“Analytics allows the leaders of today and the future to be measured not only by decisiveness and responsiveness but by the accuracy and effectiveness of their foresight.”
- Kevin Mackey, Business Intelligence & Analytics Practice Leader at Point B Management Consultants
Today, the external environment is so unpredictable that you need to make your business agile so as to adapt to the changing world easily. The International Institute of Business Analysis or IIBA which is a non-profit professional association, considers the business analyst to be an “agent of change”. According to IIBA, a business analyst “is a disciplined approach for introducing and managing change to organizations, whether they are for-profit businesses, governments or non-profits.”
The trends for business analysis includes an emphasis on organizational agility, considerable recognition of roles, improvement in recent processes and technologies, the effect of digital transformation, design of user interface and user experience, data and analytics, and more. The trends also include scalable and leaner business cases and also the learning of business analysis at the fringe.
You can observe that the process of business analysis and eventually the role of business analysts are going through prompt changes. There will be a huge demand for business analysts due to the attractiveness of crossover skills, the need for cybersecurity, technical projects going data-driven, etc.
So now you have read about the emerging trends in business analysis, let us now see what actually is a business analyst and what are the responsibilities of a BA. This will make you wish to go for a career in Business analysis and let you decide how beneficial it is taking up a Business Analyst Course.
Who Is A Business Analyst?
The way IIBA defines business analysis is, “practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.”
Also, it states that a Business Analyst is an “agent of change” and is a disciplined approach for the introduction and management of change to any type of organization.
For the gap that exists between IT and business, the bridging is done by Business Analysts, by making use of data analytics to assess processes, identify the needs, and delivering data-driven solutions and reports to executives and stakeholders.
BAs team up with business leaders and users to make a clear understanding of how data-driven changes to the process, products and services, hardware, and software can boost efficiencies and increase the value.
As a BA, you need to communicate those ideas, keeping in mind how they are to be balanced against technically feasible, reasonable both financially and functionally. You might need to work with datasets in order to improve products, services, software, hardware, process, or tools, depending upon your role.
What does a BA do?
A Business Analyst or BA is responsible for interacting with stakeholders to cite, analyze and validate the requirements for changes to business processes, information systems, and policies. This is done by following some primary steps that a business analyst has to prioritize.
They include understanding the aspects mentioned below.
- Recognize what a business does and how is it done or achieved.
- Identify the ways of improving existing business processes.
- Find out the steps in order to support the implementation of new features or processes.
- Designing new processes or features to implement.
- Analysis of the effects of implementing new features.
- Implementation of new features.
Apart from these tasks, a business analyst is responsible for creating a detailed report of business analysis, budget and forecast of business, planning and control, variance analysis, price determination, report generation, identifying business requirements and reporting them back to stakeholders.
Different Roles of a BA
The role of a Business Analyst is continuously evolving and changing, the reason being that companies depend more on data to advise business operations. For every company, there are different issues that a business analyst needs to address; they may include broken processes, changing technologies, customer satisfaction, etc.
The different job roles are defined by the responsibilities they need to accomplish. A business analyst might play the following roles:
- System Analyst
- Data Analyst
- Business Process Analyst
- Functional Architect
- IT Business Analyst
- Usability or UX Analyst
Skills Required
For every job role, there is a certain set of skills that a candidate needs to possess or develop. As a business analyst, you need to know how to collect, analyze, and report trends of data and share the information with the designated people so as to apply it on the business side.
The key skills required to become a business analyst are:
- Analytical skills because the role of BA includes analysis of data, workflow, documents, business processes, etc.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Business processing and planning
- Requirements engineering
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Thorough knowledge of networks, databases, and other techniques
- The capability of delivering detailed-oriented and accurate results
- Leadership skills
- Organizational skills
Salary Prospects
According to a report, the average annual salary of a business analyst at the entry-level is $37,707. According to data from PayScale, the average annual salary for an experienced business analyst is $67,762.
The most interesting thing is that if you hold a Business Analyst Certification, you can get a good salary hike and can reach up to $85,804.
The salaries also vary from company to company. Obviously, a big and established company gives you a good salary along with perks. Smaller ones have a bit lesser salaries but to start your career, you need to start with small companies. After gaining experience, you can move forward to join established industries.
According to area or location, San Francisco is found to be the highest paying city for business analysts with 28% higher than the national average, followed by New York and Seattle.
Companies Hiring BAs
The job prospectus for Business Analysts improves every year. The BA jobs are anticipated to increase by 19% between 2012 and 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Exponential growth is seen in IIBA that indicates a drastic increase in the demand of Business Analysts.
The top companies hiring business analysts are General Motors, Deloitte, Capital One, Tata Consultancy Services, Ford Motor Company, Accenture, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, and more.
Conclusion
We hope you have got a complete overview of the business analyst as a career option. If you are embarking on a career in this domain, then why not get yourself enrolled in a business analyst training course. It is surely worth your time and effort.
