WHO IS A BUSINESS ANALYST?

Business analysis is a relatively new science. It has emerged in the 21st century on the border of objectives of the firm and its technical capacity. A business analyst is an occupation, which greatly helps enterprises to increase profits not depending on the industry and their size. With the help of these specialists, companies are able to remain competitive.

Unfortunately, in the modern world, traditional methods of reaching all the goals may not be viable. That is why new methods of improving agility and adaptability of an organization emerge. The business analysis gives a great chance to manage changes with the help of innovative methods and tools.

With the help of business analysis, companies of all sizes and levels are able to achieve their goals effectively and at the highest speed. The main goal of a business analyst is to help enterprises to implement the most efficient and cost-effective solutions by discovering the needs of the program or project and presenting them to partners, company’s management or stakeholders.

Usually, business owners participate in the following processes:

• Help with business cases;
• Plan and monitor;
• Set and organize requirements;
• Transmit and simplify those requirements;
• Analyze the environment;
• Manage and communicate solutions.

If you want to start a career in business analysis or are thinking of switching careers, you will find our article useful! Below we will tell you about the skills business analysts should possess, the duties they have and will also provide you with a resume sample for finding a job offer of your dreams!

Business Analyst Skills

Business analysis is quite a broad field, which requires a lot of experience and knowledge. Here are the core business skills that any specialist, willing to enter the field, should possess:

• Understanding one’s objectives

Before starting analyzing, it is important to have all the initial data and a clear understanding of where to go. If you are not able to choose the necessary direction, it will be quite challenging and risky to deliver an expected result.

If the case or the task is not clear, don’t be shy to ask for clarification or for additional information. Thus you will save days or even weeks of work and thousands of dollars.

• Solid communicative skills

If you think that a diploma in business is enough to become a business analyst, think again. One of the core skills you need to possess is communication not depending on whether it is oral or written. You need to make your thoughts and ideas clearly to the audience without misunderstanding.

In addition, you need to master the art of asking proper questions to get the necessary answers from stakeholders. What does it mean? If you ask a question in the field of information technology and the stakeholder doesn’t know a thing about it, your question should come in simple English without acronyms or slang.

Learning how to translate information on any level is vital in order to reach various audiences and to fulfill their requests.

• Ability to run meetings with stakeholders

Even though most of us prefer sending out emails instead of holding personal meetings, sometimes you won’t have another option. Face-to-face meetings are better at discussing complex questions and clarifying difficult or controversial issues.

You won’t be able to get as much information on the topic through an email, as you can on a personal meeting. However, you can always complement such meetings with printed materials or an email.

• Be able to listen

If you want to become one of the best business analysts, you won’t do without strong listening skills. You need to learn how to listen and collect the necessary information. This skill will allow you to gather and analyze data, and to categorize it. However, you should not only listen but also hear and see the context behind the words. Moreover, you must read between the lines and to pay attention to body language.

• Good presentation skills

If you are not an entry-level business analyst you probably have to face workshops, presentations, and other visual elements. If you are only getting started, you still have some time to acquire those necessary skills.

The main point to remember is that your presentation should contain only relevant information, which is directly related to the topic. Remember that in most cases stakeholders don’t know peculiarities of most of the spheres, so visual content will greatly help them to understand your message clearer.

• Time management

The ability to manage one’s time is a necessary skill for all of us. Business analysts are not an exception, because they have lots of tasks every day and it is necessary to make sure that all of them are completed on time and that the projects are closed before the deadline.

Multi-tasking often becomes not enough, because you should learn how to prioritize things: to understand what tasks are more important and urgent. Being a business analyst means that you will have to manage not only your time but also the time of your team.

• Strong writing and documentation skills

Work of a business analyst is inseparable from all sorts of documents: reports, reviews, specifications, analysis, plans and much more. You will have to make sure that all of your documents are written in a professional and clear manner, at an appropriate level for stakeholders.

You need to avoid jargon, slang or specific vocabulary, which may not be clear for your stakeholders. Junior business analysts are not expected to work with documentation but solid writing skills will be a big plus.

With time you will learn how to create clear texts and to deliver documentation that meets all of the format peculiarities.

• Managing stakeholders

You should always understand how to manage your stakeholders and what influence they have on the project. Depending on your approach your stakeholders may become your biggest friends or enemies.

This means that an experienced analyst will analyze every particular case and will come up with ways of managing every stakeholder individually.

Some stakeholders prefer detailed face-to-face meetings, while others are satisfied with email reports. Some stakeholders are open to new ideas, while others always remain conservative and closed to innovations. Learn how to influence every one of them and you will get additional points in your favor!

• Advanced modeling skills

It is always better to see once, so it is not surprising that process modeling is becoming one of the most powerful tools in the hands of business analysts. It is a great way to convey huge amounts of data without a need to put it into plain words and sentences.

A visual model allows giving an overview of the issue or the project so that you or the target audience sees what works good and where there are some problems. A process model usually has several levels that allow analysts to communicate with stakeholders in a language that they are able to understand.

What Do Business Analysts Do?

Business analyst has a variety of responsibilities depending on the field and level of expertise. However, here are the core tasks any analyst should be able to complete:

• Create a detailed analysis, outline problems, and solutions for a company;
• Make predictions and work on budgets;
• Plan and monitor;
• Build financial models;
• Conduct variance analysis;
• Report;
• Work on prices;
• Define the requirements of the business and report them to stakeholders.

The analyst should not only perform modeling but should also be able to create new models that can become a basis for correct decisions. This position also means that a person should master reporting and regulatory requirements, and be able to budget, forecast and conduct financial analysis.

Business Analyst Resume Sample & Examples

Everything starts with a resume. It is a summary professional analysts need to provide about themselves and to show that they possess necessary qualities and skills. If you don’t know how to create a powerful resume that will distinguish yourself from other candidates, read a sample below!

Jack Jones

Town, CA 11111 | (111) 111-1111 | [email protected] |Linkedin | Twitter

Business analyst in the banking sector

Providing complex business solutions and reaching multi-million dollar profits for your company

Business analyst with a proven record of business solutions with experience leading teams in documentation, development, and innovations to achieve all the company’s goals. Always ready to look for new and unexpected ways to change practices of the company and provide cost-effective and modern solutions to ensure effective operations of all stages of the process.

Skills:

• Gathering and analysis of requirements
• User Acceptance Testing
• Management of projects

• Implementation of Enterprise
• Key Performance Indicator
• Mining and analytics of data

• SAS/SAP solutions
• Risk management
• ERP, BI and big data platforms

Experience

XYZ BANK (Global financial institution) – Town, CA 2009 to present

Business Analyst I, 2012 to present                     Analyst of Credit Risks, 2009-2010

Data Analyst, 2010-2012                                       QA Engineer, 2008 to 2009

Earned promotions due to good performance and high results. At the moment supervise projects that are created to ensure stable growth, improvement and competitive superiority along with a growth of profits. Lead all the business processes and provide mapping and analysis of data using modeling software, tools, and methods. Analyze the requirements of business and user for proposed solutions.

Provided deep analyses for optimization projects, programs, and payment apps. Quantitative results:

• 8,3% profit growth (2017);
• 40% efficiency gains;
• $450K reduction of expenses;
• $1M savings on labor cost;
• 90% retention rates.

• Supplied executives with analytical and decision-making tools that are used as a background for the consolidation and reorganization of the enterprise.
• Teamed with developers in order to automate outdated processes that helped to save money and time. Helped to achieve a 7% margins increased in the last fiscal year.
• Partnered with stakeholders of the company to provide alignment of business and technology. Provided solutions that met the company’s needs and specifications.

Education

UNIVERSITY – Town, CA | MBA, Finance

COLLEGE – Town, CA | BS in Management of Information Technologies

Summary of Technology

• Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, IBM Cognos, SAP, SAS
• TIBCO Spotfire, QlikView, Tableau
• Windows, Mac OS, Android, Apple iOS

Considering that your resume will probably be the first interaction between you and the hiring manager, it is very important to be sure that it represents your skills in the best way and shows that you are an experienced and motivated business analyst.

Make sure that you indicate and show that you will be a valuable asset for the company and that you will be able to deliver outstanding results. However, if you are not sure how to create a strong resume, you can always contact our service. The assigned resume editor will polish an existing resume or will write one anew based on provided details.

Together we will create a resume you will be proud of!