Business analysis has emerged as a core business practice in the 21st century. As the vital link between a firm’s information technology capabilities and its business objectives, skilled business analysts contribute to the profitability of companies both large and small, in almost all industries.
Therefore, a business analyst is someone who analyzes an organization or business domain (real or hypothetical) and documents its business or processes or systems, assessing the business model or its integration with technology.
The role of a business analyst can also be defined as a bridge between business problems and technology solutions. Here, business problems can be anything about business systems, for example, the model, process, or method. The technology solutions can be the use of technology architecture, tools, or software applications. So business analysts are required to analyze, transform and ultimately resolve the business problems with the help of technology.
There are at least four aspects of business analysis:
Strategic Planning – to identify the organization’s business needs
Business Model Analysis – to define the organization’s policies and market approaches
Process Design – to standardize the organization’s workflows
System Analysis – the interpretation of business rules and requirements for technical systems (generally within IT)
The Business Analyst, sometimes, is part of the business operation and works with Information technology to improve the quality of the services being delivered, sometimes assisting in integration and testing of new solutions.
The role of a business analyst may also be to support the development of training material, participate in the implementation, and provide post-implementation support. This may involve the development of project plans and often requires project management skills.
Alternate job titles include business systems analyst, process analyst, enterprise analyst, business architect and functional analyst.
Business analysts typically take the lead role in:
Assisting with the business case
Planning and monitoring
Eliciting requirements
Requirement of organization
Translating and simplifying requirements
Requirement management and communication
Requirement analysis
The skilled business analysts also use requirements to drive the design or review of test cases, process change requests and manage a project’s scope, acceptance, installation and deployment
Qualification and Training for a Business analyst
The role of a business analyst typically requires a bachelors degree in any discipline, though employers may prefer a degree in a business-, computing-, economics-, or numeracy-related subject. You can get your degree through a full-time university study or through a business analyst degree apprenticeship.
You may also be able to gain a professional qualification with either the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) or Project Management Institute (PMI), either before you start your career or as part of your career development.