Business Analysis is Changing
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Without doubt the pandemic has changed how organizations work around the world. Big data and digital have significantly transformed business, coupled with demanding customer expectations, and the impact of supply chain shortages the opportunities for business analysis professionals’ skillsets continue to increase around the globe. In 2020, LinkedIn ranked business analysis as the number 6 hard skill every professional should have.
In this blog we asked seasoned influencers to discuss the trends they expect to see in 2021. Here we’ve collected insights from business analysis leaders in Sri Lanka, Brazil, Australia, Egypt and Nigeria who share how the role is growing in their countries.
In Sri Lanka business analysis is becoming a general role more than a specialism says Rumesh Wijetunge, Director and CEO of The Key Concepts. Agile work environments have resulted in any team member expected to have the capability to perform analyst responsibilities of planning, eliciting, analyzing, synthesizing, capturing, verifying, validating, and communicating requirements. The analyst role is popular in product development contexts specifically as a product owner role and they are expected to provide solutions to real problems faced by real-world users through empathy, ideation, and constant feedback. Business Analysts in Sri Lanka are now more focused on obtaining a professional certification from IIBA to learn the concepts and obtain additional skills related to product development and human-centered solution design.
What I see here in Brazil is that organizations are using agile methodologies and approaches as mainstream resulting in business analysis being needed more now than ever. “Organizations need people who are able to understand the needs and find what’s really valuable for business. but maybe they are not called Business Analyst as a role. Business Analysis is seen as a mindset that any professional should have – they may be a product owner, product developer, scrum master or any stakeholder engaged in Business Transformation,” states Fabricio Laguna, CBAP, Consultanta and Instructor at Gigante Consultoria Empresarial Ltda and IIBA Brazil Chapter President, Fabricio is known as the Brazilian BA (the main reference on Business Analysis in Brazil).
Watch what top influencers have to say about the future of business analysis.
In Australia, the Product Owner role is trending according to Gareth Jones, Practice Manager at Business Analysis (BAPL). “One of the big trends we have noticed in business analysis is the transition of the traditional business analysis professional into more of a product owner role. With the product owner being responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team, they are the key person responsible for managing the product backlog items and tracing these continuously to the business strategies. They have a strong working relationship with all involved in the product lifecycle to ensure the product being developed meets the identified business need. Of course, this transition is very difficult without the support and guidance from a mature business analysis practice,” says Jones. It is within the practice that the approaches, tools, techniques and supporting artifacts are generated, and can be applied to assist the Business Analyst in delivering in this important transition. In addition, it is within the practice that this capability is both identified and cultivated to set the Business Analyst up for success.
Business analysis professionals working in Egypt find the more agile you are the more you can survive notes Mohamed Zahran, CBAP, AAC, CCA, a Business Analysis Principal Consultant and EMEA Deputy Regional Director for Middle East at IIBA. In 2020-2021 the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) is implementing a number of initiatives to develop digital skills in alignment with Egypt Vision 2030 and Egypt’s digital transformation strategy. Over the last year Egypt saw major demand for IIBA certification holders across the Middle East region in different industries and in governmental bodies. In particular, financial services and health insurance are seeking qualified business analysts. Agile analysis practitioners and IIBA®-AAC certificate holders are now the most sought-after credentials in the Middle East alongside the IIBA®-CBDA (Certification in Business Data Analytics). In 2020, Egypt’s MCIT invested in a training program to prepare its governmental business analysts for IIBA certifications with the support of local Endorsed Education Providers (EEP) in Egypt and the IIBA Egypt Chapter in support of the country’s digital transformation programs.
While this last year was an outlier globally, it was even more so for Nigeria. Apart from the devastating effect of the pandemic (the panic, fear and lockdown), Nigeria witnessed widespread youth led protest at an unprecedented level (The End-SARS protests). So, it was not a surprise that the news wave was dominated by the pandemic and End SARS, but one of the most significant events that went unreported is the phenomenal growth of the business analysis practice in Nigeria. The demand for business analysts was at a historic level in 2020 reports Oludayo Awe, CBAP, IIBA Nigeria Chapter President and Systems Architect at The OS Concepts Research & Consulting Limited. “I have never seen such keen interest in business analysis from business leaders, top management of both public and private firms in my 11+ year business analysis career. I strongly believe that business analysis is on an upward trajectory in Nigeria, and many barriers will be broken in 2021,” says Oludayo.
This is an exciting time to be a business analysis professional. There are over 23.3 million professionals on LinkedIn who list business analysis as a skill set. Additionally, 9.75 million professionals hold the title of Business Analyst and 4.42 million list their title as Senior Business Analyst, Combine this with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the need for business analysts will increase 14% by 2024. This is one of the highest average percentages among growing occupations.
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About the Author:
Rosalyn eats, lives and breathes social media. With more than 7 years of experience in the field of social media, working in different industries from hospitality to beauty and accounting, she joined IIBA in 2018 as our resident social media guru. She’s happy to do “wefies” with you at conferences – so if you do see her at a conference – say hi and then say cheese!