What Does a Business Analyst Do

What Does a Business Analyst Do

Introduction

The process of selecting candidates to form a team of Business Analysts at Unhappy Bank was a challenging one. In order to make an informed decision, the Bank opted to evaluate applicants based on three key competencies: business knowledge, personal skills, and professional skills.

Business Knowledge

Business knowledge was critical for the Business Analyst working in a bank as it enabled them to understand the bank’s objectives, operations, and industry regulations. They needed to have a solid understanding of financial products and services, banking operations, and the competitive landscape to identify opportunities for process improvement and innovation.

The most important areas were the following:

1. Deposit Accounts: Banks offered various types of deposit accounts, such as savings accounts and checking accounts.
2. Loans: Banks provided loans to individuals and businesses for various purposes. Loans were a significant source of revenue for banks.
3. Credit Cards: Credit cards allowed customers to make purchases on credit and pay the balance off over time.
4. Investment Products: Banks offered investment products, such as mutual funds, stocks, and bonds, to help customers grow their wealth over time.
5. Payment Services: Banks provided various payment services, including wire transfers, online bill payments, and mobile payments, to enable customers to transfer money quickly and securely.

Personal Skills

As Business Analysts engaged with different stakeholders on a daily basis, it was important to possess the following personal skills:

• Communication: Involving listening and empathy-building. This is an important skill in order to gain trust of the different stakeholders.
• Relationship building: Being able to establish strong connections with people especially Bank employees that many times had specific knowledge in their minds and not documented anywhere.
• Influencing: As Business Analysts often recommend actions and suggest options, they must be capable of influencing others effectively. It was not uncommon for employees within a bank to resist changes that may obscure their job responsibilities, making it challenging to implement organizational changes.
• Teamwork: Without teamwork, there is a risk of missing out on crucial cross-functional requirements, resulting in an incomplete and fragmented view. Remember we need a holistic view!
• Analytical skills and critical thinking: Being able to delve deeper into a problem, analyze it thoroughly, and uncover the underlying issues.

Professional skills

A Business Analyst was required to have specific skills related to the business analyst role. Some examples are:

• Strategy analysis: Techniques to understand the business direction and strengths/weaknesses of an organisation. In the context of a Bank, it involved understanding the Bank’s strategy and ensuring that all requirements align with it.
• Project management: Understanding project management areas such as scope, time management, cost management and risk management. A digital transformation project is usually a large one where more than one project managers might be involved.
• Stakeholder analysis: Ability to identify, analyse and develop management strategies for stakeholders. Are Bank employees the only stakeholders to consider? What about other vendors?
• Investigation techniques: Techniques for analysing specific areas. Several banking procedures had proper documentation, while certain ones were only known by uncooperative bank personnel. Different investigation techniques were needed to get the latter processes documented.
• Requirements engineering: Practices and processes that are used to formulate business requirements. Different techniques will need to be applied to gather all requirements for a bank digital transformation project. More about this in the story about requirements.
• Business modeling: Approach of visualising business systems with conceptual models.
• Data modeling: What are the data items and their relationships. A typical example was with Customer addresses. Bank’s systemA had 3 different customer addresses (home, work, other) while systemB had 2 customer addresses. These two systems needed to be merged. How do you fit 3 in 2?
• Gap analysis: Comparing “as is” and “to be” process models. The purpose of a digital transformation project is leverage digital technologies to fundamentally improve or completely transform business operations, processes, and models. Gap analysis models are necessary for improvements.
• Benefits management: Planning, monitoring and evaluating benefits of a business change.
• Technical skills: Business Analysts work with a variety of stakeholders, including technical teams such as software developers, database administrators, and system architects. Hence, having a solid understanding of technical concepts is vital for effective communication with technical teams and ensuring that business requirements are accurately translated into technical solutions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a Business Analyst must possess a range of competencies to excel in their role. Business knowledge is a critical competency that enables Business Analysts to understand the organization’s industry, products, services, and operations. Personal skills such as communication, relationship building, influencing, teamwork, analytical skills, and critical thinking are essential for effective collaboration with diverse stakeholders, managing conflicts, and driving organizational change. Additionally, professional skills, including project management, data analysis, modeling, and technical skills, are vital for developing business solutions that meet the organization’s objectives. A skilled Business Analyst who possesses a combination of these competencies can play a significant role in driving business growth and success.