Are you currently a Salesforce Administrator with aspirations to move into a Business Analyst role? Or maybe you’re a Business Analyst who has had some exposure to, or heard about Salesforce. We cover the nuts and bolts of the Salesforce Business Analyst role, who it best suits and how to go about transitioning.
Salesforce Business Analyst:
This role is more data led and project focused than a Salesforce Admin, and sometimes the next step for a Salesforce Administrator in their career. A Salesforce Business Analyst may have experience implementing Salesforce end-to-end and possess in-depth knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of Salesforce but not all BA’s on a Salesforce project will have in-depth Salesforce experience. There is some crossover between the role of a Salesforce BA and a Functional Consultant as a BA can be functional and hands-on, but typically they will work with Salesforce Administrators, Consultants and Developers.
What does a Salesforce Business Analyst do? Typical Salesforce Business Analyst tasks might include:
- documenting baseline information and requirements
- developing and defining project roadmaps
- liaising with managers and stakeholders
- driving Salesforce projects forward
- analysing Salesforce implementations
- applying best practice methodology
- solving issues during testing
What qualities will a Salesforce Business Analyst typically possess?
- An analytical mindset. Being able to analyse multiple data sources in an investigative manner is important, and provide insights.
- A lover of all things data. Tracking and evaluating in a detail orientated manner will excite this kind of person, and they’ll be able to advise the business on what should be reported on for value-add.
- The ability to make decisions fast. Being able to make actionable recommendations based on data findings will be important.
- The ability to take the initiative. They’ll need to be able to tell the business what they need confidently
How would I transition into a Salesforce Business Analyst role?
Trailhead is a great place to start. There are trails like Get Started as a Salesforce Business Analyst to learn more about being a BA and the potential opportunities. Or if you’re currently a Salesforce Admin, Compare the Admin and Business Analyst Roles to give a side-by-side comparison of just how Admin and Business Analyst roles differ. You may realise that there’s quite a bit of business analysis that you’re already doing, and then it’s more about equipping yourself with additional skills and methodologies to build out the path that you may have already started, to a degree.
If you have prior business experience in your career, you can apply that knowledge and pair it with getting your Salesforce Administrator certification. Or vice versa, if you’re currently a Salesforce Administrator, then learning more about business, or improving your communication skills is the route to pursue.
There are courses that can help you, such as the FlowRepublic Communication Bootcamp. You can hear a bit more about FlowRepublic in the Talent Hub Talk podcast episode featuring the Founder, Sebastian Wagner.
For help with the Salesforce Administrator certification, there are a host of fantastic resources:
And you can check out an interview we did with the Founder, Martin Gessner for Talent Hub TV to find out more
Mike appeared on our Talent Hub Talk podcast and explained his approach to launching a Salesforce career. You can find out more here
This training is run by Salesforce themselves and prepares students for the Salesforce Administrator exam
Heather Black founded this organisation, and we spoke to her about her UK business expanding overseas in our podcast episode here
Bradley Rice has been in a similar position himself prior to launching his training courses and he shared his story with us here
Which Salesforce certifications should I pursue?
Securing at least the Salesforce Administrator certification is a great way to show that you have a base-level understanding of the platform, but a lot of the learning will be around communication and business itself. Understanding delivery methodologies would also be useful, such as agile.
Let’s hear from the Salesforce Business Analysts themselves!
At Talent Hub, we publish a comprehensive annual Salesforce survey which collates the motivations, opinions and aspirations of Salesforce Business Analysts and other job titles specifically in the ANZ region. We asked Salesforce Business Analysts a few questions about their own roles to give a bit of a snapshot of the realities of the Salesforce Business Analyst role.
Some Business Analysts don’t have Salesforce experience, maybe due to working for an enterprise company, or a company that is just starting out with Salesforce. Salesforce might just be another tool for them. We asked Business Analysts whether they thought that those in their job type should be able to have Salesforce configuration skills, and 92% did actually say ‘yes’.
Mentorship is also fairly prevalent in the Salesforce ecosystem. Having a mentor is on the increase for Salesforce Business Analysts, leaping from only 5% a few years ago, to 39% in 2021. You can check out the whole Salesforce Market Survey for 2021, featuring both Hiring Managers and Salesforce Professionals, here.
FAQs
If I’m currently a pure Salesforce Business Analyst who doesn’t configure but would like to, how difficult is the Salesforce Admin Certification exam to pass?
The pass mark is 65%, meaning quite a high level of knowledge is required to be successful in this Salesforce exam. The test consists of 60 multiple choice questions, which means you must get at least 39 questions correct in order to pass. Practice tests can help prepare you for what to expect
What kind of questions might I get in a Salesforce Business Analyst interview?
We’ve put together a very brief list of possible Salesforce Business Analyst questions and answers to give a bit of a flavour:
When given a new project to work on, what is the first step that you will typically carry out?
What is your knowledge of standard and custom object records in Salesforce?
Can you list and explain the different types of reports that are available on Salesforce?
During a gap analysis, what are the different types of gaps that a business analyst can encounter?
How do you decide that you have gathered all the specifications? Which approach do you undertake?
Is a Salesforce Business Analyst a good career route to go down?
We believe so! 15% of Salesforce Administrators that we asked in our market survey this year told us that the Business Analyst role was their ideal next career move.
Did you know also, that there was a virtual Salesforce Business Analyst Summit in April? This covered a host of topics specialist to this area, which kicked off with the keynote,“The Flavors of Salesforce Business Analysts”. You can still catch the replays of this conference and so if you’d like to take a deep dive into the world of the Salesforce Business Analyst, then we’d highly recommend that you check it out.
You only have to look at the company forecasts to see how much bigger the platform is still tipped to get, and that means many more companies in the world adopting Salesforce, who aren’t currently. If you’re currently a generalist Business Analyst, then learning Salesforce will future-proof your career to a degree, by helping you gain skills that will keep bearing fruits for you and your career in the years to come by keeping in-sync with the tooling being adopted by organisations across the world
“Salesforce saw a 38% rise in its jobs listings from 2020-2021 and 4.2M direct and indirect jobs are projected to be created in the Salesforce ecosystem by 2024”
We’d love to help you with any other questions you may have, and so don’t hesitate to leave yours in the comments section below for us to do our best to answer.
