Quality business analysis

A writer recently posed a question on one of the blog sites. He asked if there were any quality business analysts around, and by that he meant people doing “quality business analysis”. He specifically referred to business transformation and process improvement as areas where quality business analysis was needed, but was not being provided.  I would say that the issue is not limited to business transformation and process improvement. In general there is not enough quality business analysis done in business period.  Business decisions at all levels are being made without eliciting and analyzing the appropriate information.  And that is business analysis.  Too much "business analysis" is focused solely on defining requirements for software development when the real business analysis is needed for strategic decision making and overall business operations.  Simply put, many of the business failures of the past decade could have been avoided with solid business analysis.