The Role of Business Analysis - Example

Running Head: The Role of Business Analysis Student’s Name: Instructors Name: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date Assignment is due: The Role of Business Analysis Business analysis is the process of identifying the needs of a business and formulating solutions to its problems. Business analysis unearths and draws attention to situations in a business that may require rectification through improvement of processes, strategic planning, and organizational revision as well as policies and systems development (Ziemski, Horst & Hass, 2008). The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) has been serving the business analysis field since 2003, through certifications based on Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) and Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP). Brown and Kusiak (2005) stated that, according to surveys carried out, more than half of large software projects were behind schedule or over-budget. They added that, in October 2002, the Australian Financial Review carried a report about a Sydney company which had stopped work on a customer billing system owing to missed deadlines and cost blow-outs. Approximately $70 million had been used, and out of 21 elements of the system, only two had been delivered. Business analysis seeks to address cases such as the above and give solutions on how best to avoid them. In this research paper, various aspects of business analysis are discussed. These include the roles of business analyses in organizations, elements considered by business analysts in their quest to analyze a business’ problems and viable solutions, as well as various techniques at the analyst’s disposal to aid him in realizing his goals. The process through which the field of business analysis has evolved and the trend which it is expected to take in the future has also been discussed. A business analyst may be concerned with one or several aspects in an organization that may include the following: Enterprise analysis, which evaluates a company in entirety in terms of strategic goals of the company and the necessary policies to be put in place to aid in realization of the goals. Planning and managing of the requirements of a business, involving the identification of business requirements and prioritization of the implementation as regards to the identified requirements. Requirements elicitation, which determines the avenues of getting a projects requirements from its stakeholders. Assessment and validation of a proposed solution, concerned with determining the aptness of a proposed solution to a particular problem in a business. This also determines the best ways of supporting the implementation of a solution. Requirement analysis, that sets out to give a detailed description of requirements so that a project team can successively implement them (Cadle, Paul & Turner, 2009). The following are some of the most popular techniques of business analysis, as outlined by Adriana (2010). The technique used by an analyst depends on the type of the problem to be addressed and the scope of the required solution. MOST is an internal analysis consisting of four attributes, i.e. mission, objectives, strategies and tactics. The mission describes where the business plans to be in future. Objectives of a company are the goals that it intends to achieve. Strategies are the various options that a business has in place to ensure goal achievement while tactics are ways through which strategies are implemented. PESTLE is a technique of external analysis concerned with six elements which externally influence a company and its operations. These elements are political, economical, sociological, technological, legal and environmental aspects that interact with the business in one way or another. CATWOE is a six elements technique that employs critical thinking to evaluate a business’ intended achievements. These elements are customers, actors, transformation Process, world view, owner and environmental constraints. SWOT analysis combines four external and internal attributes that affect a business. These are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The FIVE WHY’S is a probe method of business analysis that is applicable to any situation in a business. In this technique, the analyst asks questions as he attempt to get to the actual cause and possible solution of a particular problem affecting a business. According to Heller (2008), business analyses are carried out with the aim of achieving the following; Improving efficiency in a business. Shortening time spent on projects. Creating solutions for problems in a business. Reducing Waste and rework. Documenting the correct requirements for the company’s programs. There are two ways of realizing projects efficiency. These are minimization of project length and reduction of rework. Rework is the additional work required in a project to correct errors arising from poorly analyzed requirements. Rework has become a common problem in companies, prompting some of the companies to make provisions for it in projects time and budgets (Adriana, 2010). The problem of rework can be addressed by exhaustive definition processes and requirements analysis. Business and technical staff on a project should get involved on a project right from the beginning and work hard in hand in order to fully address all aspects of the project and minimize rework. Minimization of project length can improve efficiency by channeling the saved project resource costs to other projects. Short project lengths also ensure that the following projects are embarked on in time. Waste in a project comes in several perspectives. These include project costs and opportunity costs. Project cost related wastes arise from project expenses that are unnecessarily incurred when for example a project is delayed. During such delays, various expenses continue to mount. This problem is more serious when a big development team is involved. To minimize this type of risk, external parties may be contracted at a fixed cost. Opportunity costs manifests either as unachieved expense reduction or lost revenues. For projects embarked on with the aim of generating new or additional revenues, delays means that the revenues are not realized during the delay period. In the case of projects commissioned to increase efficiency and hence cut on costs, delays mean that the reduction of cost is not realized as the efficiency is not improved during the delay period. Between lost revenue and unrealized cost reduction, the later is more egregious, with greater and longer lasting impacts (Carkenord, 2010). Documentation of the right requirement is very important in ensuring that a project addresses its intended purpose. To ensure this, the correct application must be defined. This begins with the documentation of the correct requirements, achieved through carefully evaluating the customer needs. The needs should then be clearly communicated to the technical designers to design and develop the program. Documentation of the right requirements reduces rework and ensures the correct program that addresses the customer’s needs is developed (Carkenord, 2010). Deal (2010) argues that according to experts’ estimates, 10% to 40% of features existing in new software applications are never used since they are unnecessary owing to poor documentation of requirements. Evolution of business analysis Business analysis and its roles have evolved drastically in the past three decades. According to Carkenord (2010), the journey of the business analyst began in the 1980s, when software development cycle was considered a necessary step, prompting most of the then analysts to be from IT technical background. This was because they had knowledge on the process of developing software and programming. This process however required a lot of time to develop a system which sometimes did not meet the business needs. To increase systems development speed, development tools called Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) were created. These tools used symbols unfamiliar to the business community hence alienating it from the process of development. Later when the personal computers became popular, business people started learning how to solve their own analysis problems rather than waiting on the IT departments which were then busy dealing with emerging computing challenges such as client-server and distributed systems’ technology. Most systems of this time did not solve the correct business problems and were expensive to maintain. New methodologies were created including; rapid application development, object oriented and joint application development tools. The emergence of the internet in the new millennium brought great change in IT. Companies started assigning the role of business analyst to business staff rather than from IT staff. Companies strived to minimize missed requirements’ costs while they were expanding worldwide. The need for total quality management emerged as ISO set standards to govern international business. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM), a software development quality standard was created by Carnegie Mellon. These quality efforts call for more facts and expertise during analysis and requirements gathering. This has necessitated the existence of business analysts with more skills and who are familiar with IT, quality and business. The future of business analysis Carkenord (2010) gave the following arguments; Business analysis will become more indispensable as teams carrying out a project become more dispersed geographically. This dispersion has been brought about by outsourcing and worldwide expansion of large organizations. In situations such as these, the IT department is not housed within the organization. Owing to this, it becomes even more necessary to correctly and exhaustively describe the requirements of a company. Business analysis will continue to drift from software to business system. This is because a good business analyst can in addition to recommending software, analyze a business and identify any necessary personnel, procedural or policy rectifications. Future evolution of business analysis will be dictated by business changes. As businesses transform, more requirements management will be enhanced, introducing aspects such as improving productivity through requirements re-usability. Adriana observes that, a global market without geographical borders has been created by the internet and mobile technologies like the iPhones. These technologies have become part of consumers’ daily life with approximated 1billion people expected to access social networks by the year 2014. Due to this, business analysis will take a trend commonly known as business intelligence with the aim of improving marketing strategies. This will give businesses benefits such as: identifying customer location, understanding and reaching the customers, risks minimization and forecasting of imminent problems (Borno & Heller, 2008) Summary Business analysis aims to shorten projects time, create solutions for problems, reduce wastes and rework as well as improve efficiency in an organization. There various techniques which a business analyst can use to evaluate a business. These include: MOST, PESTLE, CATWOE, SWOT and FIVE WHY’S. The nature of a problem faced by a business determines the technique to be employed by the business analyst. The role of business analysis to any organization has become increasingly clear and elaborate over time. This evolution that led to the consequent emergence of the ‘business analyst’ dates back to the 70s. The evolution has been greatly influenced by the developments in computing. In the years to come, the field of business analysis is expected to become increasingly indispensable, and is likely to shift towards business systems as opposed to IT. However the trend will mostly be dictated by changes in the nature of businesses. Of great concern is the change in business brought about by inventions in the areas of internet and mobile technologies. References Adriana, N. (2010). Five Effective Business Analysis Techniques. Retrieved November 29, http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Five-Effective-Business-Analysis-Techniques/1212805 Carkenord, B. (2010). Emerging Role of the Business Analyst. Retrieved June 1, 2006, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Emerging-Role-of-the-Business-Analyst&id=210936 Craig, (2010). Business Analysis tools. Retrieved October 1, 2010, from http://www.betterprojects.net/2010/10/business-analysis-tools.html Cadle, J., Debra, P., & Turner, P. (2010). Business Analysis Techniques. U K: Bcs.org Derrick, B. & Kusiak, J. (2005). What is a Business Analyst (Part 1). Borno, E. & Heller, R. (2008). Objectives of Management: Mastering Complexity. Viewed 24, November, 2010< http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/objectives-of-management> Jack D. Deal (2010). The Business Analysis - Why Your Company's Future May Depend on It. Retrieved August 9,2007, http://freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com/free_and_inquiring_mind/business/ Kathleen, B., Vander, H. R., & Ziemski, K. (2008). From Analyst to Leader: Elevating the Role of the Business Analyst. Management Concepts, ISBN Read More