1.2 The development of business analysis

• The impact of outsourcing

Focusing on its own business and seeking for cost reductions, an organisation outsources currently its support functions like IT. But this outsourcing strategy increases complexity to communicate and can imply misunderstandings of business expectations.

Outsourcing models confirm the requirement to have a business analysis thinking linked to IT delivery.

• Competitive advantage of using IT

For delivering IT competitiveness, three identified factors have to be taken in account :

1) Business needs drive IT development.

2) IT implementation is related to managing business changes.

3) IT requirements have to be accurate and relevant.

• Successful business change

A coherent business change lifecycle is essential for ensuring a successful business change and therefore a successful IT implementation.

The first step is defining efficient business organisation and formulate accurate business requirements and needs. Then ensuring that these business requirements and needs are well understood, designed, tested before any implementation. Finally, benefits and impacts of these business requirements implemented have to be reviewed and assessed for confirming the global success of the project.

• The importance of the business analyst

Business analysts understand business and IT, so they have the skills to match business issues/opportunities to potential IT solutions.

• The use of consultants

Globally, internal consultants ensuring business analysis are preferred to external consultants for the following reasons :

• lower costs: external consultants are much more expensive.
• commitment: external consultants can retain knowledge and can't adhere totally to the business of the organisation.
• time of adaptability: external consultants need time for learning.