Business Analyst Job Description
Business Analyst Job Description Example 1
A Business Analyst at Heward Packet will:
- Work collaboratively with clients and stakeholders - both external and internal to HPE.
- Research and elicit, analyze, validate and document business requirements.
- Ensure that requirements clearly reflect true business needs, correctly representing all stakeholders.
- Translates business needs into system/application requirements and project components to help determine solutions to business problems.
- Assists team members in producing functional requirements for tool development.
- Proactively identifies and manages changes to requirements and identify risks for HPE’s clients.
- Effectively manages client’s expectations.
Business Analyst Job Description Example 2
Business Analysts spearhead Labatt’s many continual improvement efforts by identifying problems and opportunities, making detailed assessments through interviews and quantitative analyses, working with internal software developers to codify robust, standardized processes and tools, and finally by working with business people to drive cultural and procedural changes. Business Analysts at Labatt follow our own specialized change management methodology that gains its inspiration from the dogmas of Lean and Six Sigma as well as the philosophies of Demming and Drucker. By interfacing extensively with executives, operational managers, employees, engineers, vendors, and customers, Analysts are truly poised to gain dramatic insight into the food industry at large, and more importantly, into Labatt’s highly differentiated poise within the industry. As an Analyst at Labatt, you will:
- Manage software development processes using Lean Startup and Agile methodologies
- Aid in crafting and executing strategic initiatives
- Solve some of the industry’s and our company’s hardest problems
- Communicate excellently, assessing problems both abstractly and concretely
- Analyze, and help the organization digest, large sources of data with untapped potential
- Set individual and team goals and demonstrate the resourcefulness to achieve them
- Hold yourself and your teammates accountable to achieving robust success
- Live by a philosophy of genchi genbutsu
- Learn continuously, through training, mentoring, and a strong culture of high-level reading
- Improve, from where you are today to the more genuinely confident, accomplished person you strive to become
Business Analysts in a Nutshell
So you’re interested in the field of Business Analysis. But what does a Business Analyst do, exactly? What does their job consist of on a day-to-day basis?
The answer can actually change dramatically depending on the organizations involved. Business Analysis itself is a bit of a nebulous term that encompasses a variety of roles, and each company utilizes their analysts differently depending on their individual needs.
For the most part, however, prospective Business Analysts can expect to work closely with a business in a largely observational role, gathering information about how certain aspects of the business operate at a technical level, and then offer suggestions for how to better optimize these aspects of the business in order to improve overall productivity.
For Example:
A Business Analyst might dig into a small business unit, like e-commerce or sales, to understand why the performance of this unit is above or below average (whichever it happens to be).
If it’s above, the information found through the investigation could be applied to other business units that are underperforming; if it’s below, the information can instead be used to identify (and hopefully, then correct) weaknesses.
Business Analysis Job Descriptions
Business Analysts are typically called upon to analyze the various requirements for a particular aspect of an organization, and work with that organization to help implement solutions that will optimize the business and increase productivity. However, the expectations of someone in this positions can look very different depending on the company or project being analyzed.
For a better idea of how this description can change from company to company, let’s take a look at a few examples from internet job postings.
Example 1
Here’s a job description for an entry level Business Analyst position at Hewlett Packard:
- Work collaboratively with clients and stakeholders - both external and internal to HPE.
- Research and elicit, analyze, validate and document business requirements.
- Ensure that requirements clearly reflect true business needs, correctly representing all stakeholders.
- Translates business needs into system/application requirements and project components to help determine solutions to business problems.
- Assists team members in producing functional requirements for tool development.
- Proactively identifies and manages changes to requirements and identify risks for HPE’s clients.
- Effectively manages client’s expectations.
What am I looking at here? A few short notes:
As mentioned previously, one of the biggest aspects of Business Analytics includes understanding the requirements of whatever project or corporate aspect you are analyzing. For the Hewlett Packard position shown above, this aspect of the position is one of the first mentioned responsibilities.
We can see a few other things here as well. For one thing, deft social skills are a must for this position. The description specifically brings up several instances of teamwork that will be required on the job, and part of HP’s expectations for their business analysts include “managing client’s expectations"; in other words, making sure that you know how to talk to your clients in such a way that you don’t end up over-promising and under-delivering.
This requires not only an understanding of what sort of expectations are fair for a client to have, but also knowledge of your own ability to analyze problems and to create solutions that bring about meaningful change.
Example 2
Here’s another example job description, this one for an entry level position for the company Labatt Food Service in San Antonio, TX:
Business Analysts spearhead Labatt’s many continual improvement efforts by identifying problems and opportunities, making detailed assessments through interviews and quantitative analyses, working with internal software developers to codify robust, standardized processes and tools, and finally by working with business people to drive cultural and procedural changes. Business Analysts at Labatt follow our own specialized change management methodology that gains its inspiration from the dogmas of Lean and Six Sigma as well as the philosophies of Demming and Drucker. By interfacing extensively with executives, operational managers, employees, engineers, vendors, and customers, Analysts are truly poised to gain dramatic insight into the food industry at large, and more importantly, into Labatt’s highly differentiated poise within the industry. As an Analyst at Labatt, you will:
- Manage software development processes using Lean Startup and Agile methodologies
- Aid in crafting and executing strategic initiatives
- Solve some of the industry’s and our company’s hardest problems
- Communicate excellently, assessing problems both abstractly and concretely
- Analyze, and help the organization digest, large sources of data with untapped potential
- Set individual and team goals and demonstrate the resourcefulness to achieve them
- Hold yourself and your teammates accountable to achieving robust success
- Live by a philosophy of genchi genbutsu
- Learn continuously, through training, mentoring, and a strong culture of high-level reading
- Improve, from where you are today to the more genuinely confident, accomplished person you strive to become
What am I looking at here? A few short notes:
As we can tell from the initial description, this company is much more specific as to their expectations for how analysis will be conducted; we can see this from the mention of Labatt’s “own specialized change management methodology."
A lot of the language in this job description focuses on the type of person they’re looking for, and less on qualifications; they seem more interested in finding someone who will fit well within their established team than perhaps someone who is more qualified but not as capable of fitting into the corporate culture at large.
Example 3
One last (slightly longer) example, this one from Lahey Health Behavioral Services:
- Performs data and file processing for ongoing activities and assists with resolution of participant issues including the timely and complete close out of participant cases
- Creates and maintains complete and accurate Processing Guides for all assigned deliverables
- Research and analyzes issues and cases (using SQL, Excel, etc…) putting in place solutions to address root cause with the intent to reduce ongoing case volume and effectively prevent reoccurring system issues
- Responds to day to day client and/or vendor inquiries and communications
- Works closely with the Shared Services teams (COBRA, FSA, Service Center) to deliver quality results of ancillary services
- Leverages technology to automate ongoing processes and create the most efficient and stable delivery of services to clients
- Analyzes and understands system requirements for the execution of implementation and ongoing work (i.e., is expert in aligned client requirements)
- Works with Implementation and System Managers to configure core system platform to meet plan design specifications
- Documents details of configuration steps for future reference
- Creates, executes, and maintains accurate and detailed test plans (unit, function, integration, and regression) for all new system functionality testing
- Works with managers and client teams to coordinate provision migrations for aligned clients
- Builds trusted client partnerships
- Protect client’s personal data
- Adhere to policies and procedures
- Develop health and benefits domain knowledge
- Perform other duties as assigned
- First, to increase the efficiency of the model in order to understand better what is changing the X variable.
- Second, to learn what amount of the X variable it takes to get the necessary Y variable.
The Business Systems Analyst is accountable for completing systems development, quality assurance, and day to day operational tasks in support of ongoing benefits administration delivery, both internally and externally to clients. The Business Systems Analyst is responsible for ensuring that all work delivered to the client is configured accurately per the system requirements. In addition, the Business Systems Analyst is also responsible for managing the tasks he/she is assigned. ltimately, this Business Systems Analyst is responsible for ensuring that all work delivered to the client is completed accurately and with the highest degree of quality. The Business Systems Analyst role requires a solid process and technical orientation, analytical skills to assist in the resolution of complex client issues, strong personal accountability, initiative, and effective communication skills. Primary Responsibilities:
What am I looking at here? A few short notes:
This particular Business Analyst position has a heavy focus on the technological aspect of analysis. Many Business Analysis positions have an information technology aspect to them, but there’s not always an expectation that an analyst will have in-depth technical knowledge of how the systems work. Here, however, that expectation appears to exist.
The list of responsibilities is much longer here, not necessarily because there are more responsibilities, but because it is important to the job poster to show the amount of technical knowledge required for this position.
With this position, take note of the specific technologies that are mentioned (such as SQL) and be aware that when suggesting possible solutions to meet project requirements, you will be expected to understand the company’s tech on a significant level.
Your Day-to-Day Work Experience
As shown in the above examples, your responsibilities as a Business Analyst vary widely by the individual needs and expectations of your employer.
Across the board, however, you can expect a whole lot of research. Most Business Analysts spend the workday on both internal as well as external research. Internal analysis focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the company itself, or a particular aspect of it. On the other hand, external analysis focuses on either looking at untapped opportunities within the market, or sizing up potential threats.
Following this research, a Business Analyst can expect to be spending the rest of their time putting together performance models based on the data they’ve put together.
A performance model is usually a bit more complex than just a few graphs thrown together. It’s more like a math model; a series of equations designed to help you learn what X variables can create Y variables, with X being what you can change within the model and Y being the result. For example, changing the amount of time your company spends making sales could be an X, while the amount of money made on these sales would be a Y.
A Business Analyst’s purpose here is twofold:
A simple example of the kind of analytical model that would help you conduct your analysis can be found in something like a SWOT Analysis; this includes both internal and external analysis, you’ll be both looking at the Strengths and Weaknesses of your company as well as identifying potential Opportunities and Threats.
Final Thoughts
To recap, it’s difficult to give any specific job description for Business Analysts, as a position you hold at one company might look wildly different at another, even if the companies have largely the same kind of product.
The position is often intentionally vague, but at its core, a Business Analyst is a practiced observer who is able to offer substantive suggestions in the hopes of optimizing some particular aspect of a company or organization.
For more information on how to become a Business Analyst, check out our detailed guide.
