Career as a Business Analyst

Business analysts, also known as management analysts, analyze an organization and propose ways to improve its structure, efficiency, and profits. Business analysts determine an organization’s needs or objectives and then improve its ability to meet them. They help an organization solve its problems by analyzing relevant data, reporting their findings, and recommending a course of action. As businesses grow increasingly complex, so do the challenges that they face. By pursuing a career as a business analyst, you can help organizations remain competitive in today’s global marketplace.

 

What does being a business analyst involve?

Business Analysts are responsible for identifying change needs, assessing the impact of the change, capturing and documenting requirements and then ensuring that those requirements are delivered by IT whilst supporting the business through the implementation process.

Business Analysts are likely to be the key change facilitators within an organisation. They must deliver effective solutions which provide tangible business benefits often within short timescales. You must be a great communicator (both written and verbal), have business acumen and be willing to tackle complex problems head-on while dealing with the challenges of short timescales and demanding business stakeholders. 

 

Career Outlook: The rise of information technology has expanded employment opportunities for business analysts. Other areas in which a business analyst may specialize include human resources, marketing, and logistics. Both public and private organizations employ business analysts. Despite rapid growth in this sector, the competition for business analyst jobs is expected to be significant, because the pool of applicants is so large and people from diverse educational and career backgrounds can qualify. 

 

If you are currently in employment you should try to get involved in any projects or change activities that are going on within your organisation. This could include helping with testing, contributing ideas to workshops or even designing/writing procedure manuals. This may mean that you get to work with business analysts, or understand more the work that they do. It will also provide you with examples you can relate to when it comes to applying for a BA position.