5 minute read
Professionals
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A BUSINESS ANALYST?
The role of a business analyst is evolving fast—especially if we have to consider that SA’s companies are now hiring more BAs in an attempt to compete globally.
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by Dumisani Hlatswayo
The rise of automation and smart technology are some of the reasons today SA’s companies hire people like Moreblessing Maisva. She is a Senior Business Analyst (BA) with a deep passion for helping companies improve their processes. Moreblessing engages with business leaders and their employees to understand how systems can improve efficiencies.
Moreblessing’s career in business analysis spans more than ten years. She now works for MetaPerformance, where she is also one of their trainers of junior BAs. Besides training junior BAs, Moreblessing started doing robotic processing. She is beaming with pride when she tells us that she has built her first few bots.
Her impeccable academic background is a testament to her love for education.
Moreblessing holds a BCom Information Technology Management with majors in Informatics, IT Management, Business Management. Moreblessing has also completed the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA™) endorsed the Business Analysis course of MetaPerformance.
“I started doing a diploma in programming. Then I realised that was not for me, because I like interacting with people rather than sitting behind my desktop,” Moreblessing recalls.
According to Moreblessing, it is much easier to change processes within a small business than in a big organisation. She says agility allows small companies to focus on being customercentric and adaptable.
“I always say the thing that gives big businesses a competitive edge is that they have money to throw around, which small businesses don’t have. But small businesses have something big businesses don’t have. It is called agility. Agile methodologies work to the advantage of small teams because they rely on daily interaction and feedback.”
“As a big business, how do you then create predictability and flexibility? That’s what small businesses have. And that’s where the process comes in.” “If you are a small business, how do you create efficiencies so that you can compete at the same level as the big businesses? It has many departments, and that’s where my passion lies—making sure that everyone can compete.”
The world is moving to a more automated space. SA wants to be a digital economy, but few entrepreneurs are willing to come with digital innovations. Everyone thought SA was building its version of Silicon Valley at the tip of Africa, with start-up tech hubs mushrooming across Cape Town and Johannesburg. But, Moreblessing thinks there are still no local systems competing on a global stage.
She explains: “It is the inherent fear that we have. That says our products are not good enough. That’s why we import everything. Even when you try to do business with a black person, people would say: Why do you want to do business with them? They’re going to dupe you. Or they won’t deliver. And history is not on our side. Remember, a business that has been in operation for years can’t perform as the one started operating recently. “
Moreblessing thinks international systems don’t work in our favour. For starters, some solutions can’t cope with the South African tax system because they were not built for the local market. “Yes, we may think those systems are attractive because of their international brand image, but in reality, they are not effective for us. Half of the time, you have to do configurations and customizations for a solution to work in a South African context,” she says.
Moreblessing says a good BA should connect IT and the business. “A Business Analyst is a link between business and IT. Why? Because business and IT don’t speak the same language. IT speaks in terms of technology, features, and what the system can do. On the other hand, business addresses how a system grows the bottom line. Or it means to customer satisfaction,” Moreblessing says.
Their job is to understand what the business is trying to achieve and translate that into an understandable IT solution. She uses an adage to illustrate: “A calf wobble a bit and doesn’t walk in a straight line. As the calf goes back to pastures. It follows the same pattern and weaves in and out trees. Other calves would also follow the same path. In an organisation, things happen similarly. In most cases, no one understands why. So our job as analysts is to investigate the process to get a deeper understanding.”
When it comes to small businesses, Moreblessing recommends strengthening the path in the early stages of the company. “I always say there are three pillars in business, and they are Processes, People, and Technology. My job is to bring those three key things together.”
Business Analysis is a growing field, and young people are venturing into the area. They noticed that business leaders struggle to articulate what they need. So there would always be a need for business analysts like Moreblessing to help them.
“As a small business, you can start with what you have. When it comes to processing, you can document it using Microsoft Word and document the steps. However, if you use it for the next step, automation, it becomes a tad difficult. As English is not our first language, misunderstanding is a common problem for us,” she says.
Moreblessings says small businesses don’t have to buy a system but instead hire an analyst for a specific period to document processes.
“A process document is also an aging document. You have to go back and revise it because things change. We need to ensure that the process document we did three years ago is still aligned with where the company is going. Does it still meet the needs of the customer? Does it still make us competitive? If you want to be the fastest in your industry, your process cannot be in the middle ages. If you want to compete globally, your process cannot compete on a township level. You need to make sure that your process adapts with current changes,” she concludes.
