Meaning of being a Business Analyst
A Business Analyst is no longer simply the person who gathers requirements. In today’s digital and AI-driven organizations, a Business Analyst helps organizations understand problems, evaluate opportunities, define solutions and ensure that technology delivers measurable business value.
When I started my career over 11 years ago as an IT Analyst with UK based firm called Hedges Direct, the term was pretty new here in India which meant the opportunities were scarce and with a clear expectation of at least 3 years of work experience needed. That was the pre AI era and today the role has shaped up completely differently.
What do we mean by Business Analysis then and today?
In 2014, we understood the term as a transformation from the current state of a company, enterprise or a project towards a future state taking into account the activities necessary to achieve the future state. Business Analysis enabled the company to implement change, ensuring the right activities are in place. (Refer: BABOK Version 3, A GUIDE TO THE BUSINESS ANALYSIS BODY OF KNOWLEDGE for more details.) This included the stages of business requirement, documentation, development, testing and delivery.
Today, in the AI era, this definition of Business Analysis has evolved and the responsibilities include framing of the business problem, taking into account the data and insights, preparing solution options, running experiments, using AI to analyse the findings, summarise the same using AI tools.
What does a Business Analyst do?
Before AI, ever wondered what a team of logically sound coders would go through to meet a Client’s evolving demands for enhancements after the demonstration of previous modules was completed? Another debatable topic: can a good coder be a good manager, and can the vice versa happen? Well, some can play well both as coders and client requirement gatherers. To overcome all these challenges and let respective teams focus on their work, client-facing account management, program management, or business leads are positioned.
One key stakeholder in such a team is a Business Analyst. A Business Analyst acts as a bridge between the stakeholders and the project team. A Business Analyst is known for gathering requirements from the clients and documenting them in detail to be further shared with the Project team members. They are also responsible for discussing the technical complexities and concerns raised by the project team with the clients so that research-based decisions are made. They design solutions keeping in mind the needs of the client.
Today, AI can be best used as a collaborator for taking notes, transcribing, and summarising the same in a readable email format. The same content can be used to build user stories, acceptance criteria, perform requirement impact analysis, create process flows, generate interview questions, and compare competing solutions. It can also be used effectively to prepare before meetings where a compelling context about the meeting agenda, objectives, and stakeholders will be shared along with the previous mail content. AI today can create possible questions and give you sample answers to prepare well in advance before the meeting.
He/ She are responsible for performing the below-mentioned activities:
- Analyse business needs
- Define a business case
- Elicit information from stakeholders
- Model requirements
- Validate solutions
- Project management
- Project development
- Quality testing
But is this enough today??
Read more – LINK
What makes you a better Business Analyst?
In addition to the above activities, today’s stakeholders include AI systems, AI agents, AI models, Copilots, and automated decision systems. While AI is not a replacement for the Business Analyst role, it is certainly a differentiator in becoming a better Business Analyst.
Rather than focusing on the requirement and outcomes, a Business Analyst should focus on tracking the KPIs met. For example,
A Requirement can be – Add search icon
An Outcome can be – To show relevant results parallel to the search leading to successful checkout
A KPI – To improve the checkout conversion rate
Your understanding of topics like KPIs, Dashboards, SQL queries, data analysis, Experimentation using A/B testing techniques, cohort analysis, conversion funnels, and data visualisation will help you come out as a well-informed stakeholder, especially when clients are in touch with you.
BAs are known to synthesize, analyse data and interpret them in a more meaningful pattern. They utilise several techniques like interviewing the client’s team, primary and secondary research techniques. To add the cherry on top, AI tools can add more depth in understanding the different layers of the requirements.
With AI comes responsibility; one should work with AI as a collaborator and ensure the ethical side is practised at all times. You can always consult AI but use your intelligence to agree or disagree with it. AI will need context, data and guidance from you on which models to be used. The data insights will surely require you to ensure the data used, the bias of the models, cross questioning the results.
Many companies don’t hire particularly for Business Analyst role, other roles working on similar lines are:
• Business Architect
• Business Systems Analyst
• Data Analyst
• Enterprise Analyst
• Management Consultant
• Process Analyst
• Product Manager
• Product Owner
• Requirements Engineer
• Systems Analyst
All the above roles gather the requirements and consider the available resources and strategies to achieve the client’s expectations. The Business Analyst is also responsible for foreseeing the problems on an enterprise level. The strategy-building remains at the core of the project while adding new business processes and tools for better functioning. The other skill that should come in handy for a Business Analyst is managing Change and implementing the same with minimal or no friction or resistance from the client’s team. Communication with the client and updates are taken care of by the Business Analyst for a faster and more efficient turnaround time.
