As I have reiterated that all businesses are and should be dynamic to survive the storm of this competition, Business initiatives are invariably affected by the environment in which they operate, and they are shaped by many external forces including government policy, international relations, geopolitical stability, economics, market trends, terrorism, consumers, social changes, media etc. They are also influenced by several internal forces that influence the context, in which these initiatives operate, processes, staff turnover, corporate restructuring, policies, people, work atmosphere etc.
While the CEO / Decision making Body Decides on a strategy, an BA should have some skills in anticipating potential outcomes of such initiative / strategy / change, also see it in the light of the current market & company placements (Internal & external forces) & take necessary steps to protect the interest of the stakeholders.
Anticipating changes, analyzing potential impact, avoiding derailment of the initiative form one area where the BA / BI team / BI component need to be extremely strong, consistent & coherent.
BI teams, BA’s are key people in realizing a company’s vision & providing solution to the challenges that a company or an initiative has, will have & is having. More importantly the core challenge is in accurately answering the business questions that arise at different levels, articulate complex statistical & data jargons to a language understandable by the business, BU managers. & thereby induce radical changes.
Offering critical insights to both internal & external forces that affect initiatives, planning for operational excellence, having strong ability to analyze & see details, but at the same time conceptualize the big picture.* (This is a very important & interesting topic which I shall discuss in detail later on) In all aspects of business they should increase the efficiency, accuracy, speed of decision making in all the conventional, practical & creative decision making areas.
Finding new data patterns of the domain applying logic, new ideas, intuition (which comes by domain experience) should fuel the company’s prospects into a BLUE OCEAN & find potential un-dominated areas to excel, is also important for a BI team.
We should be the people / team with technical, Business, analytical, & strong communications skills (mails, verbal, written, non written, presentations etc).
This should help the team / BA / BI to frame business problems in understandable terms to help manage business implications, voice concerns on a strategy/initiative which may be at stake if the BI is not heard.
10 comments:
Mmmmmmm...nice post, infact it could be the most artistically summed up post about BI I have read till now...a warm fuzzy feeling about BI :-) thanks
Good One! Interesting read..
Funnily.. you and i seem to have the same interests..like in music.. and yeah, most of my sal goes in food as well!!
wanna get to know each other? mail me on row_heath@hotmail.com if u want to..
thanks you row heath.... watch out for more interesting posts... will catch up one day for sure...
Hi,
I would like some clarification? U mentioned only the general skill sets which one acquires in his/her domain by working for few years. everyone is aware of what his/her company is doing? what it is selling/ how much it has sold and there is market research departments which can give projections, forecast to the management? is it making profit or whether there are going to get bonus this year or not? what is the general forecast of the industry? So people have some idea about the direction where the co. is going? In such a scenario, how much do you think BA/BI can contibute? I have known people in various departments who are not willing to share their data as they think it is their own booty and only privleged few must know. and without having the entire data, can BA suggest decisions to management? As BA do you have access to all the data and are people willing to share? this is a scenario of a company which is a traditional co with all its natural afflictions and I would like to know
What are the core technical skills required for BA/BI?
HI, thank you very much & I highly appreciate the interesting questions you have asked, the answers are as below…
"………….So people have some idea about the direction where the co. is going? In such a scenario, how much do you think BA/BI can contribute?”
In my post “I don’t want to be a BA!!!-3” I’ve already said that any business unit/company that knows its business well are well aware of many high pay off patterns or are at least INTUTIVE about such patterns & or the scenarios that could be a hassle for the business.
Now before I go into the BI contribution & role keep in mind that all the businesses on this day are highly competitive in all aspects which makes it more dynamic than ever, may it be in trying to change the way it does business, releases products, services the clients, retains the client etc etc etc, also keep in mind that even the consumer pattern + external forces + internal forces at this day is fast evolving than anything. This calls for the BI team & the BA delivery component to confirm empirical observations + find and analyze new subtle & dynamically changing patterns in critical areas of business + occasional breakthroughs + find other correlations & forces that could influence growth / loss & thereby contribute actively in supporting the strategic business plans.
This much the BI + BA should be able to contribute how it does that is a separate & an exhaustive question
"I have known people in various departments who are not willing to share their data as they think it is their own booty and only privileged few must know.”
Your concern is very valid in this scenario, I’m not sure which industry sector you belong to but this is what I call as “lumps in making of the cream”. This is a result of the BI team & BA delivery components not being integrated. Data is not / should not be subjected to once "whims and fancies" but driven / guided & controlled by the business need & structure. There is 2 types of growth I can imagine one just becoming fatter & taller in size without having the right physique, right intellectual abilities & right maturity & the other one growing both ways in size & intellectual capabilities & maturity. Try to imagine a synonymous situation in an IT sector where the company grows in thousands yet with no process definition & stability creating lumps like the one you said which hampers the delivery like the way you have felt while you do not get that so called privileged data for the few. Now for a company fatter in size only is like a titanic ship when you are faced with a iceberg it is very difficult for you to maneuver against the obstacle which is very much applicable to an IT industry. Had the business realized that the Business decision support was critical to its survival it should definitely have tried to define the process in its favor which would have solved your problem.
“…….. and without having the entire data, can BA suggest decisions to management?”
I would suggest definitely not …. unless you have the rare abilities to see though the data and other forces that impact the decision. We need to realize that supporting the Management decisions is very very critical & playing around with this is not a good idea
As BA do you have access to all the data and are people willing to share?
First thing I’m not a “BA” currently as my company would wish to label my role as “OA” – Operations Analyst it doesn’t matter as long as we do things in the right business spirit. With regards to my delivery to the operations yes I have access to all the data. With regards to the delivery to my clients a part of it depends on how much willing are my clients to work with me in delivering vital information & data to come to a conclusive decision support. My analysis or decision support would be proportional to the amount of data I receive.
What is the core technical skill required for BA/BI?
A billion dollar question I would say which I’m afraid I can’t answer completely on this forum, keep in mind BI team is different BA is different but is in a way mutually exclusive in terms of their functional delivery & hence calls for different skills sets. In my post “generic BI architecture” every single process needs different skills sets & involve quite amount of people which I term as the BI team. The output of this team is further mathematically / statistically analyzed + correlated with the business logic + seen in the light of internal & external forces that influence a business activity & decision which should be done by the Business analyst again here there could be different skill sets that are needed. One could be good at understanding external forces of a business & see how a competitor’s action influence his companies decision & inform appropriately in strategic decision making while one could be good at SAS/SPSS/EXCEL & statistics while one could have all these skills in himself as a whole package so it depends on what you want to be & love to do.
I hope I have tried answering your questions, let me know if you have more happy reading.
hi, i really appreciate your answers to my q's. to me ,it is more like crystal ball gazing :-). U said u analyse clients data and given them decision support. Can u do the same thing for your company? If we know where our company is heading and if we have access to all departments data then we become Gods :-)what with all the tools available to us.
U say that Co are in a competitive environment and there are external and internal forces which are impacting our decisions and if there are dynamic changes happening all round, how do you think the decision which has been suggested will work out. Isn't it contradictory, since there is always a change happening, why take the trouble in reacting to it.
So my q is how do we know whether this decision is the right decision from the n possibilities? Can we qauntify the so called external and internal force's impact on our business and how do we measure it?
How accurate are the decisions given by BA? I am reminded of the forecasts given by the weatherman everyday in tv, he has the lastest technology at his disposal...satellite, computers, but when he says it will rain tomorrow, it never does and it happens only after 2 days :-))
*PLEASE READ CAREFULLY*
For the one who believes in Crystal ball gazing he seeks to receive visions or information about issues, the future, a present situation or to foretell events , discover hidden knowledge , prophecy, or perception by intuition and instinctive foresight. This alone doesnt work in Business unless accompanied by its vital components. Complete decision support = Reports+ analytics+forecasts+risk probablities+(more importantly)Business sense+logic+intution & instinctive foresights
yes i do support decisions for my companies operational business unit & i have enough data for it, i'm note sure if something made you feel i dont. If i have a particular objective & the data yes i would love to support decision making at a very high level for my company & if we have access to all departments data(if driven by business & not a whim & fancy) then we dont become gods but we start to be venerated towards god. i'm afraid you are missing a very big picture that the god has to do a lot of things beyond supporting & quantifying his decisions.
"U say that Co are in a competitive environment .... Isn't it contradictory, ........ why take the trouble in reacting to it."
I dont see how is it contracdictory. if you do not take the trouble in reacting to it you get moulded per those forces & not according to what the business needs to shape itself.I think it would be exaggaration to say the decisions suggested will not work out, because every decision that is supported will & should take into account of the forces in place. Moreover the patterns do not change so rapidly unless a rarity even a rarity can be detected with its own probabilty of occurrence. i feel your question a little pessimistic in spirit. Let me give you a synonymous example for better understanding.
1)Airtel finds a pattern of users making high ISD calls in one region = 1 = reports (BI standard delivery)
2)These users make calls in a particular time to a particular location, speak for a particular time. (BA Standard delivery)
3)The rise in profit in this region is accounted to these niche users in the region = 2 +3 = analytics (BA Standard delivery)
4)suitable projections about the usage & timings are made = 4= forecasts (BA standard/expert delivery)
5)Probable risks to this usage pattern may it be network coverage & availability / techincal/logistical factors accounted for = 5 = risk probabilities (BA expert delivery)
****The above step is also important in customer base & profit retention. At this step of decsion support the BA delivery unit should cascade the output / link the process to the sales team to send more offers & delighters related to ISD calling & barge in more with those customers to retain & expand customer loayalty etc etc etc***
now the dynamic force here that set the profits was not advertizements and blah blah blah but is the high industrial & technological growth that came in, in this region. Now if we apply business sense+logic+intution+....we could come to sevral conculsions which is subjective & proprotional to the digree of knowledge & experince an individual/s making these. like what if the companies provide free cards to all thier users which could be taken in bulk from a compettitor of airtel? so many other things which the BA team could envisage but not really quantify in all the cases.
YOU STILL CAN TAKE A SAMPLE OF THE REAL POPULATION DO A HYPOTHESIS & FIND THE DIGREE OF REJECTION OR ACCEPTION OF SUCH HYPOTHESIS BUT ALL THIS SHOULD BE DRIVEN BY THE need of the BUSINESS & exceuted by the BI & BA team. now if you do not envisage these you will be a victim of these unaccounted forces.(UBS, AIRTEL does this is a beautiful way)
i hope this to an extent makes you feel its worth to take the trouble if you want to GROW.
Can we qauntify the so called external and internal force's impact on our business and how do we measure it?
yes we can quantify & measure it with the digree of P value which gives the probabilty whether the hypothesis is true or false & its bearing on our business- subject to the intellectual capabilities of the individual & the processes.
How accurate are the decisions given by BA?
if you take a cofidence interval 95% it will be 95% accurate, the 5% risk or error can be accounted. Take the slump factors find the probability of each of them. Based on the event happening or not happening have decisions/backup plans/risk mitigations/alternate strategies ready -you need modelling techniques for this- this will help faster decsion making along with accuracy
"I am reminded of the forecasts given by the weatherman .....satellite, computers, ...and it happens only after 2 days :-))"
quite true my dear friend, latest technolgy is just not enough, latest analytics, latest understanding of business / weather is also important,
you just know that the forecaster said it will rain but what you dont know is what was the CI? what are the other factor he took into account or did he just said based on sateelite images & intution. what we dont see and account is small changes that bear impact on the bigger change.
MY FINGErS PAIN typing so much at once i wish i could type more but i hope i have made sense to you that BI + BA is very important for a sustainable growth :)
and yeah with regards to the rain, rather than having a umrella drive in a high rise car, so that you dont let the water sink into your vehicle.
coz rain in bangalore pours & stops soon but it floods the city - new pattern
cu tomorrow while you post @ between 4-35 & 4-50 PM INDIA TIME - your pattern of typing questions(95%confidence interval) - UNLESS you want to prove me wrong :)
thanx you for the explanation. i have to reread it again in leisure :-) to get to the crux. u have said so many imp points. will reply to you in detail as i have to go out now
ok, i agree with you on some points but you are not saying it with certain that out of 100 decision support given, 90 were accurate and you were 100 percent correct.
isn't it the BA's job to get it conistently right and isn't his performance measured based on what he has suggested/predicited and whether it turned out to be true?
Secondly how do you know whether the implementation of the decision suggested by BA resulted in the outcome what was expected. There could be other factors which could have resulted in the outcome.
if you do not take the trouble in reacting to it you get moulded per those forces .....
I also agree that for a co to be a leader, it has to know the forces which are into play...but one important point is that it is also part of the same environment and it is not acting alone, when it decides to do something it is also changing the market and it will have to wait for its decision to fructify into the expected results and so in this situation the co doesn't react to the internal/external forces, it lets the action to be played out and waits for the reaction. it is more like a chess game where one has made its move and waits for other to make a move. so its move should be validated by the external forces, then how do we know whether it is going in the right direction.
there is also another possibility that when the competitor knows what our move is, he will make a move to outdo us, maybe he also has BA team to support his decisions :-))))
and if we by chance come to know his move againt our move, we make another move to nullify it, so when all these moves will cancel out against each other,so again we are back to square one, where we started :-), so how does BA find out because of his decision support, which resulted in or did not result in the outcome.
and the most imp thing in all these is the cost factor involved in carrying out the decision and the actions to be carried out pertaining to that decision.
I didn't want to disapppoint you, so am sticking to my pattern :-) of replying in this particular time. lets c how long this pattern lasts...
Agreement on some points = disagreement on most points?
appreciate the healthy discussion,
if in 100 decision support given, 90 were accurate its a good going every including BI/BA should undergo evolution, this error could be attributed to the part which needs further evolution & process maturity.
yes it should be a BA's job to consistently get it right but let me tell you that the suggesstions & prediction are not from the BA's pocket the very essence of having BA is believing in DATA as god & the BA as messengerof the voice. whatever the data prdicts will be true, whatever is the slump factor
in such decisions is accounted to the probability of error & you accept such decisons knowing that there is a probability of errors, to what digree & to what extent it would affect you along with other alterantives which is answered by the modelling techniques( this is beyond my knowledge currently very soon ill learn it).
implementation.....
its a seprate ball game my job is to support the decison or oppose it & i need to sell it good to my audience so that i can induce such a change whether it is accepted by the audience & then rejcted is not my cup of tea.....there could or could not have been factors that may or may not have resulted in the outcome its just not my area as BA at best i could do is forsee such internal process loop holes or factors & caution or advice my boss if he wants to fall in the ditch or climb the mountain -he has to decide.
well on the actions cancelling oout each other, fortunately at this stage it doesnt happen so soon there is a lag that give some an edge some losse on it & moreover this is a mid term game i know sure it will be realized once the competition levels increase at that time its time for the company to apply the blue ocean strategy & that y i sometimes say that most of the BA's one of other favorite subjects is strategy.... the more good you are in it the better
well no you did not dissapoint me at all the event happened as predicted.... you came to ur PC for postin at the forecasted time ... don nullify it now......
i would like to meet you once if you are in bangalore.... are you .? mail me vasanthmkamathk@gmail.com
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