How to Become a Business Analyst (2023 Guide)

To become a Business Analyst, you must have key data analysis skills and an ability to glean insights from data sets.

It’s no secret that the way we do business is evolving – it’s been changing for decades, and the rate of that change shows no sign of slowing down. Just the opposite: today, more businesses are learning to adapt than ever before.

At the center of this great shift are Business Analysts, a category of jobs that comprises responsibilities from systems and process analysis to project management to software development and everything in between.

Essentially, Business Analysts are the people who provide the insights that help companies manage change.

The full scope of potential changes a business can make is wide, so a Business Analyst job description can be just as wide. But at its core, the goal of a Business Analyst is the same no matter their level of seniority or what market they’re in: to identify and define solutions that will help a business thrive.

As you’d imagine, information plays a big part in this goal – sourcing information, analyzing it, understanding what’s meaningful and what isn’t, using it to make predictions and devise actionable goals, and finally, communicating all this to others.

More specifically, it’s Business Analysts who critically examine a company’s organization and how it manages business processes, who implement its technical solutions, who look for new business opportunities, and who determine whether the benefits of a given action outweigh its costs.

Because business analysis impacts virtually every facet of an organization, there’s almost no position working for a company that doesn’t relate to it in some way or another.

If you’re working for a business, you’re probably doing some form of business analysis role already.

And if you’re looking to move into full-time business analysis jobs, that’s good news: it means that however limited your training in business analysis per se, you still have some experience with it, and that can serve as an entry into the field.

For some people, this could mean learning more about business analysis and applying that knowledge to their current job – to command a higher salary, or even obtain a promotion. For others, retraining could be the first step to a new career as a full-time Business Analyst. Still, others may already occupy a senior executive position and simply want to grow their field of expertise, to improve their effectiveness at the job they already do.

How to Become a Business Analyst in Six Steps: