Modern day Business Analysis in the Age of Digitization
The business and technology landscape has changed dramatically in recent years with the age of AI (Artificial Intelligence), data analytics, and big data taking prominence in each aspect. Such trends have culminated in business transformation changing to “digital” business transformation and as the signs show, it is evident that these trends are here to stay and will continue to evolve with time.
Considering this trend, the role of business analysis has become more pivotal than ever before. This article drives into how the age of digitization shapes the modern role of business analysis and what skills business analysis professionals should have to provide the best solutions and outcomes to their stakeholders.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation or being “digitized” is a way business organizations try to serve their customers by leveraging technology to improve their people, processes, and tools. Organizations who quickly adopt these technologies and get close to achieving their digitization strategy. It will also help them to achieve a competitive advantage in their respective markets.
Role of a Business Analyst in the age of Digitization
Traditional business analysis is more focused on gathering requirements of a business and providing a solution to them with the support of the development team. In the modern age, this area has evolved a bit further where a business analyst needs to align the requirements, they gather not only for a particular solution but to the overall organizational strategy.
In other words, as digitization looks to take control of an organization’s major pillars (as mentioned above), a business analyst should not focus on an individual’s requirements, a particular department’s requirements. Instead, a business analyst should be able to look at the organization’s strategy and long-term goals and align those requirements to the bigger picture.
Business analysts should be able to analyze large data sets and analyze how those data and gathered requirements align to come up with a solution that is feasible with the organization’s strategy. They should be able to give a picture to the stakeholders on how the final solution that is derived will help them to gain more customers, increase their market share, reduce operational and inventory costs, and stay ahead of their competitors.
Further, they should be able to make stakeholders understand how technologies such as AI and Big Data can help them to achieve those goals. They should also be able to explain to their stakeholders what risks implementing such AI powered systems will have on their business.
Based on the above, a modern-day business analyst should equip themselves with the knowledge and skills the world demands, without sticking to the old routine. The following diagram shows what skills a modern-day business analyst should possess to be relevant in the age of digitization.
As shown above, business analysts today need to be all-rounders. They need to have skills in Data Visualization tools such as PowerBI, Tableau where they would be able to obtain business data from the stakeholders and check, analyze data to identify trends and opportunities for the relevant business to grow.
Further, knowledge about AI models such as LLMs (large language models) and usage of AI tools such as ChatGPT will help them save time and derive best solutions to their business. Additional skills and knowledge about Cyber security will give them an edge over their peers and will help them to gain knowledge on what security aspects they need to think about when deriving solutions (ex: when dealing with digital money and web-based solutions, knowledge of this area is vital to build a proper solution).
In addition, Stakeholder Management (a key BA skill that every business analyst should possess), Agile and Devops knowledge as this is the way that most organizations work right now; critical thinking and change management skills are vital to come up with the best results, ideas, and solutions for the relevant business domain.
To summarize, businesses today are more into development of system /solutions that is data driven, AI based and customer friendly. They seek the support and collaboration of Business Analysts who can support this journey, who can give ideas on how to model AI based technology, new digital trends into their systems while also protecting their business goals, strategy, culture, and ethics. Organizations need skilled business analysts in their digital transformation journey. So, business analysts who have the knowledge and skills mentioned above will surely have a chance to strive and bring value to their respective stakeholders and surely stand out among their peers.
How ADL support developing Business Analysts to support your digital transformation journey
At ADL, we always focus on improving the skills and knowledge of our business analysts by giving them a chance to learn about all the new technologies and trends which help them to develop their business analyst careers. We have workshops, we share knowledge with each other, and we also possess a set of BAs skilled in various areas (Business Acumen, User experience. AI and Analytics) which has enabled ADL to provide its business partners and stakeholders with the best solutions possible in their digital transformation journey.
You can visit www.axiatadigitallabs.com or www.axonect.com to know more about ADL and its Axonect Product Suite respectively.
