Business Analyst role is one of the most sought after career choices in current times. Are you too exploring a business analyst role and trying to understand the required business analysis skills? You will be glad to learn that the road that leads to be a business analyst is not less travelled. All you have to do is to buckle up and be ready to take off your career as a business analyst by following some basic requirements.

Who is a Business Analyst?

A business analyst is a professional who identifies business needs and determines solutions to business problems. He is the one who processes, interprets and documents business processes, and creates detailed business analysis, budgeting and forecasting for stakeholders.

A business analyst is needed at all levels of business and provides a sustainable solution to business requirements or problems. He works as a bridge between IT and business teams using analytics to evaluate processes, determine requirements, deliver data-driven solutions, and generate reports to executives and stakeholders. A business analyst, thus, plays a crucial role to improve business performance and growth.

Basic Requirements of a Business Analyst.

Communication Skill – Communication skill is much needed requirement of a business analyst. As a business analyst acts as a bridge between the company and the client, so he has to be smart enough to present himself before clients. He must be aware of in-person meeting etiquette, email etiquette, telephonic conversation and many more.

Critical Thinking – Business analysts are responsible for evaluating or gathering multiple requirements before coming up with a solution. In this process, a business analyst must listen to stakeholder needs and critically understand them by asking probing questions until something concrete comes up as a solution.

Problem Solving Skills – A business analyst’s role is to identify business needs, and gather and analyse requirements to provide solutions to business requirements or problems. So, A business analyst must be sound enough with problem solving skills.

Analytical Skills – Analytical skill is much needed skill for a business analyst as it helps in interpreting business needs and reaching out for the best solution for a business problem.

Domain Knowledge – To be a business analyst one should hold a degree in the relevant field or domain knowledge along with relevant experience.

Business Analysis Tools – Some tools that business analysts must learn to have a successful career in this domain.

• Microsoft Excel – MS excel is the basic tool on which a business analyst should have hands on. It helps to create several graphs and generates dynamic reports related to business problems.
• SQL – SQL is another pre-requisite tool for a business analyst to have hands on experience. Knowledge of SQL and relational database helps a business analyst access, retrieve, manipulate and analyse data with ease.
• MS Visio – MS Vision is easy to use and is mainly used for low end fidelity projects which involve drawing in the software and saving it into PDF. It is used to create different diagrams such as Flowcharts, Org Charts, UML Diagrams and more. It is also used for Visual Collaboration and process mapping.

Data Visualisation – Data visualisation is one of the core activities to be done by a business analyst. It helps to create reports, dashboards, analysis of completed/uncompleted tasks, forecasts, and more such activities. Some of the tools to use for data visualisation are Power BI, Tableau, etc.