Business Analyst Job Description (2024)

Introduction

Business analysts are known as “Agents of Change”. They are here to inspire generic improvements and speed up business processes. I can say that a business analyst can help an organization accomplish a lot to reach its pinnacle of success because I work as one, in one of a well-known firms. This job profile needs a bit of everything - the ability to handle and get better at it. Strong motivation, passionate curiosity, and a great motivated team that will easily make things happen around you.

The Business analyst description may seem fun, but the business analyst responsibilities, which, to some extent, largely, and honestly, take a lot of yourself. The job description calls for a significant amount of dedication and a determination to stick with it despite difficulties and disappointments. Keep in mind that each new day will offer new opportunities and difficulties. Because of the profile, you must retain composure and poise while you handle each issue separately. Situations are beyond your control, yet you must persevere to find a solution because that also involves your duties as a business analyst. To prepare for a job, consider enrolling in professional business analyst courses and make yourself career-ready!

You will indirectly be a part of every vertical of your organization. Many vital business decisions are based on your input; hence, every little piece of information you furnish must be backed by sound and intensive research. Everything is easy, yet nothing can be taken easily. That is the beauty of the job. Your passion for research, communication, and a basic analytical mindset will take you places. I love it because, in the last four years, there hasn’t been a day when there was nothing new. It could be a minute thing you can think of, but I learned it every day.

Now, let me take you through the real journey of success and tell you exactly what it takes to be a great business analyst.

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Who is Business Analyst?

A person who helps organizations analyze their business processes, products, services, and systems to upgrade existing processes and make economic decisions using insights and data analysis. A Business Analyst also helps businesses document their processes by analyzing the business model and its integration with other technologies.

Business Analyst Job Description

The responsibilities of a Business analyst are important, as they are the firm's engines for continued growth and success. Who is devoted to discovering and developing innovative solutions in a constantly changing digital landscape? So, what does a Business Analyst Do? What's a business analyst job description?  What makes them invincible?

A business analyst's job description includes the following, which will give an idea of the duties they need to perform to aspiring business analysts:

• Providing financial information to aid the decision-making process.
• Harmonizing the allocation of capital and resources with the operating budget.
• Recognizing, streamlining & improving the internal and external reporting process.
• Determining and developing user requirements for maximum profitability.
• Performing financial & operational modeling and developing new models for good business decisions.
• Developing a comprehensive E2E campaign & testing to understand the application and multiple application levels.

Now, that we’ve seen description of a business analyst, let’s take a look at 4 levels of work:

Strategic Planning

At this level, a business analyst needs to evaluate the corporation's strategic activities and plans to proceed ahead.

Business / Operation Model Analysis

At this level, a business analyst  assesses organizational policies and procedures for conducting future activities & operations.

Process Definition & Design 

At this stage, a business analyst helps in business process modeling, which is frequently the result of process definition and its design.

IT & Technology Business Analysis

At this level, a business analyst identifies rules & needs for technical systems, especially in the IT and business sectors.

Roles and Responsibilities of a Business Analyst

A business analyst's responsibilities involve improving business processes using data. Their primary roles and responsibilities largely involve gathering, examining, and synthesizing information to understand various patterns and trends. Using this data, business analysts will make suitable suggestions for many new ways of managing and optimizing processes. The idea is to ensure that the whole set of programs started by your organization is working optimally for the best outcomes. 

Let’s look at each responsibility of a business analyst in detail:

• Understanding the Business Requirements: A business analyst works in sync with the project stakeholders and typically understands their requirements. Once understood, they work with the developers to translate their requirements into relevant detail. Much time must be spent on meetings with the clients to know the project's requirements. This time spent saves the time of the development team.
• Various Business Possibilities: A business analyst must work with the primary stakeholders and other important people linked with the project. The business analyst does this by transforming the initial goal into something more realistic and workable outcome.
• Presentation: Now, the presentation of the work holds great significance. As a business analyst, all your capabilities are nullified if you cannot present them well. You’ll be required to give many presentations about things like the project requirements, the designs of the applications made by the development team, and also many other kinds of business requirements. Remember, the audience is highly learned people who’ve immense knowledge about the subject you’re discussing and are highly interested in knowing every word you say. So everything will matter; what you say and how you say it.
• Project Detailing: One of the important responsibilities is to be able to articulate the details of the project well. This usually involves working with many people in the organization, ensuring the understanding of their knowledge, and scaling the feasibility of the same. This is often taken up at the beginning to determine if the project must be undertaken.
• Supporting the Implementation: A business analyst must be present until the project's end. The role is such that there has to be proper monitoring of the implementation of various requirements to ensure the whole team is on the same page and is working as per the stated client requirements. If there are any constraints related to the technical aspects, he or she has to work on the same with the rest of the team to meet the requirements of the business. This becomes even more pronounced in the case of new solutions where the analyst will have to understand the needs and requirements of the stakeholders. The business analysts must go to the extent of performance testing of the new product or solution. They might be required to prepare user documentation, training, and acceptance & business analyst responsibilities
• Functional and Non-Functional Requirements: A business analyst must work on the business's functional and non-functional aspects. While the former is related to what the project has to handle, the latter comprises how it’ll be handled effectively. The non-functional requirements of the project are said to be far more important than the functional ones.
• User Testing: A business analysis doesn’t end with delineating the needs and requirements of the project. The role also ensures that the product has been delivered and met the client’s expectations. Thus, the business analyst should start putting it through various user-testing scenarios when the product reaches the final development stages. If done prudently, this almost ensures that the product will give the expected result.
• Documentation: This is another vital responsibility of business analyst that one has to undertake with great care. They must prepare highly informative, coherent, and professional product documentation. The documentation has to be perfect and to the point. Remember, documentation of your work is highly important in this profile.
• Team Building: A business analyst is important, and nothing without his/her team. It is always up to the BA how he/she wants the team to be and how it should perform. This can take time, but once you have the right men who understand and can follow your instructions accordingly, there’s no looking back. Good teams are not hired but are built. A business analyst has to build the team through constant reinforcement and encouraging them with a lot of energy and positivity.
• Operation & System Maintenance: A business analyst also assists in producing service reports, system validation & deactivation reports, other plans, and key documentation required for proper system maintenance.

Business Analyst Objectives for this Role (Daily & Monthly)

The role of a business analyst is a significant component of any project team, and the responsibilities of a business analyst may differ depending on the different industries they work in. Still, some of the roles remain the same throughout. 

Here are a few everyday roles of a business analyst:

• As a Business Analyst should partner with teams across business units to provide required analysis and documentation in collaboration, as well as efficiently handle all the teams. 
• Perform day-to-day system scans to maximize efficiency and solve problems.
• A business analyst should create sustainable relationships with partners to optimize system integration.
• Address concerns from managers & executives, as well as adhere to research & recommendations.
• Update internal and external documentation daily.

Now that you know in detail what you’ve to do and how far you’ve to stretch to complete your daily tasks. I can summarize the above by saying that the business analyst is a facilitator and contributor. Let me also discuss all skills required to furnish the above tasks easily.

9 Skills Every Business Analyst Must have!

Some skills are highly essential for this role. The business analyst role and responsibilities aren’t always the important technical skills, but for profiles like these, the non-technical skills play a significant role. Being a business analyst, you’ve to have a keen vision and be able to foresee the future of the product or project. This means that your planning should be sound enough that you write the project's destiny, and there’s nothing that comes your way. This is not a fairy tale but is possible with planning and hard work. The below-mentioned skills, I feel, are more important than formal education in business studies.

Analytical Skills:

This is not acquired or learned but often comes naturally to a person. There are people I’ve met who’ve got a natural tendency to analyze everything thrown at them. They’ll not accept anything without logic. Along with this, as you’ll be constantly involved in data analysis and research, you should be well aware of the various analysis methods for a business analyst job.

Leadership:

Definitely, a business analyst must be a leader. He/she  must be able to set paths and communicate effectively, so their team listens to you and believes in your capability. Everything comes easily to a person who is a born leader, especially your team's productivity. It’ll also help you foster your position in the organization you are serving.

Planning:

Not everyone is good at it. People often state that they can plan meticulously but often fail due to the lack of vision to see the future. From my personal experience, I can add that planning only comes after extensive research and understanding the client's requirements. Everything has to match the potential of your team. You cannot overcommit, and under-commit as both extremes are suicidal. You can set the right expectations for your client after careful planning and charting out the blueprint. The experience will refine you, but you should inherently have that will to work more than required.

Technical Skills:

As the name goes, it means knowledge of almost every technical process in the organization. Imagine taking up a project requiring your organization to develop a new app and a related website in a stipulated time frame. Now, unless you know the app and website building, the software on which they’re developing, the designing process and details, and the testing phase, you won’t be able to undertake related research or draw a suitable plan. Again, this has to be matched with the resources you’ve at your disposal and your team. Every aspect has to be taken into account. Hence, basic knowledge about these processes proves very handy in great decision-making. Decisions made on concrete and measurable metrics hardly ever prove wrong.

Time Management:

Every significant business role demands effective time management; likewise, being a business analyst is no different. There is a lot on your platter, and everything is linked with a deadline you cannot afford to miss or avoid. Hence, if you aren’t sorted out how much time you’ve to give to which part and when soon you’ll see things fall apart irreversibly. Any amount of knowledge or skills cannot help unless you know how to manage your time well.

Communication Skills:

A business analyst has to communicate well with multiple people inside and outside the organization. Communication skills, as it is largely misunderstood, are not just for how to speak but for the art of listening. You’ll have to work with cross-functional teams; nothing is possible without communication. Another vital part is the need for effective documentation that comes after practice. You may have a strong language, but what to add, where, and when is important and usually comes after practice. Being too straightforward is seen as being detrimental to your position. You will often realize that giving too much information to your client hurts; hence the art is to be diplomatic in your approach.

Effective Stakeholder Management:

Business analysts are expected to deal with different stakeholders at different times & different levels, from a peer to a CEO. Managing stakeholder expectations is essential to the success of business projects. They should be able to reduce scope creep & minimize conflicts from time to time. Ensure that the project's objectives are defined clearly from the beginning, thus reducing any conflicted decisions. It's also important to keep an eye on concurrent changes and discuss with the project manager to keep things simple yet effective. 

Good Interpersonal Skills:

Business analyst skills involve gathering the needs & presenting, which is a key component of the role; allowing for the right questions and understanding of the information received is crucial. To guarantee effective communication, one must adapt to the different learning styles of the stakeholders. Your communication objectives should be clear and the engagement with the stakeholder should not represent any form of status quo. The effectiveness of engagement is through a strong representation of interpersonal skills. That’ll help boost confidence among stakeholders and peers to address and communicate clearly.

Cost-benefit Analysis:

This is a technical approach used to assess a project's expected benefits and costs. A business analyst should know whether a new project will cost them more or will be profitable. So, when undertaking a new project, it's advisable to use cost-benefit analysis. This includes a discussion of the benefits and costs linked to the project, the physical and human costs involved in each stage of the project & compare the value associated with the project cost. This is especially important to let the stakeholder know whether they’re at risk or not.

Process Modeling:

In this activity, it's important to represent business process analysis so that the current process can be analyzed or improved. The business analyst and the subject matter expert analyze the flow of events that occur in any business to get profits without considering risk and losses. The issue can be very minute or large and either reduce productivity or be improved with a variation. For that, the business analyst needs to identify goals, inputs, plans, messages, resources & output. The BA can use several tools & flow diagrams that are easy to understand for stakeholders so they can understand the need to improvise a process.

These skills are indispensable, but that doesn’t mean they will tide over all the challenges. However, I’ve also mentioned the challenges you’ll face here.

Challenges that Come in the Way of a Business Analyst

In a business analyst role challenges occur. Now, as a business analyst, in your organization, you’ll be expected by your seniors to bring about the apparent change in how they conduct business in terms of marketing, research, and development. However, the real challenge creeps into implementation, as you’re then required to implement the same by making the employees who’re  already used to a given work process, work differently. Here is where the real performance of your abilities will lie.

Likewise, you’ll also be expected to convince the client and understand their needs well. It becomes a problem when a client comes to you with impossible expectations. As an analyst, you must convince them to work with your organization and effectively set the expectations so you don’t overcommit.

Further, we’ve discussed the roles you can get into as a business analyst. To know more about skill mapping, check what is skill mapping, and why does your business need it?

Possible Careers of a Business Analyst & Average Salary

• Business Analyst: You will be required to analyze both the requirements of the business and the client. Based on this, you will have to develop new designs and plan for their implementation In this business analyst role and responsibility.
• Business Process Analyst: This role involves a lot of thinking. You will have to gather information from the process details and then link the same to the business objectives. Based on this, you are required to make various process improvements in this business analyst role and responsibility.
• IT Business Analyst: This involves giving shape to technical solutions based on client inputs. Solutions to various problems and improve software processes, products, software, and services in this business analyst role and responsibility.
• Data Analyst: As the name suggests, one must interpret data and turn it into more meaningful information and improvement in businesses in this business analyst role and responsibility.
• Functional Analyst: This involves a mixture of roles in terms of business analysts, product managers, and UX analysts in this business analyst role and responsibility..
• UX Analyst: The primary focus is on customer experience as they work on software, websites, products, etc According to Glassdoor and Indeed, the average business analyst salary in the U.S. is around $74,028 annually.
  Let’s take a look

Based on PayScale data, the average salary of an IT Business analyst for a good business analyst job description is $67,762 annually. 

Taking a peek at all the Business Analyst Profiles these are the following Average Salary:

The number of employment profiles for all business analysts in the U.S. is likely to increase by 2,720,000, as reported by IBM in a couple of years. With an increasing demand for an already low supply of experienced people. A certification course is most likely to increase the salary & qualification of interested people.

BA Certifications & Qualifications

While a university degree is not a prerequisite for becoming a business analyst, a Bachelor's Degree or Master's Degree in the following disciplines can certainly boost your chances:

• Business Studies
• Business Administration
• Management
• Information Technology
• Finance

However, to have a competitive edge pursue a professional Business Analysts certification course that provides you with industry-specific knowledge, exposure and lets you gain hands-on project-based knowledge & lets you qualify through scenarios and missions in real-time.

The following qualities qualify a business analyst:

• A Bachelor’s/Master’s degree in the above domains.
• A certification course on business analysis as provided above.
• Very proficient technical writing skills & communication skills.
• Solid hands-on knowledge of relevant Microsoft applications(Excel, Powerpoint, Word & Project, etc)
• Strong vision & Interpersonal Quality.

How to Become a Business Analyst – Here is the Step-wise Process

Today, there is a lot of data at our fingertips, and business analysts make it easier than ever to handle them. You can use the following stages to learn how to become a business analyst:

Step 1. Earn a Bachelor's Degree

To work in this sector, you must possess a bachelor's degree. Students who want to work in business analytics frequently come from the accounting, finance, business administration, and engineering fields.

Step 2: Complement Your Undergraduate Education 

Think of complementing your undergraduate education with an advanced degree in business analytics, data science, statistics, finance, or economics. You might need to complete an MBA program to seek a management-level career in business analytics. If you want to stand out, consider enrolling in a master's program in business analytics or business administration.

Step 3: Become Certified

Graduates can obtain business analyst certification online to enhance their knowledge base, and those who are moving up the corporate ladder can obtain these credentials to demonstrate their proficiency. Online courses from prestigious universities are widely available and typically last for weeks.

Step 4:  Acquire Practical Experience

If you're a new graduate, get a head start by looking for summer internships in similar fields.

To help you get BA certifications, JanBask Training offers a business analytics courses and various enlightening blogs and articles.

Conclusion

Every industry or organization needs a business analyst to optimize its processes. Business analysts are finding their place in Information Technology, Security, Computer Systems, Finance, and the Government Sector. The role, I reiterate, is challenging yet equally interesting, and if you develop the knack for it, you’ll love every bit of time you spend on your job. Yes, certifications do help a lot in getting the right placement. So, get one to get your dream break. Remember to share your experiences with us.

So, if you liked our article on “Business Analyst Job Description,” and if you wish to make a career in this domain, enroll in our business analysts certification course, which has successfully trained more than 2500 students working with successful MNCs. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and connect with us!

FAQs

Q1. What does the career path of a business analyst look like?

Ans:- Well, a typical business analyst's career path can vary according to fields of interest and expertise. They begin as junior business analysts and become senior business analysts within a few years. They further take the role of a business architect, who then controls the project management role. Thus, making it a highly responsive, challenging, and high paid job. 

Q2. Can I customize the description of business analyst to suit a company profile?

Ans:- Yes, when you promote or apply for a business analyst job, your description should contain the skills, qualities & certifications. You can edit any section and expand or reduce your knowledge of tasks & duties. So, no matter if it's an IT, or Non-IT analyst job, you can edit description of business analyst, according to the profile and highlight your credentials.

Q3. Is it only specific to the IT industry?

Ans:- A business analyst description includes a job that doesn't just limit itself to one particular industry. Having said that, an ideal candidate does need to have quality technical knowledge of recent trends to find a practical solution for the projects. Although, for the time being, the IT industry has a high demand for business analysts who can fit into their Profile. 

Q4. Do I need to get a post-graduate degree to become a business analyst?

Ans:- Well, an undergraduate degree is enough, but some companies look for post-graduates. The job roles could be in different industries such as Finance, IT, Government Organizations, and Retail Companies. 

Q5. What is the role of a business analyst?

 Ans:- The business analyst analyzes whether the organization needs changes. Then comes up with cost-effective solutions and communicates with the company about the requirements for implementing these changes. 

Q6. Is a business analyst job related to the IT field?

 Ans:-  Yes! It is. Therefore the companies expect the candidate to possess the technical skills and computer knowledge required to deliver the best solutions. You may also get a job in the IT department itself. 

Q7. Do I need certifications to become a business analyst? 

 Ans:-  Yes! You need them. Institutes like JanBask Training offer business analyst training courses. 

Q8. What are similar Business Analyst roles? 

 Ans:-

• Business Intelligence Analyst
• Finance Analyst
• Data Analyst
• Information Security Analyst

Q9. What is the description of a business analyst?

 Ans:- A business analyst is a specialist who establishes objectives, creates best practices for data collection, and examines existing processes to enhance them as much as feasible.

Q10. What are the roles and responsibilities of business analysts?

Ans:- One of a business analyst's major roles and responsibilities is closing the gap between IT and the business by evaluating processes, identifying requirements, and delivering data-driven suggestions and reports to executives and stakeholders.