The role of business analysts

A topic that's been on the table over the past couple of weeks is the definition of a Business Analyst, and their role and responsibilities within the company.

In IT vendors this is fairly straightforward. The Business Analyst (BA) is the link between the users (the business) and the System Analysts or Designers (depending on the company you come from). They need to understand the business area (e.g. life insurance, pensions, A&H), be familiar with the terminology and the operational processes (clerical procedures), and be able to translate this into language the techies understand.

The BA also needs to know what, how, and when to challenge what the users say. When they do this well they are often called a Consultant, Business Consultant, or Functional Consultant.

In insurance companies, the term Business Analyst often appears to be translated into "documenter" or something similar. A number of BAs I've seen are not contributing actively to the improvement of this business, but rather just producing paper on behalf of others who cannot do it themselves.

However there are many, many situations where the insurance company would benefit from a challenging mind. The natural trend is to accumulate additional process steps and the complications and inefficiencies that result. A challenging mind in the BA would improve things no end.

Of course the balancing factor is the relative ease with which an external BA can challenge compared with an internal BA who needs to maintain a long-term relationship with the business users. The BAs who can achieve this are the golden geese - hold on to them!