What is a Business Analyst? Role of BA & Job Responsibility (2024)

What is Business Analyst?

A Business Analyst is a person who helps businesses to analyze their processes, products, services, and systems to improve current processes and make profitable decisions through insights and data analysis. A Business analyst also helps organizations to document business processes by assessing the business model and its integration with technology.

Who is a Business Analyst?

Business Analysts have emerged to have a key role in recent business scenarios. Some people think that the role of Business Analyst is to make money for the organization, which may not be true in direct context. But indirectly, the action and decision taken by Business Analysts do leave an impact on the financial prospects of the organization.

What does a Business Analyst Do?

A primary job responsibility of Business Analyst is to communicate with all stakeholders & to elicit, analyze and validate the requirements for changes to business processes, information systems, and policies.

A professional business analyst plays a big role in moving an organization toward efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

Before we jump into the tutorial, we will see some basic perspective of a Business Analyst to help the organization succeed. The foremost priority for any business analyst will be to try understanding following things

• Understand what business does and how it does
• Determine how to improve existing business processes
• Identify the steps or tasks to support the implementation of new features
• Design the new features to implement
• Analyze the impact of implementing new features
• Implement the new features

Next in this Business Analyst basics tutorial, we will learn about Business Analyst roles and responsibilities.

Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

Business Analyst can be from any sector, and the role differs based on the sector. Business Analyst are classified into various categories like

• Business Analyst
• Business Process Analyst
• IT Business Analyst
• Business System Analyst
• System Analyst
• Data Analyst
• Functional Architect
• Usability or UX Analyst

Skills of a Good Business Analyst

Basically, Business Analyst skills are judged on these four attributes:

• Analytical skills– An outstanding analytical skills will separate out a good business analyst. A good part of BA role includes basics of business analysis, analyzing data, workflow, user or stakeholders inputs, documents, etc.
• Leadership skills– One of the Business Analyst responsibilities is directing team members, forecasting budget, helping team members with the problem, etc.
• Business process and planning– Planning the project scope, understanding and implementing requirement of project, identifying resources required for the project and so on

• Technical skill– If a business analyst is in the IT sector, few technical aspect are expected to know like operating systems, hardware capabilities, database concepts, networking, SDLC methodology, etc.

Certifications

As per the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional) certification is a recognized certificate for a professional Business Analyst. They provide two types of certifications. The certification exam is computer based and consists of multiple choice questions.

• Certification of Competency in Business Analysis: Pre-requisite for this certification is atleast 3750 hours of work experience
• Certified Business Analysis Profession (senior level): Pre-requisite for this certification is atleast 7500 hours of work experience

For off-shore students, they can appear certification exam online. For more information, you can visit the website.

Jobs

Job prospectus for Business Analyst requirements rise every year, especially for the IT sector. The average salary of business analyst is estimated around $80,000 – $130, 000, even at entry level.

International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) is growing exponentially indicating increasing demand of Business Analyst. Business Analyst always remain an organization priority since they have to work in a close proximity to top executives, clients, and stakeholders.

According to U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the BA job are predicted to increase by 19% between 2012 and 2022.

Conclusion

Business Analyst introduction: The business analyst role is promising and has to deal with different layers of an organization. Business analyst are classified into various categories like Business Process Analyst, IT Business Analyst and so on.

• Business Analyst meaning a person who helps businesses to analyze their processes, products, services, and systems to improve current processes and make profitable decisions through insights and data analysis.
• A good business analyst should encompass skills like
• Analytical skills
• Leadership skills
• Business process and Planning
• Technical Skills
• Various tools that can help Business Analyst are TopTeam Analyst, SmartDraw, Blueprint, etc.
• Online certification course for BA available by recognized institute IIBA
• According to U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the BA job are predicted to increase by 19% between 2012 and 2022.