To answer this question we need to understand what business value actually is.
As an employee, adding value can translate into improving processes, providing better customer service, reducing time to market, delivering better products/services. However to a shareholder or company owner there’s only one value metric – increased profits. This is achieved by selling more or spending less. It’s not for nothing that most CEOs have a sales or accounting background.
That’s not to say that business analysts need sales and accounting skills. What they do need is to see the connection between what they do and how this fits with the objective of the shareholders. If the organisation is a government department or a not-for-profit, then year on year objectives are to do things better, faster and cheaper than last year.
In our Business Analysis course we show how the projects that a business analyst works on can be assigned to one of five categories:
- Compliance – legal, regulatory, safety
- Reducing costs
- Increasing revenue and/or market share
- Decreasing cycle time
- Improving quality of products/services
Have you worked on a project that doesn’t fit one of these? Tell us what you think in the comments box below!
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