Top Reasons to Get Certified as Business Analyst

In today’s highly ambitious environment, it is necessary for every company to adapt to market changes, making a business analyst play an indispensable role in an organization. This can be a cumbersome process most of the time as companies need to assess multiple factors before changing processes. These changes have the potential to rake in profits or cause heavy losses to the enterprise. Hence, it is necessary to forecast the outcome of process changes through a comprehensive assessment of all opportunities and eventualities. This is where the business analyst comes in.

Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and suggesting solutions that deliver value to organizational stakeholders.

A Business Analyst is nothing but a business transformation architect who helps clients achieve their business goals through business strategy, business process management/architecture, and business analysis.

A business analyst ushers the company through unstable market scenarios ensuring that they are in a profitable situation. An analyst draws up calculated conclusions by effectively considering all available factors and market conditions that are at work. It goes without saying that, a business analyst works in a dynamic work environment which is needed to continuously adapt to change.

The top 8 reasons to take up a BA certification are as follows:

1. Communication with the client

An organization’s relationship with its clients is of paramount importance. When an order comes in from the client, it is the business analyst’s responsibility to make sure that good communication with the client in order to clearly understand the client’s requirements. This holds true irrespective of the projects requested by the client being technical or non-technical. Non-technical projects can be easily handled by business analysts who have good communication skills. When the client requests a complex technical product, a technically qualified business analyst will act as an invaluable asset to the team. The BA would be able to clearly understand the requirements of the customer and communicate it to the development team to aid the creation of the exact product the customer requires.

2. Research and documentation

Business analysts are honed with the skills to constantly innovate new business ideas by the implementation of which an organization could run much more efficiently. Even though statistically, most of these ideas might not pan out, one might have an appropriate analysis as to why it wouldn’t be feasible. It is required to down these ideas and the discussions recorded in the form of proper documentation. There is a high probability that the same idea might be suggested six months down the line due to newfound feasibility. In this case, all one would have to do is refer to the archived documentation to tell guide the team towards a new plan of action, or at least display why the idea did not work in the past and would not work in the future. One will not require executing the analyses all over again.

3. Innovative approach

Individuals used to thinking on their feet and possessing the ability to dole out speedy resolutions to simple problems will feel right at home in the profile of a BA. In standardized processes executed by an enterprise, there might be small-scale issues that would require being solved instantly to ensure the proper functioning of said processes. The idea to solve the issues at hand need not be highly precise or even the most efficient one, but, instant issue resolution will mitigate the process losses greatly. Long-term procedures, can also see a BA brainstorm and discuss and implement innovative ideas to replace conventional ones.

4. Productive meetings

Professionals who dislike lengthy and unproductive meetings can heave a collective sigh of relief as BAs are not required to attend such meetings any longer. This is because, as a BA one will heading such meetings, and keeping the productivity high as needed – by carrying out concise discussions which are relevant to the issues at hand. Pressing issues can be addressed in such meetings seeking immediate resolution, thus eventually expending more time on the actual work done. By eliminating redundant discussions, a BA will be able to accomplish all required business tasks in regular work hours, irrespective of the workloads. This will lead to a better work-life balance.

5. Independence

This is the most prominent advantage of taking on the mantle of a BA. As a BA one can invest more than half of their workday in coming up with solutions to unique problems and implement the said innovative resolutions to generate brand new business opportunities. Since a BA will only act based on thorough analysis the chances of repercussions due to lack of forecasting and planning are slim to none. The time saved through the calculated decision-making can be re-applied in meeting with stakeholders and the project team.

6. Reduction in rework 

BA’s aid in steering the team towards the right requirements; will lead to reduced amounts of unnecessary change. There will always be a minimum modicum of change since implementation fosters learning. But multiple projects are negatively impacted by the change because project needs are not well understood. And this kind of change may lead to expensive rework, eating into the company’s bottom line. BA’s can help plug this wasteful expenditure of resources.

7. Discovering more cost-effective solutions

BAs are authorized and entrusted with the arduous task of finding various solutions to a problem, particularly solutions that may not include information technology. This way the business analyst might actually aid in reducing project costs by coming up with more cost-effective solutions.

8. Providing a framework in which an IT team can scale 

The number of stakeholders will grow proportional to the size of the organization itself along with organizational projects and decision-makers. As this transpires, the conventional patterns of communication that functioned well for smaller teams will tend to disintegrate. Business analysis is a major factor in empowering a small team to scale to a larger one, in turn increasing the advantages realized, as more projects can be transformed into successful investments.

Who benefits from business analyst certification?

These certifications aid in standardizing expectations and skills in the business analyst role. Certification provides baseline organizations can utilize in recruiting that shows that a professional comprehends the job role and responsibilities therein. It also will testify that the candidate has garnered experience in the same and that the candidate has received some education and training.

Where does certification keep pace with industry?

Business analyst certification displays a continuous commitment to this niche profession. The reason that most professional certifications need progressive training and professional development is to ensure that people stay current with new and emerging trends. For example, if a candidate has acquired a CBAP certification 5 years ago –without a recertification process, it will be hard for an employer to know the candidate has been keeping up with developments since the time of first being certified.

When can certification help professional development?

Professional certifications aid in charting a path for professionals to follow towards meeting a career goal. As a business analyst, a candidate can look at the CBAP certification and ask themselves what experience is needed to qualify for the examination and whether the candidate is expending time in carrying out business analysis alone, and if further growth and opportunities are required in the same career path. BA certifications are highly useful as it pushes the candidate to look beyond the obvious current role that they are in, and get a feel for how their current role may fare in other organizations and what the future may hold for them.

Why might certification be relevant to non-business analysts?

Professional certification in BA becomes essential when a candidate is looking to demonstrate that they have skills that go well beyond job titles held in the past. Aligning themselves with their latest goals rooted in BA. While there is a small professional populace who execute business analysis work as part of their existing job role, a BA certification can convince staff in HR to actually look at a candidate’s real experience. This helps when HR deems it necessary to hire within the organizations for BA needs.

Brief about top 10 trends in Business Analysis

How should employers gauge certified professionals?

A well-run certification program can weed out unsuitable professionals and aid genuine BA enthusiasts in connecting with suitable organizations with BA needs. Professionals looking to get ahead in today’s highly competitive job market may find certificate programs offer the advanced training needed to boost their careers. Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Analysis (BA) are two areas of study that have become increasingly important to organizations over time. Professionals in these domains frequently work closely together, the two disciplines are quite distinct and each provides its own value to businesses.

Go through our Business Analysis Interview Questions to crack the Interviews.

The Link between Business Intelligence and Business Analysis

While similarly focused on helping organizations to succeed and grow, professionals in the BI and BA arenas serve different functions.

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence professionals aid enterprises in recognizing where enhancements can be implemented. They are entrusted with the essential task of data collection that analysts can then process and act upon.

BI professionals are trained to answer questions about how project events or anomalies have transpired their frequency, problems within the same, and the required actions to be implemented. They basically deliver the information required for data-driven decision-making.

Business Analysis

Business Analysis professionals are tasked with enabling change within an enterprise by crystallizing requirements and generating solutions for stakeholders. They help enhance business performance by taking data provided by BI specialists and analysing it to create plans to drive the organization forward.

BA professionals frequently work across various levels of an organization, and may execute such functions as defining strategy and program goals, developing an enterprise architecture and supporting progressive improvement and enhancement. They employ data to define why something is happening, what will happen next and what measures can be taken to optimize results.

Why They Matter

As more companies look toward data-driven decision making, they require skilled professionals to aid them not only to gather data but also to generate actionable strategies based on the available information. This leads to Business Intelligence and Business Analysis professionals being in high demand by companies looking to gather insights and create strategies in order to accomplish business goals.

According to Redwood Capital, Business Intelligence has taken its place as the top-ranked IT priority for enterprise business leaders over the past few years, meaning Business Analysis also shares the same space in the current IT market. BA Practitioners are enabling businesses to secure data necessary to boost revenue, profit margins and gain a highly competitive edge. BA specialists, meanwhile, are instrumental in the translation of business data into actionable plans.

With each passing day, more businesses are utilizing technology and analysis to harness the advantages of real-time data to aid real-time decision making.

Roles & Responsibilities of Business Analyst

Gaining an Edge

Advanced certificates in Business Analysis and Business Intelligence can position professionals to aid their companies in reaping the advantages of a data-driven strategy. While a BI certification is best suited to IT professionals looking to amass skills in data collection and analysis, BA certifications are best suited to those with a keen interest and inherent ability to analyse data and translating the same into strategized action.

Conclusion

Fundamentally, business analysis reduces the overall costs for all projects. This concept is often counter-intuitive for managers unfamiliar with business analysis. At the start, adding a business analyst and generating additional project documentation appears to be an additional cost. If organizations are managing without a business analyst today and one is introduced, the cost may appear to increase, especially at the start. But it has to be remembered that when it comes to cost, many companies focus on technology costs and forego the other business-related costs, such as stakeholder involvement, in determining ROI.

More seasoned and successful organizations will look at the total cost of ownership which takes into account the cost of owning the solution throughout its entire product lifecycle. All things considered, the introduction of BA to an organization will bring about a lot of benefits through project processes and will reflect in the company’s bottom line soon after introduction.

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I hope that by now you have had an overview of Business Analysis. Before you enroll in ZaranTech’s certification course on Agile Business Analysis do check out this demo video: