Jun 6, 2019
Why it’s a great time to be a Business Analyst
It is always logical to take up a thorough analysis of one’s resources of time and money available at their disposal to weigh in on how to become a Business Analyst would enhance their skillset. This helps get a professional’s priority in order and make the right decision when it comes to choosing the right career path, which would yield the best results. Here are a few reasons why it is the best time to transform oneself into a Business Analyst:
Growth market
Growth market has to be kept in mind that Business Analyst is known as a growth market, with several companies beginning to realize the true potential of Business Analyst. Great Business Analysts are bound to possess the skill necessary to steer a business towards the right investments in terms of highly valued resources such as manpower and working capital. Time is definitely such a resource, needless to say, which is usurped by bad investment decisions letting the competition overtake you as an organization.
It is actually a daunting task for market pundits and experts to prove that this is a growth market as there aren’t very many reports needed to recognize such as a role, with it often being labeled wrongly or being included in a previously existing role such as a Project Manager.
Low barriers to entry compared to other professions
Currently, Business Analyst roles are in the nascent stage when contrasted with other profiles such as an Architect, Engineer, and Accountants. While it was previously thought that professional qualification for Business Analysts was not necessary, these days, validation of skill sets through a certification have become the order of the day, with a steady rise in the weight that accreditations carry such as the ones from Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP accreditation), the Independent Schools Examination Board (ISEB) qualification in the UK and the one from International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) and other equally important accreditations.
Challenging and demanding job
Business Analysis is found to be a challenging career which is varied and which uses several skillsets comprising of time management, relationship management and even problem-solving. While such a career can be rewarding and fulfilling, it is not devoid of its challenges. Job satisfaction can go a long way in ensuring personal and professional growth.
Springboard to other careers
The marketable skills picked up as a Business Analyst are highly transferable and are easily applicable in several other roles, providing one with chances to shift into higher profiles comprising of rewarding roles in business architecture, strategy, program management, and project management.
Use existing industry knowledge
Both generic business know-how and industry and domain specific knowledge can up a professional’s value quotient considerably. Such business knowledge sets one apart from the competition making candidates highly marketable, which can be leveraged for a better chance at getting employed.
Business Analysis as a Rewarding career
While Business Analysts have constantly played important roles in the development and design and even implementation of software by execution of tasks like:
- Acting as a mediator between Software Developers and Users
- Specification of business needs to be utilized to construct and improve existing software
- Choosing user candidates and executing User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
- Creating and implementing test plans during the absence of professional testers
- Selecting user candidates and orchestrating UAT
- Donning the role of a Project Manager in the absence of the officially designated Project Manager
Source: adamalami.com
There are questions that come up frequently with regard to Business Analysis and professionals of the same domain like:
- What is the section of the enterprise that the Business Analysts report to — the IT side or the business facing side?
- Do competent Business Analysts need a technical background such as programming in order to execute their job to the required expectations?
- What is the exact professional identity of Business Analysts — are they business people or technical personnel?
- As the Business Analysts are responsible for actually scripting business requirements, are they allowed to exercise control over programmers already constructing software-based on the very same requirements?,
- What is their professional identity? Techies think of them as business people and business people think of them as techies.
- As the creators of the business requirements, should they have any control over the programmers building software based on those requirements?
Source: bachelors.vu.nl
In the past there was a dynamic debate regarding the number of Business Analysts required in proportion to the number of Developers required to create the software required. But as it stands today, such issues are a thing of the past with the Business Analyst role rising in terms of stature within the enterprise. What has proportionately increased is the demand for highly skilled Business Analyst staff, and the overall need for comprehensive skill sets in the company as a whole. Major IT trends such as Consumerisation of IT, Outsourcing, and Shifting from Information Technology (IT) to Business Technology (BT) is bringing about such changes.
Such trends have influenced the BA field because of the following reasons:
- A paradigm shift has been set into motion due to the proportion of Business Analysts increasing in relation to Software Developers. In-house software development task see the ratio more or less as 10:1. The implementation of cloud-based software, the need for Software Developers may be completely phased out!
- A greater degree of written business requirements are needed when development resources are outsourced from a particular enterprise. In-house programming resources see to a greater and deeper comprehension of the business areas supported by their software. But when one considers outsourced Software Developers, there are elements of physical and cultural divides between the business end users and the Software Developer themselves. When such events are taken into consideration, the Business Analyst role becomes a major factor in the success or failure of a project.
- Cloud computing is a quantum leap from geographically limited development to enabling enterprises to let business areas to work in conjunction with cloud providers directly to attain the required computer functionality for their respective end users. And this can happen independently with regard to IT support or consent. This has led to a surge in the demand for Business Analyst capabilities directly within business areas which are not related and disconnected from their IT counterparts.
The Business Analyst role which is very clearly in demand in the current market comes with a few limitations that enterprises can look into and easily fix. The rise of Business Analyst is happening not in a generic fashion, but attached to their respective market niches, and software specialties. In the recent past, companies were ready to recruit Business Analysts essentially on the skills they had in terms of Business Analyst tasks such as scripting functional specifications with a minimum amount of stress on previous business projects undertaken, possibly in their previous companies. The agenda here was that since the company would already possess a surplus of highly skilled IT professionals spanning from Developer to Testers, the Business areas would not need aid in this respect. Due to this compartmentalization a fresh Business Analyst hire could hit the ground running in terms of his/her tasks and duties. With business areas, this trend takes a sharp turn. Implementation of Salesforce would require Business Analyst pros who are capable of comprehending sales companies and who come with a working knowledge of the salesforce tool itself. Similarly, if it is needed to implement a cloud-based version of Oracle Financials then Business Analysts with a thorough background and understanding of Finance and Accounting organizations would be the need of the day.
To summarize this particular point, while it is beneficial having a skill-set which is highly sought-out, high professional marketability comes with a mix of specific business and application skills and knowledge.
Conclusion
To conclude, all market indicators point favorably towards the career of a Business Analyst with existing market trends supporting the profile of Business Analysts across various industrial domains. If you are looking to take up a career as a Business Analyst then there isn’t a better time than right now!
