Most Popular Business Analysis Techniques

This business analysis technique is used when a technology solution is changed. For example migration from one technology to another which enforces builds from scratch. In this type of analysis technique, a business analyst mainly focuses on system performance and data storage requirements to measure the performance factors of the proposed system for live data. Non-functional requirement analysis is performed during the Analysis phase of a project and implemented during the Design phase.

PESTLE

Business Analysis: How To Analyze Any Business

Business analysis is a research discipline that helps driving change within an organization by identifying the key elements and processes that drive value. Business analysis can also be used in Identifying new business opportunities or how to take advantage of existing business opportunities to grow your business in the marketplace.

As I received this question over and over again, I thought to show a simple framework to analyze any business. For the sake of this framework, we’ll leverage on business analysis to reverse engineer a business to either help it grow or to gather insights that can help us grow our own company.

Keep in mind the business analysis requires a good amount of creativity, and while a single framework is a good starting point, you will need to use your experience, understanding of the industry and what is available out there to draw a picture of what you’re looking at.

Thus, while we’ll be using a few data points to understand a business, we want to keep our minds able to connect the dots in several areas to draw a picture that unlocks strategic insights that we can test.

Financial moat

How does it make money?

Revenue streams are important as a baseline to understand any business. Following the money can be very powerful in business as it unlocks a set of questions that will help us drill down into the current picture but also to draw some possible conclusions about future operations and strategy.

From this first look, we can depart from looking at other bets and other revenues. Not because those are not important for the future. Quite the opposite, one of the hidden gems of Google’s success in the next ten, twenty years might hide there.

But here we’re not trying to predict the future, which is impossible. We want to reverse engineer the current business to gather some insights which will help us drive our own strategy now (for instance, if you’re building a business today by gaining organic traffic from Google understanding its logic helps a lot!).

Where’s the real cash?

google-advertising-business

How does the company spend money?

cost-structure-business-model

what-is-google-tac

List of Best Business Analysis Techniques

However, as a business analyst or a professional who wants to pursue a business analyst career, it is required to know about some of those best business analysis techniques. Hence, in this blog, we will discuss 10 most popular business analysis techniques that are widely used in the industries.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is one of the most popular business analysis techniques followed in the industry. Furthermore, it is easy. It is an enterprise level analysis technique and not only limited to business analysis. It could be used at any stage of the project if the unit needs it and most of the people know it. Hence, it is widely used in the industry.

MOST Analysis

MOST Analysis

MOST analysis is a powerful business analysis framework and among the best business analysis techniques using which the business analysts analyze what an organization does and plans to achieve the goal and what it should do to maintain strategic alignment. Hence, MOST analysis is a clear way to understand an organization on its ability and purpose.

Mission: This is the most critical factor for an organization which defines its purpose and the goals it wants to achieve in the future. If the mission is specific, then it is easier to analyze and measure the remaining factors.

MOST analysis is a structured business analysis technique followed by every working level in an organization from the top to down. The process ensures that an organization retains focus on the mission which is the critical factor for the success of an organization.

Support the Technical Implementation

On a typical project employing a business analyst, a significant part of the solution involves a technical implementation team building, customizing, and/or deploying software. During the technical implementation, t here are many worthwhile support tasks for you to engage in that will help drive the success of the project and ensure the business objectives are met.

  • Reviewing the solution design to ensure it fulfills all of the requirements and looking for opportunities to meet additional business needs without increasing the technical scope of the project.
  • Updating and/or repackaging requirements documentation to make it useful for the technology design and implementation process.
  • Engaging with quality assurance professionals to ensure they understand the business context for the technical requirements. This responsibility may include reviewing test plans and/or test cases to ensure they represent a clear understanding of the functional requirements.
  • Making yourself available to answer questions and help resolve any issues that surface during the technical design, technical implementation, or testing phases of the project.
  • Managing requirements changes to ensure that everyone is working from up-to-date documentation and that appropriate stakeholders are involved in all decisions about change.
  • When appropriate, leading user acceptance testing efforts completed by the business community to ensure that the software implementation meets the needs of business end users.

Help the Business Implement the Solution

Your technology team can deliver a beautiful shiny new solution that theoretically meets the business objectives, but if your business users don’t use it as intended and go back to business-as-usual, your project won’t have delivered on the original objectives. Business analysts are increasingly getting involved in this final phase of the project to support the business.

A lot happens throughout the course of a project. Business outcomes are discussed. Details are worked through. Problems, big and small, are solved. Relationships are built. Change is managed. Technology is implemented. Business users are trained to change the way they work.

In this flurry of activity and a focus on delivery, it’s easy to lose track of the big picture. Why are we making all these changes and what value do they deliver for the organization? And even more importantly, are we still on track? Meaning, is the solution we’re delivering actually delivering the value we originally anticipated?

Nothing creates more positive momentum within an organization than a track record of successful projects. But if we don’t stop and assess the value created by the solution, how do we know if we are actually operating from a track record of success?

Sources:

https://fourweekmba.com/business-analysis/
https://www.whizlabs.com/blog/best-business-analysis-techniques/
https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/business-analysis-process/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *