It’s a competitive market out there, and businesses that want to succeed need to take advantage of every tool and resource within their reach. Smart decisions help businesses thrive, and reliable information is the key to intelligent decisions.
Enter business analysis. You are about to get a primer on business analysts—learning what they are, why they are needed, what they do, and how to become one. If you’re running a business, you may realize why you need one in your organization, while those of you who are looking for a good career may have just found one!
Let’s take our first steps into a business analyst’s world by first understanding what is business analysis.
Gain expertise in the latest Business analytics tools and techniques with the Business Analyst Master's Program. Enroll now!
What is Business Analysis?
Business analysis is a combination of gaining insight from data using specific techniques, and performing tasks to identify the needs of a business—then, recommending changes and providing solutions that produce value for the stakeholders. Many of the solutions potentially have software and digital data-based components, but can also incorporate organizational changes, like improving processes, developing new policies, and engaging in strategic planning.
PCP in Business Analysis
In partnership with Purdue UniversityVIEW COURSE
What Does a Business Analyst Do?
Business analysts are agents of change—professionals who analyze a business or organization, by documenting its systems and processes, assessing its business model, identifying vulnerabilities, and devising solutions.
Business analysts go by many other job titles, including:
- Business Architect
- Business Intelligence Analyst
- Business Systems Analyst
- Data Scientist
- Enterprise Analyst
- Management Consultant
- Process Analyst
- Product Manager
- Product Owner
- Requirements Engineer
- Systems Analyst
Bear in mind that some organizations also use the term “IT Business Analyst.” Although there seems to be no clear consensus regarding the differences between the two positions (and, in fact, many organizations use them interchangeably), some circles note that the IT Business Analyst works more with software methodologies.
Once the business analysis definition is locked down, the more curiosity-driven reader may follow up by asking, “In that case, what is business impact analysis?” Business impact analysis is a practice that’s of particular relevance in these days of pandemic-induced business shutdowns. Business impact analysis, or BIA, aims to predict and identify the financial and operational impacts of business disruption. You can be sure that before many businesses closed temporarily due to the coronavirus, they launched business impact analysis studies.
Now that we have gone through to understand what is business analysis, let us next look at the difference between business analysis and business analytics.
Difference Between Business Analysis and Business Analytics
We should take a moment and clarify the distinction between these two concepts. Business analysis is more concerned with functions and processes, while business analytics covers data and reporting. Still, many organizations use the terms interchangeably.
As we have learned what a business analyst is, let us understand business analysis uses.
Why Use Business Analysis?
Thanks mostly to the breathtaking pace of today’s technological advancements, the 21st century’s business world is one of rapid, constant change. Innovations change the way we live and work, and businesses must be able to adapt to these changes or get left behind.
Business analysts are the ideal professionals to shepherd any organization through the tricky terrain of change. Once they navigate through those changes, businesses emerge more robust, more competitive, and better equipped to handle the ever-evolving world of digital-based business.
After having understood what is a business analyst, let us next look at the business analysis process.
Free Course: Business Analysis Basics
Master the Fundamentals of Business AnalysisEnroll Now
What is the Business Analysis Process?
These are the widely accepted steps in the business analysis process. Each company’s needs and situations are different, however, so there may be some variance.
- Get orientedMake sure to clarify the business analyst’s role, determine the stakeholders’ perspective, and get familiar with the project’s history.
- Name the primary business objectives. Identify the primary stakeholders’ expectations, reconcile conflicting expectations, and make sure the objectives are clear and actionable.
- Define the project’s scope. You need a clear and complete statement of the project’s scope—a rough roadmap of all the steps the project participants must follow.
- Create a business analysis plan. List timelines, steps, and deliverables.
- Define requirements. You need concise, clear, and actionable requirements, based on analyzing the information gathered so far.
- Support the technical implementation. Since many solutions require using software, the business analyst needs to work closely with IT teams.
- Help implement the solution. This step involves creating clear documentation and training end-users.
- Assess value. Did the project work? How much progress did the organization make? Are there any needed follow-ups?
While looking into the various aspects of business analysis, we have learned what is business analysis so let us next learn its various techniques.
What are the Different Techniques of Business Analysis?
Countless hurdles and obstacles face any company that wants to stay on top of the heap. Fortunately, there are also a handful of varying business analysis techniques—brace yourself for a flood of acronyms.
- CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transformation Process, World View, Owner, and Environmental Constraints). This technique identifies the main parties and processes potentially affected by any action the business undertakes. This technique helps business analysts to thoroughly evaluate how a proposed action will affect a collection of different parties and elements.
- MoSCoW (Must or Should, Could or Would). This process prioritizes requirements by presenting a framework where every single demand is evaluated compared to other requirements. Is it a must-have or a should-have? Is it something that could improve the product or something that would be an ideal future element?
- MOST (Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics). Business analysts use these elements to conduct a detailed and complete internal analysis of an organization’s goals and how to handle each one.
- PESTLE (Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental). Business analysts use the PESTLE model to evaluate the various external factors that can potentially affect their company and how best to address them.
- SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). This technique identifies a corporate structure’s areas of strength and weakness, translating them into opportunities and threats. The knowledge gained helps determine proper resource allocation.
- Six Thinking Hats. This analysis process directs a group’s line of thinking by brainstorming alternate perspectives and ideas. The ‘six hats’ in question are White (focus on your data, logic), Red (uses gut feelings, emotions, intuition), Black (potential negative results, what can go wrong), Yellow (focus on positives, optimistic), Green (creativity), and Blue (process control, the big-picture overview).
- The 5 Whys. Commonly found in Six Sigma and business analysis techniques, this series of leading questions, all posed with “Why?”, helps business analysts identify a problem’s origin by asking why a situation exists, then raising another “why?” question to the answer, and so on.
FREE Business Analytics With Excel Course
Start your Business Analytics Learning for FREEStart Learning
We have understood so much about business analysis, beginning from what is business analysis, the process, uses, and more. Let us next look at the benefits.
How Does a Company Benefit from Business Analysis?
Business analysts bring a disciplined approach to creating and managing change within an organization. They identify vulnerabilities, define needs based on feedback and stakeholder communication, organize and implement solutions, and monitor the results.
In today’s competitive environment, businesses of all sizes need every possible advantage that they can get, and the business analyst is a valuable resource for identifying the best moves to make, on both a tactical and strategic scale. Furthermore, business analysts make ideal project managers.
By employing a business analyst, companies gain a better understanding of themselves and their needs, and how best to meet them. As we have learned what is a business analyst, the various techniques, the business analysis process, and more let us look into the benefits of getting certified.
The Benefits of Certification
The certification process yields advantages to the professional and organization alike. For the individual, certification imparts skills and training that any good business analyst needs to succeed. Business analysis is not a career where you can mostly learn as you go! Entering a new position with a complete and robust skillset is the only way you will succeed.
Certification also grants you a tangible milestone, an easily measured achievement that tells prospective employers, “I know what I’m doing.” When you sit down for that interview, your certification is a verification of your qualifications. Certification helps you open the door to a better, more lucrative career in business analytics.
For the organization, certification assures the business that they have the right choice for the position. The interview process can be tricky, fraught with uncertainty. It’s also time-consuming and costly, so the organization should strive to make the right choice the first time by ensuring a mutually beneficial fit. Certification assures the candidate’s competency in the subject matter.
We have learned what is business analysis, next, let us look at the skills and qualifications of a business analyst.
Looking forward to your next job role as a business analyst? Check out our Post Graduate Program in Business Analysis. Click to view program details.
What Skills and Qualifications Does a Business Analyst Need?
When we talk about what is business analysis and what makes a good business analyst, we must focus on the relevant necessary skills. Business analysts required a range of soft and hard skills, including experience in either IT or business-related backgrounds. For the IT side, that means knowing how to pull, analyze, and report on data trends, as well as sharing that information in a clear way. For the business side, you need to have at least a basic understanding of how systems, tools, and products work.
Business analysts should have a bachelor’s degree in Business or a related field, or alternately, an MBA. Furthermore, most businesses want the candidate to have some work-related experience in business analysis or a related field, usually about five years’ worth.
According to the Institute of Business Analysis, a good analyst needs the following skills and knowledge:
- Analytical thinking and problem solving
- Communication skills (oral and written)
- Interpersonal and consultative skills
- Costs benefit analysis
- Facilitation skills
- Detail-oriented and able to deliver at a high level of accuracy
- Organizational skills
- Processes modeling
- Knowledge of business structures
- Stakeholder analysis
- Requirements engineering
- Understanding of how networks, databases and other technologies work
How Would You Like to Become a Business Analyst?
Business analysts are in high demand and fetch excellent compensation. Salary.com reports an annual average of USD 75,400. If this sounds like a smart career move to you, then check out Simplilearn’s new Post Graduate Program in Business Analysis in partnership with Purdue University.
The program is designed to hone your expertise in the latest business analytics tools and techniques, including planning and monitoring, data analysis and statistics, visualizations, Agile Scrum methodologies, and SQL databases.
On the other hand, if you wish to become a pro business analyst, and add a shining name, i.e., Carlson School of Management certification to your resume, you must join umn business analytics course. Leverage the UMN edge today, explore more and enroll right away!
FAQs
What does a business analysis do? ›
Business analysis is used to identify and articulate the need for change in how organizations work, and to facilitate that change. As business analysts, we identify and define the solutions that will maximize the value delivered by an organization to its stakeholders.
What is business analytics in simple words? ›Specifically, business analytics refers to: Taking in and processing historical business data. Analyzing that data to identify trends, patterns, and root causes. Making data-driven business decisions based on those insights.
What are the three main roles of a business analyst? ›- Understanding Business Requirements. Business analysts may work in various departments of an organization to identify, collect, analyse and manage business requirements. ...
- Planning. ...
- Decision-Making & Problem-Solving.
Business analysis is the process of developing information, knowledge and plans for business change. This generally involves information gathering, measurement & calculation, solution design and resolution of issues. The following are common examples of business analysis.
What is the most important role of a business analyst? ›The most important responsibility of the Business Analyst is elaborating the details. This is where he gets into evaluating the needs and guarantee the implementation team has the entire details, they require creating or implementing the process.
What makes a good business analyst? ›Great BA's are good communicators, problem-solvers, and think critically. They can create requirements specifications, analyze requirements, create visual models, facilitate elicitation sessions, and use the necessary business analyst tools.
What are the 3 types of business analytics? ›There are three types of analytics that businesses use to drive their decision making; descriptive analytics, which tell us what has already happened; predictive analytics, which show us what could happen, and finally, prescriptive analytics, which inform us what should happen in the future.
What are the four types of business analytics? ›- Step One: Descriptive Analytics. Descriptive analytics is the step where we start to glean information from what we've gathered. ...
- Step Two: Diagnostic Analytics. ...
- Step Three: Predictive Analytics. ...
- Step Four: Prescriptive Analytics.
Business analysts can identify issues in virtually any part of an organization, including IT processes, organizational structures, or staff development. As businesses seek to increase efficiency and reduce costs, business analytics has become an important component of their operations.
What does business analyst do day to day? ›A business analyst's daily job duties include identifying business issues, collecting and recording data, analyzing data, and evaluating and presenting data solutions. They work with several groups including customer service management, product development, business operations, and business clients.
What is an entry level business analyst? ›
Entry-level business analysts, or junior business analysts, support the collection and analysis of data for a business or organization, providing better solutions, technology integration, or systems improvements.
Does a business analyst do testing? ›So, a BA doesn't run testing, but they can participate in preparing test cases. For example, a BA specialist can check if the tests are written in conformance with the requirements. A Business Analyst can also be on the list of people authorized to sign a testing plan.
How do you do business analysis? ›- Step 1: Gather Background Information. ...
- Step 2: Identify Stakeholders. ...
- Step 3: Discover Business Objectives. ...
- Step 4: Evaluate Options. ...
- Step 5: Scope Definition. ...
- Step 6: Business Analyst Delivery Plan. ...
- Step 7: Define Project Requirements. ...
- Step 8: Support Implementation Through SDLC.
The definition of analysis is the process of breaking down a something into its parts to learn what they do and how they relate to one another. Examining blood in a lab to discover all of its components is an example of analysis.
What a BA is expected to deliver? ›A BA's primary responsibility is to drive the client's business processes by analyzing its present state and suggesting specific solutions for improving organizational needs. Business analysts are required to analyze and communicate information. They are responsible for the organization's development.
What are the six business analysis knowledge areas? ›- Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring.
- Elicitation and Collaboration.
- Requirements Life Cycle Management.
- Strategy Analysis.
- Requirements Analysis and Design Definition.
- Solution Evaluation.
You can answer this by stating that a business analyst must have exceptional communication and negotiation skills. Analytical thinking, problem-solving, and decision making are also vital attributes. A business analyst should have industry knowledge, business process management skills along with technical proficiency.
How do I prepare for a BA interview? ›- First, take a look at the job posting. What skills are they looking for? ...
- Next, brush up on your knowledge of the company. Research their history, mission statement, and any recent news stories.
- Finally, practice your answers to common interview questions.
The average Business Analyst tends to be direct in verbalizing concerns without leaving anything up for interpretation, occasionally being blunt with feedback. The average Business Analyst tends to be an objective thinker who prioritizes accuracy and results.
What is Step 7 in the business analytics process? ›Make a decision and measure the outcome
The analyst will then make decisions and take action based on the derived insights from the model and the organisational goals.
Which of these are examples of business analytics? ›
Some of the real-world examples of business analytics are developing marketing strategies, increasing sales, improving financial efficiency, streamlining processes, increasing productivity, and using predictive analytics.
What are the 7 analytical methods? ›- Regression analysis.
- Monte Carlo simulation.
- Factor analysis.
- Cohort analysis.
- Cluster analysis.
- Time series analysis.
- Sentiment analysis.
In a technical sense, business analytics is not especially hard. You could train almost anyone with a bit of math ability to do it. We have software written by data scientists – who have a tough job – that can help extract useful stuff from a dataset.
What does a business analyst not do? ›Business Analysts are not Project Managers
The technical and business teams each are driven by different sets of often conflicting priorities. Each side needs an advocate, and when a situation arises that calls for one side to make a sacrifice, that decision falls to the project manager.
IT business analysts are experts in both business administration and information technology. Their primary responsibilities include liaising between IT and the executive branch, improving the quality of IT services, and analyzing business needs.
What is the role of analyst? ›What is an Analyst? Analysts research, analyze and report on different trends. Using either publicly available or collected data, analysts attempt to draw insights that can be used to create actionable strategies in different industries.
What is life like as a business analyst? ›Key job responsibilities for business analysts include assessment of business risks and opportunities, financial forecasting, optimising of business models, cost and variance analysis, and business case analysis. Depending on the size of the company, you may also find yourself in a local or regional role.
Does business analyst do coding? ›Business Analyst doesn't write the software code, it is the responsibility of the software developers. Technical Knowledge and Technical Skills both are different things, it is recommended for a BA to have the technical knowledge and the basic idea about how the programming works.
What is difference between project manager and business analyst? ›A Project Manager is assigned with the task of resolving issues and managing resources of a particular project whereas a Business Analyst needs to ensure that the delivered project meets the requirements of the stakeholders.
What does a business analyst 1 do? ›Managing projects, developing project plans, monitoring performance, and ensuring timely turnover of deliverables. Communicate changes, recommendations, and procedures to business teams. Remain engaged with business leaders to help them understand how changes impact the goals of the organization.
What qualifications do I need to be a business analyst? ›
Any degree that teaches analytical skills can be useful for this role. Some employers may prefer you to have a degree or postgraduate qualification in a relevant subject, such as: business information systems. business management.
Why do I want to be a business analyst? ›“One of the main reasons I want to be a business analyst is because I like to be able to see a direct relationship between my efforts and the company's success. In my summer work term, I was able to improve the company's operational efficiencies resulting in a cost savings of 2%.”
Does BA write test cases? ›Business analyst has to write different sets of test cases that need to design for UAT. Once UAT has done successfully the deployment will start at the customer's place, and the actual end-user will start using the software.
Which domain is best for business analyst? ›The best domain for a business analyst depends on the individual's skills, interests, and experiences. That said, some domains that may be a good fit for a business analyst include data analysis, process improvement, and project management.
Is BA better than QA? ›Testing and validation: In the end, QA verify all requirements of the application. And a BA verifies all requirements from user perspective. A QA is more expert in this domain as compared to BA which again strengthens the point that a QA can become a good BA.
What qualifications do I need to be a business analyst? ›Any degree that teaches analytical skills can be useful for this role. Some employers may prefer you to have a degree or postgraduate qualification in a relevant subject, such as: business information systems. business management.
Is business analyst a good career? ›The simple answer is yes – being a business analyst is a good career choice and provides an opportunity for life-long learning and addressing challenges to provide solutions to business problems. You have the opportunity to work in different sectors and industries to apply your skills.
What are the four stages of business analysis? ›Steps involved in Business Analysis Process
Requirement planning and Management. Requirement Elicitation. Requirement analysis and Documentation.
A business analyst's daily job duties include identifying business issues, collecting and recording data, analyzing data, and evaluating and presenting data solutions. They work with several groups including customer service management, product development, business operations, and business clients.
Is business analyst an IT job? ›IT business analysts are experts in both business administration and information technology. Their primary responsibilities include liaising between IT and the executive branch, improving the quality of IT services, and analyzing business needs.
What software do business analysts use? ›
There are multiple excellent options for creating data visualizations as well. Microsoft's Visio is perhaps the most popular with Business Analysts, but Data Analysts might also recommend Tableau, PowerBI, Bokeh, Plotly, or Infogram.
What is an entry level business analyst? ›Entry-level business analysts, or junior business analysts, support the collection and analysis of data for a business or organization, providing better solutions, technology integration, or systems improvements.
Why should we hire you as business analyst? ›You can answer this by stating that a business analyst must have exceptional communication and negotiation skills. Analytical thinking, problem-solving, and decision making are also vital attributes. A business analyst should have industry knowledge, business process management skills along with technical proficiency.
What is the next step after business analyst? ›Those who wish to move higher up in the profession typically begin to make a move after three to five years in the career. At that point, it's possible to move into project management, IT roles such as senior/lead business analyst, product manager, and consulting roles.
How do you perform business analysis? ›- Step 1: Gather Background Information. ...
- Step 2: Identify Stakeholders. ...
- Step 3: Discover Business Objectives. ...
- Step 4: Evaluate Options. ...
- Step 5: Scope Definition. ...
- Step 6: Business Analyst Delivery Plan. ...
- Step 7: Define Project Requirements. ...
- Step 8: Support Implementation Through SDLC.
The aim of business analytics is data and reporting—examining past business performance and forecasting future business performance. On the other hand, the business analysis focuses on functions and processes—determining business requirements and suggesting solutions.
What are the components of a business analysis? ›Six Core Concepts form the foundation of Business Analysis: change, need, solution, context, stakeholder, and value.
Does business analyst require coding? ›While the ability to program is helpful for a career in analytics, being able to write code isn't necessarily required to work as an analytics professional. Apart from the above languages, statistical software such as SPSS, SAS, Sage, Mathematica, and even Excel can be used when managing and analyzing data.
Do business analysts work from home? ›They can work full-time, part-time, freelance, or as independent contractors across a variety of career fields. And, because much of the business analyst role includes data analysis and visualization (think: crunching numbers and creating graphs and pie charts), in many cases, their work can be done remotely.
Which is better business analyst or financial analyst? ›The biggest distinction between a financial analyst and a business analyst is that a financial analyst deals more with investments while a business analyst deals more with operations and management. It comes down to the field in which you feel more confident and knowledgeable.