Business Analysis: The Basics

The reliability and economic feasibility of management decisions and the success of the chosen development strategy of the organization and its individual directions directly depend on the quality and efficiency of the processes of analyzing the company's activities.

Business analysis - analysis of financial, management and other indicators of the company to find options for optimizing activities and finding solutions to existing problems, improving existing processes.

What is business? Business is simply an activity or occupation on which we spend our resources (time, money) and our abilities. And any "business" does not exist by itself in a vacuum, it serves "satisfaction of needs." All this must have been heard more than once. So, identifying these very needs is one of the tasks of a business analyst at the first stage of the study.

The main tasks of business intelligence:

  • providing reliable information in the right context for making management decisions.

  • determining the level of current efficiency of business processes.

  • assessment of business needs, current and strategic requirements of the company for the effective organization of business processes.

  • formation of the development strategy of the company as a whole or its individual areas. determination of ways to achieve the intended goals.

  • assessment of the need for changes in the internal and external processes of the company.

  • assessment and control of development risks.

  • ensuring the coordinated work of all divisions of the company.

The primary goal of a business analyst is to recognize and indicate the business goals of the enterprise, the needs that it satisfies. And in what way it (the enterprise) does it is the second question. These will be just specific business options for solving the problem.

Knowing the business goals, a marketer, risk analyst and many others can determine in advance the opportunities and risks of this area, and offer the customer more interesting options, or point to competitors. Focusing on specific business options leads to disastrous results.

The next "artifacts" that a business analyst must work with are tasks, requirements, and wishes. And now there comes a time when the help of marketers is very useful for business analysts. Marketers should find those who will satisfy their need using business services. “Market segment”, “target audience”, and hence the requirements for the provided service or products, should be set by marketing.

The business analyst must understand and record all the requirements and tasks that will be voiced, from the point of view of the business - the satisfaction of very specific needs.

When we talk about the tasks set by the customer, the business analyst must make sure that there is a real opportunity to perform these tasks. For example, the task is to guarantee the maximum delivery time for parcels from city "A" to city "B" in 3 days. Everyone will only be happy.

However, analyzing transport possibilities, we see that, physically, sometimes in the glorious city of volcanoes "B", which is on the way of delivery, there may be "no weather" for a week. That is, planes do not fly there for a week. And in this case, all the promises, process improvements and anything else, will not allow solving this problem in the current environment. Therefore, such tasks should be either rejected at the earliest stages, or hedged with conditions when they can be achieved.

So, summarizing this part, we can say that the collection and analysis of requirements should be accompanied by an analysis of the reasons for the emergence of these requirements, the availability of physical possibilities for their implementation, as well as risks, and ways to minimize both risks and their consequences. In this case, the requirements and objectives should be presented in the form of quantifiable indicators and specified in absolute terms.

Basically, creating or improving processes is an organizational or administrative function. And to implement it (function) effectively, you need to clearly see why all this "disgrace" is being undertaken, what is expected, and what are the possibilities to implement these expectations.

The next point of business analysis is the description of business processes. At this stage, usually, the so-called “As is” business process diagrams are drawn. And here problems await everyone, as they say, out of the blue. The biggest problem is that you cannot see the forest behind the trees. Just like describing business goals, people often get carried away with describing how things work right now.

At the same time, rarely does anyone set themselves the goal of understanding, and to what extent the current processes generally correspond to how everything should be? Everyone probably knows one of the automation rules: : «by automating a mess - we get an automated mess, and nothing more». So, in order not to build another "Skynet", which will destroy everyone, it is necessary to understand - "but how should everything function at all?"

So, we already know something about our process, but how to make it all accessible and understandable for any person? Everyone knows the answer - you just need to draw. And, as usual, another "surprise" awaits us. Most of the methodologies used for graphical display of business processes recommend displaying technical details on diagrams (BPMN, UML, EPC, etc.). There is nothing wrong with that, and at the stage of analysis and preparation of recommendations, the “As Is” and “To Be” diagrams should be exactly that.

But when we describe the process itself, its logic and rules, these details, like the sand of the desert, cover any treasures. As a result, few people can immediately assess the correctness or error of the processes themselves or their understanding by the business analyst.

Looking at the diagrams, a manager or other specialist immediately sees all the information he needs on the process. Moreover, flaws in the current process, its description, or what the business analyst suggests will often be noticeable. On the other hand, when the technical means that we or the customer use within the process (internal electronic document management system, physical data carriers, etc.) change, the process diagram itself does not change.

And this, from my point of view, is a rather big plus, since we describe the logic of the process, and not its implementation. Moreover, in the future, when comparing recommendations, you can always assess whether the logic of the process has not changed, whether all connections, interactions, notifications, and checks have been implemented.

As a result of the right business analysis, organizations can create better products, make better decisions, and derive additional value from their operations. The result of the business analyst's work is a document with an assessment of one or several business processes, confirmed or refuted hypotheses and recommendations for reorganization.

Share this:

Tags:

    Let's do this together -
    Your business has a story

    Callback request

    We will call you back within an hour or at a convenient time for you

    Live Chat
    ×
    We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
    Privacy policy