What Is a Business Analyst?

Enabling organizational context changes in a business is crucial to helping businesses successfully grow. From making informed decisions to rendering reports, individuals wishing to become a business analyst at an upstanding corporation need to take into consideration the required skills and training needed to succeed in this industry.

What Is a Business Analyst?

Playing a vital role in almost every industry, business analysts assist managers with making informed decisions to help sustain and improve the business’ competitive position. Business analysts mine for important statistics and facts through the exploitation of a business’ data warehouse, allowing the analyst to render a true report on the organization’s industry standing and current performance. According to the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), business analysts utilize their specialized knowledge to guide and improve a company’s way of doing business, helping the company with cost avoidance, benefit realization, new opportunities, capabilities requirements, and organization models.

What Is the Business Analyst’s Role?

Developing processes and designing reports to help boost an organization’s business intelligence, business analysts collect past and current data for establishing trends in the operation. Once the data is analyzed, the business analyst utilizes statistical tools and historical data to develop and project the outcome of potential business strategies. Having the proper skills will help analysts discover a company’s weaknesses and strengths as well as any opportunities and threats that may arise.

In order to succeed in the role of business analyst, individuals need to be meticulous and systematic with details, effective at rendering data into usable information, flexible with working as a team or independently, and able to communicate with the necessary parties. Most corporations hire business analysts who understand the company’s industry and business processes, requiring the employees to understand technological business intelligence tools, such as online analytical processing and enterprise resource planning.

Business analysts need to effectively define and identify all solutions that will help maximize the organization’s value to its stakeholders. As a business analyst, individuals may work at all levels of a corporation and be involved in defining strategies, creating enterprise architecture, taking leadership with goals and program requirements, and supporting continuous improvement with the processes and technology.

What Are the Educational Requirements for Business Analysts?

The IIBA explains that business owners will need approximately 876,000 business analysts by 2020. In order to be successful in this field, aspiring business analysts need to earn a bachelor’s degree in finance, business administration, or finance. Most employers only hire business analysts that have a minimum of three to five years of work experience and require their employees to be proficient in problem-solving and analytical skills, time-management skills, and communication and interpersonal skills. Simply Hired shows that business analysts can expect to earn an average wage of $65,000 annually, but the salary can vary greatly according to the company, industry, training, benefits, and experience.

Every corporation is defined by its stock, tangible assets, working capital, staff, and customers. Whether it’s for a business, non-profit organization, or government agency, business analysts play a crucial role in helping businesses achieve greater profitability and growth now and in the future.