Business Analyst Job Description: Skills, Jobs, Salary [2023]

Business Analysts(BAs) were initially called System Analysts and the Business Analyst job role was primarily focused on the IT sector. Although they were experts in their domain, communication between them and the rest of the business world was hard as the business users were unable to speak the technical language to effectively specify their needs, vis a vis the techies found it hard to interpret what the business users needed exactly. This was how the concept of Business Analysis came into existence. For the IT sector to cater to the business needs, a proper understanding of the business language was needed. On the other hand, an accurate definition of the IT requirements was required to be properly conveyed in terms of appropriate IT language, definition and concept. These are the components that comprise the sphere of Business Analysis in today’s global economy. With this, the importance of a Business Analyst has been recognized in the last decade as businesses were readily seeking technology solutions to complex business problems.

Because of the added business focus a Business Analyst provides, organizations take their help to solve problems like business process improvement, organization changes, streamlining operations to get involved at an earlier stage of a project where they not only define the business requirements but also outline the current and the future state of the business, do an effective cost/benefit analysis and finally select the appropriate technologies to support and bring the solution finally leading to business success. 

Since Business Analysts became so critical to a project’s success and business growth, many companies started preferring professionals with the Entry Certificate in Business Analysis Training or ECBA Certification, which is the level one certification in business analysis (BA) certification framework from the International Institute of Business Analysis(IIBA) or a  Business Analyst training. Modern businesses achieve competitive advantage in this way with Business Analysts at the forefront of this concept as they not only can speak about technology solutions but also know how such a technology solution should be implemented in the business to meet the market demands and stay ahead of market competition.

What Exactly Is Business Analysis?

It is a way of gaining insight from data using specific techniques, identifying the exact needs of a business and combining these two to recommend changes and provide solutions that bring value to the stakeholders. Many of the potential solutions provided include software and digital data-based components and also incorporate organizational changes as well like improving processes, developing new policies or involving in strategic planning.

Interpretation of a Business Analyst (BA)

These professionals are responsible for narrowing the gap between IT and the business using data analytics to assess and make data-driven recommendations to the leadership and stakeholders. With their combined skills of analytics and business knowledge, they understand the business requirements, lay out the needed plans and develop actionable insights as per the plans. Their roles revolve around problem-solving techniques and they employ statistical and interpersonal skills for the purpose and some tools like R, Tableau, Excel, SQL and more for dealing with data. Apart from taking care of the business goals in the ever-changing needs of any business and implementing the required changes, they also take care of clients’ requirements and interact with them to understand their business perspectives and views.

Business Analysis vs Business Analytics

In the context of our present discussion, we should also understand the distinction between business analysis and Business Analyst. While the former is more concerned with the functions and processes of a business, business analytics is the people who control them with the help of data, insight, communication, suggestion and reporting. However often the two terminologies are used interchangeably. 

Business Analyst (BA) Job Description

•   Job Description of a Business Analyst

The Business Analyst job role focuses on improving the performance and increasing the competitiveness of a company in the market by providing foolproof system-based solutions to improve the efficiency level to the maximum and anticipating and fixing the problem areas within a company. The Business Analyst job responsibilities or business analytics job description can be summarized as follows: 

1.  Ideating new and also challenging existing business ideas of a company to successfully execute its business plans to achieve the business goals. 
2.  Understanding the customers’ needs and translating them into operational and applicational requirements by using strong analytical and product management skills. 
3.  Compiling data and information from different sources for critical evaluation, reconciling conflicts and communicating high-level information to the management or stakeholders. 
4. Remain conversant with the latest technologies, processes and IT developments to automate and modernize the company’s systems. 
5.  Efficiently communicating data-derived insights and plans to cross-functional team members and the management. 
6. Preparing meaningful reports out of the critical information gathered from meetings with various stakeholders. 
7.  Effective liaising with clients, understanding their requirements, working closely with technicians and managerial staff. 
8. Rendering guidelines, training, coaching and providing leadership to junior staff. 
9. Proper resource allocation with efficient cost control. 
10.  Providing data-driven solutions, prioritizing initiatives based on business needs and suggesting future avenues to meet the business requirements. 
11.  Project management, developing project plans, monitoring performance and deliverables and ensuring timely completion of a project. 
12.  Regular reviewing and evaluating of business processes, anticipating requirements, uncovering areas for improvement by developing optimization strategies and implementing solutions. 

• Duties of a Business Analyst

Business Analyst job duties or the typical day-to-day job activities of a BA could be broadly enumerated as follows: 

1. Understanding, and analyzing the practicability of the existing systems, developing requirements for new systems and/or upgrades of the existing systems. 
2.  Ensuring that the system design (whether existing, upgraded or new) is perfect as per the needs of the users and is optimally utilized. 
3.  Engaging actively in user acceptance testing and reviewing the functionality testing of the new systems. 
4. Defining and documenting the business functions and processes of the customers. 
5. Assisting in training and coaching (including technical training) of the professional and technical staff of the company and also assisting in designing training curriculum. 
6. Acting as a leader of any designated project, rendering accurate work direction to the involved team members (whether technical or clerical staff). 

Business Analyst Importance

Business Analysis largely centers around going through huge data volumes to extract insights that support business decisions and help a business move ahead and faster by solving problems. However, today’s business landscape has completely changed compared to what was in the past. Only those businesses that are able to make fast decisions are able to grab opportunities for which organizations need to have a team of solid Business Analysts. Here is a review of why they are important. 

• Better Business understanding

Business Analysts help the business owners to understand the business better by reviewing business requirements, growth potential, problems, expenses, ROI, customer preferences and their likes and dislikes, customer demographics among others. 

 Going much beyond just crunching data and deriving insight, they help in making business more efficient, streamlined, effective and profitable by doing everything for the company like restructuring, identifying improvement areas, analyzing present workforce and project future requirements, planning, delegating tasks that yield optimum results, analyze methods and techniques implemented or must be put to practice to improve sales, productivity or service. 

• Reducing Costs, Increasing Revenue Areas

Another significant benefit of employing a qualified Business Analysts is, they help in reducing expenses, identify different areas of increasing revenue streams, and finally working with data to find out new ways to help make the business more affordable, profitable by cutting down costs and unnecessary expenses. 

• Return on Investment (ROI) Increase

It is ROI that helps in setting business priorities and used to measure a change in business valuation. It is best done by analyzing data and deriving insight out of it which is best done by a Business Analyst who helps to identify the key areas of profit making and maximize efforts in those areas or scale down the underperforming areas. 

• Defining the exact position of a business in the market

The output, market situation, shares among others are the factors that determine the true position of a company in the market which is best understood by a qualified Business Analyst. 

• Crisis Management

Identifying the crises and how to mitigate them need special expertise that helps to prepare a business for the best period or sail through the worst time. A Business Analyst anticipates and plans strategies for a crisis that might affect a company’s entire business or a part and makes the company remain prepared to avert the consequences. 

• Decision Making

By interpreting customer preferences quickly and understanding business operations to streamline the same towards them to grow the business efficiently is another or rather the biggest advantage a company can get from Business Analysts. These professionals are proficient in making decisions that are analytical and logical as well without any bias, suggest ways and areas to help a company extend its profit not only by reducing costs but also creating fresh ways of further revenues by considering the state of the company, its goals, expenses, opportunities among other factors before reaching a logical and data driven efficient decision. Additionally, they help forecast the factors that might influence a business in the coming days. 

 Business Analyst Qualifications

Any basic degree is required for a BA which is the minimum requirement. However, certain degrees could prove advantageous like Business Administration, Management, IT and Business studies. However, there are a number of industry-recognized certificate courses for example CCBA certification for practicing or aspiring BAs could avail themselves for sharpening their acumen. 

A Business Analyst also needs some score skills to master like 

1. Strong communication and interpersonal skills 
2. Analytical skill 

A course on Business Analysis like CBAP training will definitely help in developing or sharpening such skills.

As far as the salary package of BAs is concerned it varies from country to country, company to company and also depends on the experience.

1. Entry-level Business Analyst Salary

    

In India, the salary package for entry-level BA roles ranges anywhere between $6,034. 

2. Average Business Analyst Salary

    

The average annual salary of a Business Analyst in India varies from company to company. For example, at Intuit, the average salary is $131,708 per annum.  

The salary of a matured BA with 5-9 years of industry experience can earn around $87,264 a year while a senior professional with more than 15 years of experience may draw $103,729 a year. 

 In India, the role of a Business Analyst offers excellent opportunities. Brands like Fannie Mae, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), EY, UBS, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Barclays offer huge salary packages. Here is a glimpse of the annual salary offered by these companies: 

Fannie Mae: $119,022 per annum, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E): $119,022 per annum , EY: $119,022 per annum ,UBS: $119,022 per annum , Thermo Fisher Scientific: $108,570 per annum and Barclays: $108,570 per annum. 

As far as the international market is concerned, as per a survey mentioned, the probability of a BA ranges from USD 3,000 to USD 11,000 a month. Whereas Glassdoor reports the average salary of a Business Analyst in Canada as CA$64,715 per year. Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS- (the federal agency that collects and circulates various data about the U.S. economy and labor market) reported an annual average salary for Business Analysts of $85,260 (in May 2019) with a growth projection of 11% growth between 2019 and 2029 with healthcare and IT sectors expected to experience the fastest growth.

Business Analyst Jobs

Business Analysts  often worry about the following: 

1. Finding the first Business Analyst job (as a fresher) 
2. Experienced but wondering about getting hired for the right type of position (or package or both) 

• How to get a Business Analyst job

Before doing anything, the first thing you (either as an experienced or a fresher) do is to figure out where exactly you are in the process and then decide the steps needed to get hired. 

Step 1 – Positioning 

1. Figuring out the kind of BA jobs you are qualified for. 
2. How to position your career experiences and/or skills for those types of jobs 

Tip: Maybe you have many Business Analysis Skills already that you are not aware of. In such a case, availing a good Business Analysis certificate course to sharpen them and acquire in-depth knowledge of Business Analysis practices and skills and enhance your Business Analyst job scope. Finding the transferable Business Analyst skills that the course will help you with, will ensure you have more career options and job opportunities. Additionally, it helps you update your resume and prepare for job interviews as well which is a good bonus. 

Step 2– Business Analyst job profile preparation 

Even if you are well qualified for a particular role, if your resume does not showcase those skills or qualifications properly, recruiters will not get to know you. Your Business Analyst job description resume needs to describe the previously handled Business Analyst job functions.

It is also important that your resume must be in line with those mentioned in the Business Analyst job specification or the business analytics job role described in the job posting/advertisement. It means that your document needs to clearly show that you can and have the experience of handling past projects in a Business Analyst role as required by the job post for which you are applying.

Here is a Business Analyst job description sample resume (with around 12 years of experience)  for better understanding. Please note that entry-level business analyst job descriptions should also be written similarly.

Revolution, the role of a Business Analyst is going to become more exciting and challenging.

Step 3– Applying 

With the right understanding of your existing Business Analyst skills and your resume appropriately highlighting them you are ready to apply for a Business Analyst job role. 

If you have been applying to hundreds of jobs but not receiving any response then you need to apply some tactics to increase your chances. The two rules of thumb are: 

1. Remain careful about the jargon and terminologies: Since the person first reviewing your resume most probably will be from HR or someone who does not understand much about business analysis as well as you do, do not use terminologies like “process flows”, “workflow diagrams” “use cases” that may sound just jargon to the reviewer from HR department. Review a Business Analyst job description example that is already mentioned in the job description (which will be free of such terminologies in 99% cases) against which you are applying and tweak your resume accordingly. That way you will increase your job match probability up to 80%. 
2.  Highlight the relevant skills: Again, you need to customize your resume to highlight the relevant skills. 

Business Analyst Career Growth

Some of the most in-demand Business Analyst career paths are: 

• Business Analyst Manager

Those who hire new Business Analyst team members, oversee the training of the new recruits, define best practices and also oversee the organizational goals. 

• Data Business Analyst

These professionals usually keep busy working with huge data to derive meaningful insight out of them like identifying trends, developing charts and creating visual presentations to help in making business decisions. 

• Information Security Analyst

With cybercrime the biggest threat of the modern world, cyber security professionals are in huge demand. The job of Information security analysts is to protect companies from cyber criminals by interpreting security data and monitoring IT networks and systems often by doing ethical hacking and more. 

• Quantitative Analysts

They create, implement and present mathematical models to support financial decisions that influence investments, pricing structures and risk management. 

• Data Analysis Scientist

This is the most challenging career path as such professionals need to be familiar with machine learning and statistics because they need to extract meaning from collected data, interpret, and convert it into actionable insights. 

Conclusion

The role of a Business Analyst will continue to evolve as businesses throughout the world keeps flourishing and getting more complex than ever. Business Analysts, with their understanding of the organization’s key initiatives and acumen to drive a business forward by leading the way to influence people to adapt to major changes, are often described as “Agents of Change”. In the days of the 4th Industrial.