Importance of Business Analysis

Introduction Of Business Analysis

Business Analysis is the umbrella term which includes a process of identifying different business needs, designing and developing different solutions to all the business problems. It forms one of the most important pillars of any running business since it helps to devise techniques for appropriate planning and executing it. Business analysts play major roles in breaking down a larger problem at hand into smaller pieces and also allocate a

ppropriate budget and resources to the problem. Analysts are generally involved from the start of the project, work with the stakeholders to analyze the business process, work on the functional requirements and other high-level features and also support its implementation.

For any organization it is essential to gain a strong track on business analysis for financial reasons. In such a rapidly changing environment companies that are able to identify the real world problems and stick to the right solutions have a better edge over their competitors in succeeding in the market.

Some of the better ways of understanding the roles in business analysis that can transform any project can be:

Requirements:

For any business to grow, its foundation lies in the requirement gathering, an analyst starts to work with key stakeholders to envision the company’s goal. For this it is essential that an experienced analyst is a part of the core team. An analyst must see to it that all the goals of the stakeholders are aligned with the organization goals and vision. There are various ways of implementing this like conducting daily standup meetings for requirement gathering, preparing mock questionnaires for the stakeholders, creating various documents to learn from existing data and creating solution template

Incomplete analysis may lead to incomplete solutions built and hence wont cater the needs of the business. Or it may happen that the entire process needs to be rebuilt which results in waste of human and financial resources. Hence mostly business analysts often take most of the ownership of the product development.

Communication:

One of the major roles of a business analyst is to form a key bridge between the stakeholders and the developers. He/she has to work with the stakeholders and rightly communicate the requirement to the developers in a form that they can understand and vice versa too. An analyst works as an interpreter for all the business needs. Smoother the communication happens, the easier it becomes to transform the needs to actual development.
In the absence of an analyst, there can be a lot of miscommunication since it may happen that the developers can’t spend much time in meetings and also lack the functional knowledge required for the project. But if an analyst is present, he/she can interpret the requirement and guide the developers in developing the solution.

Return of Investments:

Business Analysis is very important to know where the business exactly stands and hence also evaluate the ROI i.e. the Rate of investments. It evaluates whether the current business process brings in or more revenue, whether there is a rise or a fall. Hence business analysis can evaluate and judge if any changes are required to fetch in more revenue, if any expenditure needs to be reduced to increase the profits and vice versa.

Cost Savings:

Business analysts play a major part in estimating the right costs and record all the facts and figures. Right from the start by estimating the cost of the project and sharing it with the stakeholders till the final closure an analyst has to contribute in every step. If specific requirements are missed , then cost of rework can increase largely and hence analysts should be able to do it right, since the longer the project will take the more costlier it becomes.

Market status of the business:

It is very essential to know where your business stands in the current dynamic market. Whether it is at par or lacking in some aspects can easily be judged with help of BA and also know who are your closest competitors and what can be done to excel ahead of them.

Risk Prediction:

Business analysis keeps your business ready for any sudden crisis that may occur and is also able to anticipate the after effects of it. The predictable model helps to predict and implement any upcoming crisis and understand whether it will affect the market on a whole and or only limiting to your organization.

Change Assessment:

There may occur many scenarios where some of your products are widely accepted in the first go while some may require certain modification as per the customer needs. In such cases change assessment becomes very important since any minor change in your product or process can have a major impact on the output of the product and how the customers accept it. Most teams are intimidated to bring any changes in their regular routine or work process. Business analysis helps to understand the positive impact of the changes and how much and what needs to be changed in order to improve the revenue.

Strategy:

Business analysis helps to understand the outside political world, environment and the other dynamics which may not form a part of the regular business process. It helps to analyze the technological forces that can affect your overall company strategy which can lead to major changes in the way the product is developed or the services are provided. It can vitally affect the overall research and development of your business.

Taking a data driven approach to business, proves to be a major upside to any business and the human resources required for such roles are also in great demand. Business analysis is one of the major areas that companies are looking for in recent times. It is like many people can crunch and bring numbers to the table but finding the real meaning and insight behind these numbers is what stands out for any business. By learning how to recognize different trends, predicting models and values through hypotheses and drawing conclusions through those numbers can help your organizations thrive. Understanding the business context and scenarios are the ones that will add the real impetus and values to your business. Very often the customers have some misunderstandings about what their actual requirement is and what they want to see as the output.. which is often termed as an XY problem.” Often they think for the problem X , but also need help for Y problem since they are unsure about what will work and what not, In such scenarios a business analyst is able to rectify and separate these problems and find a appropriate solution for them