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Thursday, December 19, 2019

Business Analysis Specialists


While the concept of being an Oracle Business analyst or an Accounts Receivable business analyst is not quite right.  A business analyst is after all, a business analyst regardless of the technology, product or business area. Or so it has been said.  In fact, it also has been said by me.
But today we can look at specialties within business analysis , specialties that are generic enough to warrant standard business analysis approaches and discipline, and requiring additional technical or business expertise, or both,  for success.
These areas are relatively new, not in concept or theory, but in practical application.  Artificial Intelligence, for example, has been around since the 1950s, but never really had business applications the way they are cropping up e everywhere in every business now.  So it is easy to fathom business analysts with the specialty of “AI specialist”. In fact, :”AI specialist” is the fasted emerging job of 2019 according to LinkedIn.  (LinkedIn does not specify exactly what an “AI specialist” is, or what one having such a title would do, but the title is clearly one in demand.
Machine learning, deep learning, robotics, Big Data, analytics of all kinds, and other specializations may all be sub categories of business analysis when talking about how each of these technologies impacts or aids the business. I’m not talking about the technical aspects of these technologies – the new programming languages, data science, statistical computations, algorithm creation and so forth. 
Before any of that happens the organization needs to determine a business problem that can be addressed with the technology (or, as many organizations are doing,, trying to find  a problem to fit the already pre-determine solution.  “We want to use artificial intelligence, go find something to use it on”).
Much of the new technologies impetus has to do with innovation, and as we have pointed out for years, the business analyst is in the forefront of the organization’s innovation since the business analyst has the most inf-depth knowledge of the organization’s business processes, data and customers.  So, naturally, these technology specialties would be considered a subset of business analysis.  Business analysis is needed for all of the technologies to be successful for any given organization, and all of the technologies help the business analyst achieve the primary business analysis goals in the organization:  identify and solve the organization’s business problems.