Business Analysis
Key Transferable Skills for Business Analysts
There’s always debate about which skills in business analysis are the most important and most transferable. The answers always seem to come back to these: Communications Skills Interpersonal Skills Technical Skills Research and Analytical Skills Organizational Skills If you join the International Institute of Business Analysis, you’ll have access to A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (the BABOK Guide) and the underlying business analysis competencies it lists. Here’s more detail on the transferable skills, which should help if… continue…
Tech Innovation at the Heart of Retail
Technology is increasingly the differentiator among brands in retail, according to research firm Gartner, which pointed in a recent report to four forces — cloud, mobile, social and information — with the power to “either recreate businesses or level them.” “If you’re not familiar with it, you probably don’t realize how technologically advanced retail is,” says Jerry Sheldon, retail analyst with IHL Consulting Group. Indeed, the National Retail Federation has launched a “This is Retail” campaign to highlight and raise awareness of career… continue…
New Certification: HP Focuses On Embedded IT
Hewlett-Packard has created a certification, focused on skills needed to implement cross-department IT initiatives, as a way to achieve business goals. It’s another indication that technology departments — and technology staffers — are being incorporated into business units as opposed to being operations unto themselves. The Accredited Technical Associate-IT for Business certification (ATA-IT) will provide coursework and practical experience on business-driven technology initiatives. Last fall’s Business Intelligence Congress called for more real-world experiences in college curricula to prepare students for… continue…
Data Analytics Remains Bright Spot in Slowing Software Market
Data Analytics Remains Bright Spot in Slowing Software Market (via slashdot) Data analytics and “social” software helped drive enterprise software growth in 2012, according to new data from research firm IDC. That’s despite a significant slowdown in the broader software market. The global software market grew 3.6 percent in 2012, reaching $342 billion. While that’s… continue…
How to Build a Project’s Business Case
One of the many tasks business analysts are inevitably called on to do is create a business case. As defined by the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, a business case justifies the investment required to deliver a proposed solution. A business case is part of the due diligence process. By measuring the benefits, costs and risks associated with the investment being made in a particular project or product, it assesses and evaluates the options available to solve the business issue.… continue…
The Coming In-Memory Technology Battle
The Coming In-Memory Technology Battle (via slashdot) For a couple quarters there, it looked as if SAP had its competitive differentiator in the Big Data arena: in-memory technology. SAP’s HANA in-memory technology, which it claims will drastically speed up data analytics, has evolved into an integral part of the company’s product portfolio, baked… continue…
HP Thinks It Can Turn Autonomy Around
HP Thinks It Can Turn Autonomy Around (via slashdot) After defeating a shareholder insurrection that largely stemmed from how it handled the Autonomy acquisition, Hewlett-Packard is trying to resuscitate the fortunes of its troubled analytics-software unit. Robert Youngjohns, senior vice president and General Manager of the Autonomy division within HP… continue…
Opening Day? Analytics Tools to Predict the World Series Now
Billy Bean and Theo Epstein are right: Baseball isn’t all about skills, tactics and chewing tobacco bubble gum, it’s about numbers, and maybe even numbers first. It’s Big Data in the big leagues, baby. Which means if you’re trying to figure out how optimistic — or nervous — you should be about your team’s performance this season, analytics can help. For those of you who don’t want to crunch your numbers via nostalgic pencil and paper or Microsoft Excel, there… continue…
SAP Targeting HANA, BI Tools at Small and Midsize Businesses
SAP Targeting HANA, BI Tools at Small and Midsize Businesses (via slashdot) There’s a lingering perception that Big Data is the exclusive domain of big companies with enormous datasets in need of mining—and the budget to pay for analysts, programmers, and all sorts of nifty tools. Yet smaller firms also have a need for data analytics—not only to crunch their customer… continue…
Use These Tools to Discover Your Strengths as a BA
In chapter 8.1.4 of the International Institute of Business Analysis Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (otherwise known as the BABOK Guide), you’ll find this: Business analysts must be effective at defining and solving problems in order to ensure that the real, underlying problem is understood and that solutions actually address that problem. So, how good are your problem-solving skills? I highlight some tools that can help you discover your strengths as a BA. For starters, take this… continue…
Alice Hill
C.S. Magor
Cat Miller
David Brumbaugh
David Chie
Dawn Kawamoto
Don Willmott
Elisabeth Greenbaum Kasson
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Lekan Oguntoyinbo
Leslie Stevens-Huffman
M Noivad
Mark Feffer
nick kolakowski
Stephen Lahanas
Susan Hall
Vincent Chow
