What does a Business Analyst do? The Key Roles & Responsibilities

Introduction

The business analyst job role sounds interesting, right? Its increasing demand has made it a more lucrative and suitable career option for many. The job growth for management analysts has been predicted as 14%, which will lead to the addition of 1,032,000 new jobs by 2030. 

Excited? Well, the role is not limited to only business analysts, in different industries, the role also varies which implies plenty of opportunities. Think of enrolling in a professional Business Analyst Online Certification Training Course to add wings to your career. 

Today, in this blog we are going to discuss the profile of business analysts as per the business in which they are involved and their role and responsibilities in this business world. The topics to be covered in this blog include –

• Who is a business analyst?
• What does a business analyst do?
• What is a business analyst role?
• Different types of business analysts

Let us discuss each of the topics one by one for a clear understanding of business analyst roles, duties, and types.

Let’s First Simplify Who a Business Analyst Is

Business analysts are the connecting link between different departments as well as between your business and your stakeholder. They drive data-driven decisions to maximize the efficiency of an organization. 

They analyze data to create business insights and recommend creative solutions. They can identify issues in virtually any part of an organization, inclusive of organizational structures, IT processes, or staff development. It enhances and streamlines the processes of an organization to meet the objectives and reach the final goal.

What Does A Business Analyst Do? How Does A Business Analyst Help a Company?

The business analyst may and may not be IT background people, but somehow, they are connected with the projects. This business analyst role may be from a team or sometimes can be played by an individual. As per the requirement of the organization, the profile may vary, but they are supposed to share ideas with their colleagues and team members.

What business analysts do is prepare the documents with the complete requirement by understanding it as per client expectations. So, they must be multi-talented and have an idea of all the profiles that are necessary for the organization. Think of joining Business Analyst Courses to make yourself job-ready. 

Business analysts introduce a disciplined approach to the development and management of change within a company. They recognize weaknesses, establish requirements based on feedback and stakeholder communication, plan and carry out solutions, and evaluate the outcomes.

Businesses of all sizes need every resource they can get in the current competitive market, and the business analyst is a great resource for figuring out the best moves to make, both tactically and strategically. Business analysts are also excellent project managers. Employing a business analyst helps organizations better understand their customers' demands and how to tackle them smartly. Business analysts work in teams that may involve the following listed roles.

Let’s understand in detail what a business analyst do or what is a business analyst role in an organization. 

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Detailed Overview of Roles and Responsibilities of a Business Analyst:

A business analyst plays a pivotal role in the functioning of a company. The responsibilities of a business analyst have many facets. A business analyst is more of an observer and implementer. 

Here are a few pointers listed below revealing the various aspects of the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst. 

• Understand and Cater to the Needs of Business

The key responsibility of a business analyst is to understand the needs of the business through research, business model analysis, gap analysis, enterprise IT analysis, impact analysis and risk analysis. They also monitor business processes and software Development life cycle (SDLC) understand the needs, and drive and implement effective solutions to mitigate the limitations coming on the way to success.

They manage client collaboration to produse useful reports. They use framework and techniques of business analysis to uncover the areas of improvement and keep abreast of the latest technologies and trends to fill those gaps with sound businness decisions.

• Insightful Presentation

It won't be wrong if you call a business analyst the face of the company. What does a business analyst do to be the face of the company? Well, a business analyst puts the thoughts of the business and the goals of the stakeholders on the table. For better communication business analyst plans and manages Daily SCRUM, Sprint Review & Sprint Retrospectives.

It requires an unmatchable skill of presentation which should be well-researched and insightful to help the organization plan the roadmap leading to success. Basically, a business analyst bridges the gap between what the stakeholders need and what the company has in store for the stakeholder as service.

• Detailed Business Analysis & Research

A business analyst needs to identify, analyze and plan and monitor business requirements that will lead to the successful completion of the project. They plan business analysis approach, stakeholder engagement, information management, and Identify business analysis performance improvements.

So if you are wondering what does a business analyst do? Then here is your answer- a business analyst do deep research and analysis of business process and do business process mapping and modeling to reach the final objective. They use SQL and Excel for analysis of large data sets and compile them in charts, tables, and other elements of data visualization.

• Design and Execution

What does a business analyst do starts from ideation and ends at execution. Business analysts Identify loopholes and design a better financial and business model through business process modeling notation (BPMN) and UML leading to solutions.

The implementation process includes answering questions from the team, facilitating collaboration, and maintaining the workflow through the development cycle.

• Functional and Nonfunctional requirements

Identifying and prioritizing the organization's functional and technical needs and requirements is one of the major responsibilities of a BA. Running an organization is all about achieving the end product. 

Productivity is the only asset of a company to thrive in the long run. A business analyst plays an instrumental role in gauging the productivity of the teams and taking care of the functional aspect of the company.

• Budgeting and Forecasting

Budgeting and forecasting are important steps in determining and mapping out an organization’s short-term and long-term financial goals. Budgeting desidesrevenue, expenses, potential cash flow and debt reduction. Forecasting involves analyzing past data and current market conditions to estimate how much revenue for next few months or years.

It is one of the answers to “what does a business analyst do?”. They Evaluate business processes for efficiency, cost, and results. They do both variance analysis and financial analysis.

• Be a Part of the Testing Process

The role of a business analyst is majorly related to all the functions of a company. A business analyst has a fair share of contributions in all the software testing processes like unit testing, integration testing, system testing, regression testing, etc.

A business analyst ensures that the product is working effectively. In case of any problem, a business analyst is accountable to cater to it with the relevant team and get it sorted as soon as possible.

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• Maintenance of System and Operations

After completing the requirements the role of Business Analysts moves to preventing or correcting defects, making changes, enhancements, and maintenance of the system to keep the performance of the system consistent. 

They also provide maintenance reports, system validation reports, deactivation plans as well as other plans and reports of other documents. The Business Analysts will also involve in evaluating the system to find when the replacement or deactivation is needed.

• Strategic Management

The business analyst does critical analysis of business processes, and identifies and analyzes stakeholders to apply strategic management techniques for business expansion .Business management, more specifically, relies largely on research. They need to observe  imperative factors like customers’ opinions, employees’ contribution and the industry’s best practices for successful strategical implementation.

As digital technologies has progressed exponentially, they need to apply new-age strategic directions like digital transformation and innovation which can help build and strengthen organizational agility and resilience.

Now, as we are aware of the crucial roles and responsibilities a business analyst performs to maximize business outcomes and what is a business analyst role, let’s know the skills you will need to carry out these roles and responsibilities efficiently.

Essential Business Analyst Skills

If you are dreaming of a flourishing career as a business analyst, you need to develop a skill set to meet the daily requirements. The list below reveals a few imperative skills of an ideal business analyst!

Programming Languages

Business analysts should have practical programming knowledge in order to perform faster and better data analysis. Knowledge of R, c++, Java, and Python can be much of a help in understanding and solving different complex problems related to coding.

R and Python comprise several libraries and packages for data wrangling, data visualization, data manipulation and analytics. Having knowledge on statistical software like SAS and SPSS can be beneficial too. These above languages can help visualize and analyze large data to create business models.

Creation of Reports and Dashboards

Business analysts must be proficient in using various business intelligence tools like UML, MS Visio and Balsamiq tool for creating reports and dashboards and wireframes.  Business analysts develop general reports and dashboard to identify the problems and generate impactful solutions.

Proficieny in Tableau, QlikView, and Power BI is necessary to create reports based on the business requirements.

Database and SQL

Having knowledge on database and SQL is a general skill requirement for all the business analysts. Understanding of Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle DB, MySQL database and NoSQL databases can help working with heavy structured data.

Having knowledge on SQL can assist in accessing, retrieving, analyzing and manipulating data. They must write data definition and data manipulation commands like create, select, update, insert, delete, etc.

Microsoft Excel  

Knowing the what's and how's of Microsoft Excel is a fundamental skill that every business analyst must have to effectively deal with the tasks that come under what does business analyst do. Excel is an analytics and reporting tool every business analyst uses to perform several calculations, analysis of data, and budget. They summarize data by creating pivot tables. They also use Excel to prepare charts for different business models.

Excel can harness preparing revenue growth models for new products based on recent customer forecasts, plan an editorial calendar, list expenses for products. Business analysts use Excel to calculate customer discounts based on monthly purchase volume by product. They even summarize customer revenue to identify areas where there is a need to build stronger customer relationships.

Familiarization with Software Development and Testing Methods.

Software developers may follow one of several development patterns as they design new programs and applications. Business analysts should have a basic understanding of the main software development methodologies like agile development, waterfall development, rapid application development to verify the process effectively and cater to problems coming in testing.

Speaking of testing, Business analysts often run tests to determine the quality and success rate of the product. They should understand the benefits or drawbacks of different software testing methodologies and determine the most appropriate testing type. Business analysts should be aware of Test cases or manual testing, Automated tests, test scripts.

Critical thinking

Business analysts should have analytical thinking and translate the requirements of the client distinctly. He must focus on understanding the needs of the client and enabling the team to meet the requirements. A good blend of technical and interpersonal skills in a business analyst can enable him to reach the goal even if there are limitations in the resources.

Negotiation and cost-benefit analysis

Needless to say, negotiation remains one of the crucial skills of a business analyst. Business analysts negotiate at the initial stage of the project to decide what should be the vision of the project. Above all, they decide the priority of a functional design. Business analyst sketches out all the aspects to determine the ideal budget for a project.

Decision-making skills

The decisions made by a business analyst directly impact the business of the company. Proper interpretation of the problem enables the right approach for a solution. The decision of business analysts is based on their thoughts and creativity. Business analysts often take the last call when it comes to the technical design of a business requirement.

Documentation and presentation skills

Business analysts should be proficient in the presentation and creation of reports. Using the business intelligence tools, they might need to generate reports to solve Complex decision-making problems. The clarity in thoughts and concise presentation can help business analysts present the findings confidently in a meeting with the clients as well as with the in-house team.

Want to learn all these skills essential to become a business analyst? Check out our business analyst training now.

Now you know the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst and the skills required to perform it. Do you know with these skill sets you can apply for different business analyst roles?

Let’s know the different types of business analysts and their roles.

Different Types of Business Analysts and Their Duties

In the following section, we are going to describe what are the different business analyst roles and different career paths. A business analyst is an umbrella term for all roles in this list. Let’s explore all the possible positions you can go for with a business analyst’s skills.

Business Analyst Salary & Career Outlook

As a business analyst is one of the in-demand occupations as per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As per the source, this field is predicted to flourish at 14% during 2020-30, which is higher than the average for all employment. 

A business analyst in the US  can earn an average median annual wage of $73,945, while for a business analyst based in India, the average salary is ₹750,500 yearly. 

After one to five years, most entry-level business analysts make their way into advanced positions as senior business analysts or project managers. However, experience level, location, and industry will greatly impact how profitable your business analyst job is. Having all the skills written above can give you a competitive advantage in the job market.

Now, you must be eager to know how to become a business analyst. Firstly let's go through the top certifications for business analyst after which we will move on to what does business analyst do . 

Read along to boost your knowledge.

Top Business Analysts Certification

Despite the fact that business analysis is a relatively young field in IT, a few firms already provide certifications to help you improve your business analyst resume and demonstrate your analyst worth. Businesses such as the IIBA, IQBBA, IREB, and PMI each offer a specific business analysis certification. These consist of:

• IIBA Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
• IIBA Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA)
• IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
• IIBA Agile Analysis Certification (AAC)
• IQBBA Certified Foundation Level Business Analyst (CFLBA)
• IREB Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering (CPRE)
• PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PBA)

Hopefully, you have found the list of BA certifications helpful. Now that we’ve come through the certification details, let’s explore the business analyst career path.

How to Become a Business Analyst?

Paving a path to a successful career trajectory as a business analyst requires a roadmap. Here are a few steps that can help you become a business analyst.

Go for Certification Training

A Business Analyst certification is a must to find an individual space in the field. The demand for a business analyst is increasing. Since a business analyst looks into the very function of a company, no company will take any risk while hiring a business analyst.

If you want to make your career as a business analyst from scratch, join the Janbask business analyst training. With proper certification and knowledge, you can take your career to Heights.

Make a powerful resume

You must have a strong business analyst resume. It must speak enough and more about your potential. Find a business analyst resume sample and design your resume accordingly.

Gain work experience

A working experience is mightier than anything. Check out the BA interview questions and prepare yourself for a job or an internship. Working as a business analyst can broaden your overview of the field.

Brush up skills

A business analyst certification is not enough. You can hone your skills with the changing trends of the industry. Keep following the tutorials to understand the Dynamics of the industry. 

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Ready To Become An Efficient Business Analyst?

Business Analysts are important for each and every type of business and today they are being considered as one of the important roles that will add extra value to your business. The above-mentioned profiles are not limited; instead, there can be many more profiles of the analysts as per the requirement of the organization. 

With the demand and salary of the BA’s job, the competition also amplifies. To get the essential knowledge, certification and skills get your professional training now. Do not delay in getting the best for a bright future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is a business analyst? 

Ans:- A business analyst can be described as a professional who actively guides businesses in bringing improvements in the processes, products, services, and software by using data analysis.

Q2. What does a business analyst do?

Ans:-  Business analysts are involved in numerous tasks, they assess how organizations are  doing and support them to make their processes and systems better. They do research and analysis and come up with solutions to business problems and support to implement these solutions to businesses and their clients.

Q3. What are the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst?

Ans:-  The basic business analyst role and responsibility includes collaborating with colleagues and stakeholders in order to gain an in-depth understanding of major business needs; analyzing data models to bring logical conclusions; creating innovative solutions for operational and strategic enhancements. 

Q4. What is the most important business analyst responsibility? 

Ans:- The most important business analyst responsibility is to manage the client's business processes by analyzing its current state and offering specific solutions in order to make the organizational needs better.

Q5. What qualifications are needed for business analysts?

Ans:-  Business analyst requirements can differ from organisation to organisation. The following are some typical demands for business analysts:

• Business, accounting, finance, or a related subject bachelor's degree
• Working with senior-level decision-makers during internships or entry-level positions in business, finance, or IT
• Backdrop with analysis demonstrated
• Optional Certification from the Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)
• Excellent industry knowledge and skills, including understanding of end-to-end systems 

Q6. What are typical business analyst interview questions?

Ans:-  Depending on the sector they are interviewing for, business analysts face different interview questions. In an interview, a business analyst might be asked the following typical questions:

• How do you deal with challenging stakeholders?
• What steps do you take during the business analysis phase of a project?
• What equipment do you believe a business analyst needs to succeed in their position?
• What types of diagrams do you favour using in your capacity as a business analyst?
• What SQL query experience do you have?

Q7. What methods are employed by business analysts?

Ans:-  Company analysts employ a variety of methodologies to aid in their analysis of business processes in order to boost productivity, develop effective solutions, and achieve desired outcomes. Several of these methods include:

• SWOT analysis evaluates a company's internal and external factors to determine its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• MOST Analysis is a straightforward and practical approach for planning and analyzing the specifics of what an organization does or ought to do.
• A visual method of representing concepts and ideas to help in planning, understanding, and coming up with new ideas
• PESTLE analysis is a method for figuring out what propels change in an organization. A technique known as PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental) 
• Brainstorming is a method for solving problems, gathering information, and coming up with ideas

Q8. Is business analyst an IT job?

Ans:-  Unless a business analyst chooses to concentrate in the information technology sector, a business analyst role is not an IT career. IT business analyst would then be the title. Business analysts in other industries are expected to have some familiarity with IT and important business applications that help improve workflow.

Q9. Which is the best business analyst certification?

Ans:-  Following are some of the best business analyst certifications that help you prepare on what do business analysts do – 

• Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)
• IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
• IIBA Agile Analysis Certification (AAC)
• IIBA Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
• IIBA Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA)

Q10 . How do I become a business analyst with no experience?

Ans:-  Here are a few practical suggestions to get you started as a business analyst without any prior experience  -

• Learn as much as you can about the market you want to enter.
• Learn from or shadow other business analysts.
• Seek out possibilities for training.
• Improving your soft skills
• Keep an eye out for the most recent developments in the sector.

Q11. What do business analysts do on a daily basis?

Ans:-  What do business analysts do can be explained – identification of business issues, data collection and recording, data analysis, and evaluation and presentation of data solutions are all daily tasks performed by a business analyst. They collaborate with a variety of teams, including those in charge of managing customer support, product development, company operations, and business clients.