How important is business analysis? Sure, IT companies and software vendors need BAs, you might say, but we are in a different line of business. We run our operations. We make things. We manage money. We deliver stuff. What does this have to do with business analysis?
There is a valid reason for the word “business” in “business analysis”. Whether your company provides investment advice, manufactures widgets, manages assets or creates and sells services, it is likely that it will need to plan and implement periodic changes.
When do we need business analysis? Any time a change is planned or required:
- To develop new products or improve existing products & services.
- To better serve the needs of each customer segment – existing or new.
- To improve business processes, reduce costs, identify opportunities for optimization of business flows.
- To support organizational restructuring and its impact on processes, roles and value chains.
- To plan activities required for successful execution of mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs.
- To analyze how an enterprise must adapt to changing legislation and remain compliant.
- To modernize or replace legacy technology and support digital transformation.
The role of a business analyst is to understand and analyze where the organization is right now, where it needs to be, and what needs to be done to get there.
If you are planning any significant initiatives along these lines, you need a business analyst (or a business analysis team) to understand, analyze, describe and support the changes. If you don’t have an internal business analysis capability, you have a few options:
- Hire a business analyst
- Engage an external BA consultant
- Train your existing employees who can think like a BA
If you don’t have anyone on business analysis duty, you risk missing important requirements, implementing a patchwork of band-aid solutions that will eventually fall apart, or being at mercy of an external partner that may not understand (or care enough) about your company’s needs. In other words, you risk failure, significant waste and over-expenditure.
Getting an experienced business analyst will in most cases be a good investment and a wise decision. And whatever change you are planning in your company right now, it is likely not the last project. Next time, you will have a BA resource and can take advantage of what a good business analyst can offer.
Contact Yulia for details on Business Analysis in One Day and other corporate training programs. Consider other ways to help your organization mature its business analysis and business architecture functions, and explore BA videos on the Why Change YouTube channel.
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