Business Analyst
Digital
Level 4 -
Working with organisations to improve their information systems.
Reference: OCC0117
Status:
SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2133/05 IT business analysts
- 2431/01 Business analysts and consultants
- 3549/02 Business systems analysts
Technical Education Products
Employers involved in creating the standard:
Allianz, AssistKD, BUPA, NHS Digital, Zurich Insurance, Barclaycard, National Grid, Department of Work and Pensions, Co-operative Bank, Virgin Atlantic, Nationwide, Yorkshire Water
Summary
This occupation is found in the public and private sector, large multi-national companies and smaller independent enterprises. Business analysis exists in almost every sector, from not-for-profit organisations through to retail and the financial services. It's fast-paced and collaborative and provides a recognised career with professionals taking lead roles in successful change delivery.
The broad purpose of the occupation is to understand the needs of stakeholders and how these can be met through business change and digital solutions. Business Analysts are change professionals that help organisations deliver business and digital change successfully.
Business Analysts document business problems and user needs, and create solution requirements that align to best practice, and present them in a meaningful and logical way appropriate to the audience. Business Analysts manage stakeholder relationships, ensuring collaboration between business and technical stakeholders. By focusing on benefits and outcomes they ensure the right problems are solved and the right products are developed.
A common area of focus for the Business Analyst role is to model business processes and to facilitate, coordinate and document requirements for the proposed business and IT changes. Business Analysts will determine and present solutions of how technology can be used to deliver business improvements, and support business acceptance to ensure that the proposed solution meets the defined requirements.
They help businesses to understand the current organisational situation, identify future needs and define solutions to meet those needs, often in relation to digital technology. Business Analysts can gain an excellent understanding of the way the organisation works and the sector it operates in. This allows Business Analysts to make recommendations for improvement in relation to people, processes and IT. By analysing, documenting and managing requirements throughout the delivery lifecycle they help achieve successful business outcomes through new processes, data and/or technology.
In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a broad range of stakeholders, including customers, business users, suppliers, product owners, software developers, testers and senior leaders. These stakeholders include people both internal and external to the organisation.
Business Analysts play a key role in multidisciplinary teams by collaborating with different groups of stakeholders, working to understand and communicate how digital solutions can support the organisation's needs. They interact with stakeholders through leading workshops, conducting interviews and using other techniques to effectively understand the business problems and user needs.
An employee in this occupation will be responsible for investigating business situations, and analysing problems and opportunities for improvement. They will be responsible for investigating and analysing business processes, understanding data and business information needs, and documenting requirements for digital and business change solutions.
Employers involved in creating the standard:
Allianz, AssistKD, BUPA, NHS Digital, Zurich Insurance, Barclaycard, National Grid, Department of Work and Pensions, Co-operative Bank, Virgin Atlantic, Nationwide, Yorkshire Water
Keywords:
Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs)
Duties
Duty D1
Apply structured techniques to investigate wants, needs, problems and opportunities
Duty D2
Document the current situation and apply relevant techniques to structure information
Duty D3
Assist in the development of options and recommendations for change
Duty D4
Model business processes using relevant techniques
Duty D5
Perform business process analysis and improvement
Duty D6
Redesign business process models in order to reflect changes in working practice or deliver improvements
Duty D7
Undertake requirements elicitation with stakeholders to identify business and user needs
Duty D8
Analyse, validate, prioritise and document functional and non-functional requirements for business situations, using relevant techniques
Duty D9
Identify data requirements relating to business improvement
Duty D10
Assist in the management and controlled change of requirements
Duty D11
Support the creation of data models to illustrate how data is represented within a business system
Duty D12
Compare current and future state business situations in order to identify the changes required for business improvement
Duty D13
Define acceptance criteria for business and system changes, and support business acceptance
Duty D14
Identify and analyse stakeholders impacted by a proposed change, understand their perspectives and assess how their interests are best managed
Duty D15
Assess and document the drivers, costs, benefits and impacts of a proposed business change
Occupational Progression
This occupational progression map shows technical occupations that have transferable knowledge and skills.
In this map, the focused occupation is highlighted in yellow. The arrows indicate where transferable knowledge and skills exist between two occupations. This map shows some of the strongest progression links between the focused occupation and other occupations.
It is anticipated that individuals would be required to undertake further learning or training to progress to and from occupations. To find out more about an occupation featured in the progression map, including the learning options available, click the occupation.
Progression decisions have been reached by comparing the knowledge and skills statements between occupational standards, combined with individualised learner movement data.
Technical Occupations
Levels 2-3
Higher Technical Occupations
Levels 4-5
Professional Occupations
Levels 6-7
Digital