Are you aspiring to become a Business Analyst?
This article provides an overview of the Business Analyst Role and, the influence of AI on business analysts, and lists the Top 5 Reasons To Become a Business Analyst with all the important facts and data.
Introduction #
A business cannot be imagined without using software and Information Technologies (IT) because they play a crucial role in automating business processes, digitizing information, improving client communication, improving sales, and scaling a business like never before.
With the dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI), businesses are tempted to embrace AI into their workflows to become more productive and efficient.
Why am I emphasizing software, AI and IT? It’s because we are going to talk about a Role that analyses a business and becomes instrumental in making changes to the business processes and software used by the business.
Business Analysis is all about analyzing the business requirements/requests and fulfilling them to achieve a business objective.
A Business Analyst performs these activities at large:
- Understand business requirements/problems/goals
- Analyze requirements
- Devise Strategies and Solutions to fulfill the requirements, and
- Driving the change i.e. getting the solution implemented by collaborating with the stakeholders.
If you want to know more about Business Analysis, take a look at the following article.
Friendly AI #
In the era of Artificial Intelligence, there are plenty of career options in IT and business analysis is one of them.
Every day, we hear about a new AI tool/model and rumours about jobs getting replaced by AI tools/bots. There is still a long way to go but with the advancement in AI, copywriting, repetitive process tasks, basic programming and simple graphic design tasks are being automated through AI and it looks like AI may replace people who belong to one of the above-mentioned categories.
But don’t worry, Business Analysis is an evergreen field and requires the use of human intelligence to solve challenging business problems, so a business analyst can take the help of AI tools but a business analyst’s job cannot be replaced by AI.
Here are the Top 5 Reasons to Become a Business Analyst:
1. Interesting Job Profile #
If you are working as a Business Analyst for a particular Business domain such as Banking or in an IT consulting firm having clients from various business domains, every day or week, you’ll come across new and interesting business requirements to address, leading to research something new, solve problems, find solutions, interact with different people (called Stakeholders in BA world) and get the requirements developed.
So, you’ll never get bored and you’ll get hooked more and more with the business as your tenure increases.
Last but not least, this job can give you complete satisfaction since you drive the whole change with complete ownership.
2. Asset to Organization and Job Security #
A business analyst is a true asset for any organization since this person possesses valuable knowledge and insights about the business, complete functional knowledge of the Systems (Web apps, Mobile apps, Backend programs etc.) and their interactions, and a complete understanding of the business processes, and most importantly the rapport and relationship with the stakeholders.
Due to all this, generally, a business analyst stays longer in the organization even during the recession periods.
It’s very hard to replace a good business analyst hence organizations tend to retain them the most by offering various incentives.
3. Awesome Remuneration (Great Pay) #
In 2024, the global average annual pay of a business analyst ranges from $55,000 (Junior level) up to $105,000 (Senior level).[Courtesy: IIBA]
This is increasing on an average of about 4% every year. So, the business analysts are paid very well by the organizations due to the value that they add to the business.
4. Strong demand for Business Analyst Jobs in the Market #
More and more organizations are realizing the benefits of having business analysts due to the unique value that they add.
The prospect of the business analysis profession is growing continuously year on year.
Since Business Analysis is a wide spectrum with many job titles, it’s not possible to put together exact numbers for the demand and growth.
According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, the following job titles related to business analysis are expected to grow much faster than the average by 2032:
- Information Security Analysts - 32 % projected growth
- Market Research Analysts - 13 % projected growth
- Computer System Analysts - 10 % projected growth
With such a strong demand for business analysts, organizations are striving to find good analysts.
It’s a very good time to pursue a career in business analysis.
5. Career Growth #
A business analyst’s career can start from an Entry-level Business Analyst (0 - 2 years of experience) to the following roles as the career progresses.
- Senior Business Analyst
- Business Analysis Manager (Managing a team of business analysts)
- BA PM (Business Analyst + Project Manager)
- Product Owner
- Product Manager
- Portfolio Manager
- Director / Vice President / C-Level Executive
If you want to grow in the Management side of an organization, a business analyst role helps a lot in achieving that growth.
Apart from the above-mentioned roles, a business analyst can take up the following niche roles as well:
- Business Intelligence (BI) Analyst
- Data Analyst
- IT Business Analyst or Computer Systems Analyst
- Cyber Security Analyst or Information Security Analyst
- Market Research Analyst
So, there is a wide range of career options in business analysis.
Conclusion #
The business analyst career offers great financial growth, career growth and most importantly personal satisfaction.
If you are graduating or working as a Software developer/QA and interested in becoming a business analyst, I suggest to pursue it seriously to get into a business analyst role and I am sure you won’t regret it.
To learn more about business analysis, check out our other resources and articles to get started.