What does a Business Analyst do? And why you need them in your team

A business analyst is the essence of successful organizations and enterprises that primarily focus on bridging the gap between business and IT vertical by the effective use of data analytics. 

He plays an expanding set of roles to bring the best on the table, which includes assessing the user’s requirements, determining the resource’s requirements, and delivering the timely reports to project stakeholders and clients. 

To have a better understanding of the responsibilities and his importance in delivering the projected outcomes, read the post. 

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Why do you need a Business Analyst?

With the business environments getting complex, the organizations’ agility, adaptability, and ability to manage the disruptions by bringing innovations constantly has become imperative in the current market scenario. To ensure success and continuous growth of the business with such a competitive world, conventional strategies may not suffice in achieving the real target.

Thus, here comes the role of a business analyst. In the current scenario, you ought to find products as per the needs of customers and not customers for your products. 

Said that a business analyst’s primary focus is analyzing the business models of an organization in terms of strategic planning, operational analysis, process definition & designing, and the complete technical analysis. 

Therefore, saying that “Business Analyst plays a core role in the company with several responsibilities of bringing innovations in the business processes and finding solutions for keeping the enterprise ahead of the curve” won’t be an understatement.

However, there is more than a company that can add to the role of business analyst, making the job profile critically crucial for the company.

The job description of business analyst

A business analyst requires a strong understanding and in-depth knowledge of business regulations, financial aspects, technical excellence, and reporting requirements. Thus, all these requirements make a business analyst an all-in-one person that the company looks upon for making the informed decisions be it financial, strategic, or executive. 

With a plethora of roles that a business analyst plays in a company, here we are penning down some of the essential functions of this job profile:

• Doing a comprehensive business analysis, defining problems, opportunities and implementing the solutions for a business
• Forecasting and budgeting
• Monitoring and planning
• Pricing and reporting
• Finding business solutions and requirements to report them to stakeholders.

10 responsibilities of business analyst 

Understanding the requirements

The key responsibility of a business analyst is to refine the requirements of the project stakeholders or the customers and transfigure them into products or services. However, they need to have excellent communication with both, that is the party whose requirements ought to be fulfilled and the party who has to fulfill the requirements and take them on the same page.

So, it becomes their vital role to function efficiently with the stakeholders to have a detailed understanding of their requirements and the projected outcome. 

• Possibilities of the system

After understanding the requirements of the customer or the project stakeholder, the business analyst’s job is to convey the entire communication to several project teams like development, designing, and budget team. His primary focus is to plot the scope according to the requirements and bring every team on the same page as visioned.

• Presentation and public speakings

 Delivery quality presentations about the products and services of your business hold paramount importance in terms of marketing. This responsibility of driving the right audience and impressing the project stakeholders is also that of the business analyst.

• Elaborate the details of the project

Another vital role that the business analyst has to play is elaborating on the project details after working with several stakeholders of the project’s team members. The primary focus of business analysts during this phase is to jot every need of the project and introspect that if the company has the required resources, skills, and knowledge in compliance with the end goal. 

After detailed interaction, the business analyst builds a function model that incorporates the functional specifications and requirements in the context of what actually is to be created for the acceptance of the organization.

• Monitor and support the project implementation

The business analyst does not hold a direct role in the development team. However, if the development team faces any problem, the business analyst naturally gets into it. The business analyst then sets-up a problem-solving meeting whose context is to incorporate methods by which the new technical constraints can be tackled. 

Once the implementation phase is accomplished, the business analysts’ responsibility is to monitor whether the new solutions are appropriately delivering the results as envisioned. The phase gets the nod of accomplishment, once the solutions developed are seamlessly accessible to the organization and thus enters the working environment.

• Functional and nonfunctional requirements

Achieving the defined success of the end goal is another primary responsibility of the business analyst. He has to keep a proper check on the functional and non-functional requirements. Said that “what the project should do” fall in the functional requirements and “how it should work’ are referred to as the non-functional requirements. 

Both these requirements are summed up for mentioning the capabilities of the completed project. 

• User acceptance testing

Gone are the days when the business analyst role used to end after defining the requirements and needs of the users. However, in the present era, with so many roles and responsibilities, the most prominent of all is to ensure that the service or product designed caters to the user’s requirement and fulfills all the expectations of the user.

The business analyst ensures this through the process of user acceptance testing.

• Technical writing, decision making and problem-solving

Another critical role of a business analyst is the documentation of every detail related to the project be it user’s requirements, resources, financial budget, technical skills, and much more. 

Talking about the decision-making and problem-solving process, there are several techniques like decision matrix, brainstorming, five whys, and much more that are executed by the business analyst to solve the problems efficiently and thus make informed decisions.  

• Maintenance of systems and operations

Once everything is done and executed in context with the requirements and development, the next responsibility of the business analyst encourages the organization’s working, preventing and correcting defects and monitoring the services and products deployed, for maintenance. 

His responsibility is to generate system maintenance and validation reports, deactivation plans, and other imperative reports. 

• Team building

Team building is one of the inevitable roles that business analysts have to play efficiently. Leading several teams and creating professional communication for a seamless working process among them is critical for successful outcomes as projected. 

Final takeaway

With the continually evolving market scenarios and ever-changing business needs, it is evident enough that the pre-planning and comprehensive preparation are of utmost relevance to remain ahead in this rat race.

Thus, with the given responsibilities of a business analyst, it must have been clear how important it is to hire an individual incorporating the expanding list of skills and features. He/she is a gem of a person that takes the heap off you and thus lends a handful of his dedication in improvising your organization and taking it to the next level. 

RavStack becomes your ultimate solution, in case you are looking for someone to take the load of every responsibility. With years of experience and proficient skills, we are lending a handful of business analyst services and helping you be the best of your niche.

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