What Are The Roles Of A Business Analyst?

A business analyst plays a crucial role in helping companies identify their problem areas and work on solutions. In today's business world, the position of a business analyst is highly prized and critical to the success of an enterprise. It is a specialized role, and requires an analytical mind.

The International Institute of Business Analysis has the following definition for a business analyst: '...a liaison between different stakeholders to elicit, analyse, communicate, and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies, and information systems.' What this effectively means is that the business analyst is the person who works with the different divisions of a business concern to figure out a particular problem, analyse probable causes and also offer solutions. The business analyst does all this within the systems development life cycle.

Basically, the function of the business analyst is to apply his primary skill, which is analysis, to investigate the different problems that business organizations may face, and come up with feasible solutions for these problems.