5 Types of Business Analysts IT Entrepreneurs Should Know

An analyst is a role that will appear whenever a business or project grows. Maybe not from the start, but definitely at some point. As you grow, you will eventually need someone who is completely focused on collecting requirements and statistics, analyzing them and explaining them. It can happen naturally, with someone taking on the task, or you can hire someone specifically for the job. I find that the second option is preferable: the person will be more qualified and experienced, and will not make obvious and avoidable mistakes.

Here are some signs that your company is currently short of an analyst and needs one:

• The team does not have a full understanding of the product, industry or project
• Many requirements are missed in the process
• There is no clear understanding of what you are doing and why
• The “I want to” mindset is dominant

Overall, analytics are currently needed in all areas of modern business – from marketing, finance, and sales to software development and implementation. There are many types of analysts in the market, and it’s possible to pick someone who’s a perfect match for you, based on their skills, interests, or background.

Here are five different types of analysts you should know about, especially in the IT world.

Type 1: Requirements Analyst

There is a fundamental manual, an encyclopedia and a set of trading analysis rules. It is called BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge). This book was produced by the International Institute for Business Analysis. All trade analysts rely on it.

In summary, a business analyst is someone who performs the tasks described in the BABOK manual, regardless of their position or organizational role. This person is responsible for discovering, summarizing and analyzing information from various sources within the company.

In simple terms, a business analyst is a person who is a kind of bridge between the business world and the development team. Their main goal is to collect and identify product requirements, document them and translate them into a language that the development team clearly understands.

The requirements analyst should know:

• project development methodology

• methods of writing technical documentation

• classification of requirements

• requirements management methods

I highly recommend reading Karl Wiegers Software required. It’s pretty much mandatory for all analysts of this type.

Related: Top 5 Business Analytics Certification Courses

Type 2: System Analyst

The system analyst focuses on analyzing user needs. Their responsibilities often include organizing and overseeing the implementation of additional functions in an existing information system or the development of the system itself. The latter includes a set of various components and services focused on automating internal processes and, therefore, increasing business efficiency.

In my opinion, a systems analyst can be called a “task manager”. Although it is quite difficult to talk about something specific: the activities of these specialists are very different, the boundaries are very blurred and differ according to the organization and the project.

The systems analyst must:

• have a technical background and understand the technology

• know the basics of programming (including object-oriented), design, development and software documentation

• have a systems thinker and an analytical mind

• know the IDEF0 ‚IDEF1X and EPC notations

• be able to write SQL queries and work with a database

• quickly understand requirements and determine their priority, as well as talk about technical solutions and their impact on the business in a language understandable to the customer

Type 3: UX Analyst

UX analyst, or user interface/user experience analyst, is a relatively new profession. Their main goal is to improve the interface so that it is intuitive and user-friendly.

UX analysts put themselves in the user’s shoes and figure out exactly how the interface should work. Such a specialist must know the field of psychology of human behavior and understand the tools that allow him to analyze it (for example, Google Analytics, Woopra, Clicky, Keen and Mouseflow). They should be a very logical person with an ability to interpret rather vague and unclear data.

A UX analyst must be able to:

• collect data and analyze it

• make recommendations for product developments based on data received

• present their decisions qualitatively and reasonably

• be able to design an interface and understand how to make adjustments to it

• ideally, have marketing experience

Related: Why User Experience is Vital for Quality SEO

Type 4: Integration Analyst

The integration analyst is a role for large projects in which it is necessary to develop software with the ability to exchange data with other information systems. Sometimes they are also used when it is necessary to connect an additional service to an existing information system. They solve many problems related to integration and analysis.

An integration analyst is responsible for connecting different subsystems/services into one complete system. They usually receive requirements from a business analyst or systems analyst. They understand the processes of information exchange between systems and, together with the architect or developers, work on a smooth and proper connection. Most often, this results in creating mapping tables of one information object and converting the format to another.

An integration analyst must:

• be able to analyze business processes

• understand XML markup language

• be able to develop XSD

• be able to read and develop an API description

• be able to work with testing/debugging tools for web services (Postman, SoapUI, etc.)

• understand the principles of REST and SOAP

• know the basics of SQL and be able to write queries

• have experience in developing technical documentation

• have experience with Jira / Confluence

• know BPMN and UML notations and have experience creating diagrams using them

Type 5: Data Analyst

A data analyst must be able to collect, structure, store and transform large amounts of data. Data analysts then present this data in a convenient and understandable form for the client. These analysts are also called mathematician-programmers, information analysts, and sometimes business analysts, but with the skills to work with big data. The quality work of these specialists is based on their knowledge in the field of mathematical statistics, data analysis algorithms and mathematical modelling.

These specialists are needed by businesses that need to manage customer demand. I usually hire data analysts from large e-commerce projects or banks.

The data analyst should know:

• data access and processing tools, such as spreadsheets (SQL, DBMS, data warehouses, ETL)

• programming languages: R, SAS, C++, Python

• BI Analytics, Data Analytics and Data Science

• statistics and mathematics (mathematical logic, linear algebra, probability theory)

• machine and deep learning — they should be able to set up or train a neural network from scratch

• Data engineering – how to properly organize the receipt, storage and access to important information.

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