Currently, BA is becoming more and more popular and is the “dream” job of many young people. So what is BA? What to study to be a Business Analyst? Today, businesskd will learn with you about the BA industry, BA job and skills required to become a professional BA! Let’s get started!
What does Business Analyst (BA) mean?
A business Analyst (abbreviated BA) is also known as a business analyst. The main task of a Business Analyst is to analyze customer needs and coordinate with internal companies to come up with suitable solutions. In other words, BA is a “bridge” to help connect customers with businesses. They exchange and receive customer comments, then transmit those contributions to the internal team to find ways to improve. In addition, the BA is also responsible for writing and managing technical documents.
The Overview of Business Analyst job
In the past, people often thought that BA was a separate segment of the IT industry – Information Technology. The fact is that the BA industry still exists in a number of other fields such as logistics, finance, Marketing – banking, etc. The BA profession often has many different development directions, but depending on each field, this job is divided into 3 main groups:
- Operations: This position involves resources such as time, costing, and human resource management. This job description position can be Project Manager, Product Manager, Program Manager, etc.
- Manager: This job includes the positions of BA Team Lead, BA Practice Lead, BA Program Lead and above, BA Manager, and Business relationship Manager.
- Business strategy development: Business Architect, Enterprise Architect.
In fact, not all customers know what they want. Therefore, Business Analysts will need to work directly with customers to elicit and exploit their latent needs. Once the customer’s needs have been identified, Business Analyst will directly analyze the problem and propose appropriate solutions. After that, Business Analyst will start working with project development teams such as Product Manager, IT Develop, and QC,…From there, this team works to implement solutions that meet the needs of customers.
The nature of business is always changing. Therefore, there are business operation requirements that need to be continuously updated and renewed by BA. In it, BA needs to analyze and predict how changes will affect the system. Based on that basis, the BA can propose feasible solutions and accurately update the changes in the system from time to time.
The key professional expertise of a BA
The work of a Business Analyst is a broad category that encompasses many different specialties and professions. In which, Business Analyst has the following three main specialties.
Management Analyst
Management Analyst is an expert in consulting effective management solutions for businesses. They help managers analyze the activities and problems in the business. From there, they can suggest options to cut unnecessary operating costs and increase business performance for the organization or company.
Systems Analyst
Systems Analysts are also known as systems analysts. Their job is to examine a company’s IT infrastructure and systems and figure out how to improve them. This job requires a Systems Analyst to have a high level of technical expertise and a clear understanding of current business practices.
Data Analyst
A Data Analyst will be responsible for analyzing, collecting and storing data about sales, market research, logistics or other business activities. They will then apply specialized skills to ensure the quality and accuracy of that data. Based on the sifted data, they will analyze and present it logically to help the organization make better business decisions.
Business Analyst’s most important skill
- Communication skill: Communication is an extremely necessary skill in any job that requires high expertise. Typically, for Business Analysts, this job requires them to analyze data and communicate important information to higher levels. Therefore, of all the skills required for the job of a Business Analyst, communication holds the most important position.
- Database and technology skills: Business analysts need to have IT programming knowledge to perform faster and better data analysis. Besides, Business Analysts often work with structured data. To store and process this heavy data, they must have a good understanding of relational databases like Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL databases, Oracle DB, as well as NoSQL databases.
- Problem-solving skills: Business Analyst’s job often faces change. Therefore, the ability to handle problems is one of the skills that BAs need to hone to be able to promptly solve arising problems. From there, projects with the participation of BAs can be operated smoothly and ensure the best project completion schedule.
- Analytical skills: Analytical and critical thinking is one of the core skills that a business analyst should have. Specifically, the BA must be able to analyze and communicate customer requirements clearly.
- Negotiation and persuasion skills: Business Analyst negotiates at every stage of the project. Without negotiation skills, BA will not be able to create the fastest and most optimal solutions for customers.
- Project management skills: Besides proposing solutions for business activities, Business Analyst also participates in the direct management of projects that create those solutions. In which, tasks such as project planning, staff coordination, budget forecasting, and ensuring project progress, … all need the BA to use project management skills.
Career path and Income
Responsibilities of Business Analysts
Communication and Collaboration
BAs play an important role as they are the ones who collect requirements from stakeholders, a BA position will help reduce costs incurred when misinterpreting requirements. Business Analyst fosters effective collaboration across the entire organization. Communication plays an important role in achieving cooperation. Being a master at communicating through digital means such as coreference calls and online meetings is also an important skill for BAs.
Processes and tools
Since requirements are the first step in defining the scope and next steps for the project, BAs focus their analysis using various techniques such as brainstorming, interviews and workshops. BAs use continuous feedback loops in each phase to ensure that there are no gaps in the achievement of business goals.
Leverage knowledge
It is essential to make the best use of your skills and experience, thereby bringing more value to the organization. Having good expertise helps them understand the requirements of the stakeholders and can link back to the program goals more easily. Furthermore, the knowledge helps them assess risk from a technical and business perspective. After that, BA will rebalance business and technology integration, thereby offering the best solution.
Conclusion
A business analyst is a professional who helps organizations improve their performance by analyzing business processes and identifying opportunities for improvement. They use their knowledge of business operations, industry trends, and data analysis techniques to identify areas of inefficiency and recommend solutions to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase revenue. Overall, a business analyst plays a vital role in helping organizations achieve their goals by improving their business processes and systems, and is an important position in many organizations.
