Business Analysts: A key to success

Business analysts and the work they perform are becoming increasingly important to companies.

Over the last several years, the business analyst role has evolved and developed beyond eliciting, analysing and documenting software requirements. Business analysts are now taking prominent roles across the enterprise, to perform strategic problem and opportunity identification, conduct gap analysis and feasibility studies, and drive business solutions within their organisations.

The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABoK) defines enterprise business analysis as a way for organisations to:

-- Identify, analyse and solve business problems and opportunities
-- Determine the feasibility of a solution
-- Define the solution scope and develop the business case
-- Continue to assess, refine, and validate the business need and solution
-- Evaluate the business benefits brought about by a solution

The work of business analysts does sometimes leads to a business case, but there are many other functions that enterprises business analysts perform, such as:

-- Driving business architecture discussion and development
-- Creating-functional decomposition of business areas
-- Providing thought leadership within their organisations
-- Assisting business areas in understanding the big picture (rather than talking in terms of project teams and business lines)
-- Aligning project portfolios with overall business strategy
-- Creating feasibility studies for new products, markets and systems
-- Making strategic recommendations for process improvements and streamlining across departmental divides and geographical locations

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