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The differences between business leaders and functional leads can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a business leader and a functional lead. Additionally, a functional lead has an average salary of $113,422, which is higher than the $90,430 average annual salary of a business leader.
The top three skills for a business leader include analytics, project management and customer service. The most important skills for a functional lead are ERP, client facing, and enterprise solutions.
| Business Leader | Functional Lead | |
| Yearly salary | $90,430 | $113,422 |
| Hourly rate | $43.48 | $54.53 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 9% |
| Number of jobs | 117,296 | 33,917 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 69% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Average age | 44 | 43 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
Business Leaders are considered trailblazers in their field. They are innovative thinkers who often introduce solutions to their industry's challenges. They inspire people pursuing careers in their field and even those outside the industry to strive harder and create their paths to success. Employees often look up to Business Leaders, which is why they must be motivating. They also oversee their business operations and often set long-term targets and strategies to achieve these targets. They think outside the box to set their business apart from their competitors.
Functional leads are professionals who analyze business requirements and provide system design while implementing system solutions for various business initiatives. These professionals must work with clients and internal stakeholders to identify and understand the functional or business requirements. They must analyze and solve complex system problems so that they can improve the organization's overall Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) development and support process. Functional leads must also facilitate a team to design document control procedures that can significantly reduce process cycle time and cost.
Business leaders and functional leads have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Business Leader | Functional Lead | |
| Average salary | $90,430 | $113,422 |
| Salary range | Between $56,000 And $145,000 | Between $85,000 And $149,000 |
| Highest paying City | New York, NY | Sunnyvale, CA |
| Highest paying state | New York | California |
| Best paying company | Lyft | Airbnb |
| Best paying industry | Pharmaceutical | Retail |
There are a few differences between a business leader and a functional lead in terms of educational background:
| Business Leader | Functional Lead | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 69% | Bachelor's Degree, 64% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Pennsylvania | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between business leaders' and functional leads' demographics:
| Business Leader | Functional Lead | |
| Average age | 44 | 43 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 64.4% Female, 35.6% | Male, 68.1% Female, 31.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 15.2% Asian, 6.4% White, 67.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% | Black or African American, 8.4% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 9.5% Asian, 24.9% White, 52.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 10% | 8% |