We have been helping businesses with their digital transformation for more than 10 years, and, during this time we have come across many people stressed about their jobs' future. There is often a mixed feeling of "WOW, this automation will make my job so much more efficient" and then the realisation, "wait a minute, maybe this will make my role redundant". We can assure you; we never work on a piece of automation software with this in mind. On the contrary, we are thinking of ways to give you more tools to improve all areas of your role and the output.
Many roles have changed over the last ten years and will continue to transform. Here we look at the role of Business Analyst (BA). Today's Business Intelligence (BI) technology can analyse current and historical business data, present analytical findings, and predict potential future outcomes in seconds. It's fair to say that business analysts face certain challenges from new technology but, there are also plenty of opportunities to upgrade and develop their role as we explore below.
How Business Intelligence changed the way business analysts work
The BA role has evolved over the years. From collecting, aggregating and analysing raw data from different systems and producing lengthy reports that only a few people could understand to using AI-powered BI technology to help the business with accurate decision-making.
Business Intelligence has a massive impact on BAs. It empowers them to bring together information from different data sources (e.g. your CRM, supply chain, sales and marketing systems) into a unified view, making it easy to find, analyse and extract key insights from this data. These insights can be displayed as interactive reports and dashboards that BAs share with relevant decision-makers across the business. Making the data viewable through intuitive business dashboards, and saving time and money time from collecting and analysing data manually.
Will robots replace business analysts in the future? Our prediction
Reading the above might suggest that we don't need BAs anymore and that AI can easily replace them. Sure, AI can analyse massive amounts of data and produce reports in seconds. But, it misses an essential component of business analysis, the context.
The human mind is needed to read the analysis and apply it to the business context and what it needs to achieve.
It requires a person to understand the trends that predictive analytics show.
It needs a person to deal with an unknown situation and take actions based on data, experience, and the business context.
The role of BA is as much needed now as it ever was and will continue to evolve as technology and businesses keep changing. The BA title will likely change and evolve with the role. We have noticed trends in titles like Business Systems Analyst, Business Process Analyst, Systems Architect, Business Intelligence Analyst and Technology Planning Analyst. And, for sure, the job description will alter, as BAs need to know how to use new technologies.
Our "prediction" is that as long as humans make business decisions, BAs are needed to back these decisions with accurate analysis and support business growth.
How we can help
At Calls9, we build software to automate repetitive, manual tasks and allow you to work on what really matters. We work with business analysts to create intuitive software made for their business needs, with the power to provide accurate data analysis. We can help your business:
- Business intelligence audit: We can help you assess your data quality, where and how the data is being stored and managed, its structure and its impact on your business. We will then provide recommendations and support you in turning your data into business intelligence.
- Data cleansing exercise: We often find that internal data needs work before organisations can get the most out of it. We can help you if your data needs cleansing, de-duplicating and organising as a precursor to providing wider business intelligence support.
- Business intelligence dashboards: Using the Calls9 Nucleus platform, we can build and host business dashboards that give you and your team access to key information in real-time. Our dashboards enable you to quickly filter through the information and export to common formats such as CSV and PDF from a single dashboard.
