognos

have a look at a few job adverts for roles in your local area (or where you are prepared to travel) and see what type of roles are being advertised and the requirements for those roles

 

[scottsen]

Answer every question in this forum. That would save me a lot of time

So, obviously I'm a huge believer in the msft bi stack. I believe Power Pivot is amazeballs (and really power query is super awesome too). Msft is clearly continuing to invest here, so that's ... good. On the other hand, the marketing and general awareness of these technologies has been pure crap. People don't know Power Pivot exists. When you show them it... it blows their minds. We can only help with that... some.

I would be tempted to hold off briefly and see where the next version of Office goes. 2013 was a total mess for Power Pivot. A complete disaster really. If they screw up the next version, you can have my BI career

I do think SQL experience is really valuable. I think, in general, any experience with the stuff "around" power pivot is probably more valuable than I expected. How do you get data INTO power pivot (shaped in a good way), and how do you get your final results (reports) into users hands... have a huge variety of interesting issues (and room for some deep knowledge... SQL? Google Analytics? Cognos? Sharepoint? Finacial Reports like cashflow, Tabular and row level security stuff, etc, etc). I do think Power Pivot is the cornerstone of the power bi stack, and is certainly required knowledge, but after that... the stuff around it is just huge, varied, and you should focus on what you find interesting.

There are certainly a bunch of consulting houses out there that want to add more Power BI experience to their ranks. Going it solo has its own challenges and rewards

 

[mwaltercpa]

Thanks for the advice. I've used my time off this week to poke around and see what else is out there.. Cognos, MS SQL.. I have a little Access experience from way back, but really am strong in Excel. I am of course an evangelist for PowerPivot.. It takes all the prep and data limitations away.. but like you said, no one knows about it.. I met with a finance group about a month ago and we started talking Excel and how nerdy we were in the program. Not one person had ever heard the term PowerPivot. That is a fail... And unless you can show them millions of rows loading, they won't fully grasp how great it is.

I like others scratch my head as to why MS would build the tool and hide it from business users. Free download was fine, but to now require a duplicate purchase on top of our office package??

I'll wait and see.. After everything I have seen, I come back to PowerPivot and its power, and my familiarity with it. I can't help but think that when PP takes off, many mid sized companies considering "real BI" solutions might just find PP as a great value to what they need.

Thanks again for the advice!