Business Analysis
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Business analysis skills, very simply, refer to the ability of an individual to enable changes in an organization such that they bring value to the stakeholders.
Business analysis skills, therefore, revolve around understanding the structure, processes, policies, as well as operations of an organization. After thoroughly analyzing and understanding everything within an organization, an individual is able to identify and clarify any issues and problems, figure out the needs, as well as provide solutions and recommendations accordingly, which enable the organization to achieve its goals and provide value to stakeholders.
Why is business analysis important
An individual with business analysis skills serves as the change agent for any organization because these skills help organizations do business better. These skills make use of a very methodical approach for introducing as well as managing changes within an organization.
Business analysis skills are of great appeal to all employers because this talent is required across all levels of management in an organization. The optimum utilization of these skills result in the identification of new opportunities, avoidance of wastage and costs, and modeling the organization after complete understanding of the required capabilities for the achievement of business goals.
An organization, however, will truly begin to value business analysis skills once it has realized all these benefits. Therefore, if you display and utilize your business analysis skills, your employer will value you just as much.
How to improve your business analysis skills
In order to improve your business analysis skills, you must learn to break down the complex process into small and understandable steps. Following in one way of doing so:
- Observe the current business processes and capabilities. Whether you begin by reviewing company documentation, doing research of your own, or relying upon the system analysis techniques, your first step must be to observe and define the current business processes as well as capabilities. At this stage you need not be critical but only observant. All you really want to do is to understand the company and how it currently works.
- Identify the stakeholders’ requirements. Before identifying their requirements, you will have to identify the stakeholders themselves. They may include, for instance, the company owners, customers, suppliers, employees, regulatory officials and external auditors etc. Once this is done, you must identify their needs and requirements through various methods such as discussions, interviews, surveys, and observation etc.
- Identify the differences between them. After you have successfully completed the first two steps, it is time you compare the results of both in order to identify the gaps. This is the step where you will actually be able to identify the problems and raise concerns. Any gap between the results of these two would mean that changes are required to be made within the organization.
- Fill in the gaps. Brainstorm in order to find solution and recommendations to all the issues identified. Define the changes that are required to be made and then facilitate the implementation of the provided solutions and recommendations.
