By Stefano Boffino
05th October 2021
Are you optimizing your business processes? If not, you are missing out on the big picture. Every business wants to grow big. And that can happen only when you have strong internal processes.
Organizations can have dozens of inefficient business operations that may lead to wasted spending, productivity losses and missed sales opportunities. A Business Process Analyst makes sure that the right structure is in place for you to succeed.
Business process analysts’ role is to assess the company’s current processes and recommend improvements. They coordinate between executives working in your business, managers who work directly with your employees, and IT professionals who help support the internal processes that allow them all to communicate.
Process Analyst duties and responsibilities
There are many duties that go into being a process analyst. The following is a list of these responsibilities:
- Evaluate employee needs, internal workflows and business processes
- Work with business stakeholders to break down the main purpose of the product into smaller bite-sized projects
- Create process documentation/workflows, knowledge articles and self-service guidance for IT Services
- Facilitate process workflow modelling in order to collaborate on process improvements, automation capabilities and clearly defined end-to-end use cases
- Identify issues and risks
- Bring inconsistencies and problems to the attention of management
- Participate in the problem resolution
- Track major incident management process and ensure that support staff are aware of the various incidents they are expected to manage at all times
- Extract reports and provide a high-level analysis of data for review
Business Process Analyst Skills
All business process analysts should cultivate a number of hard and soft skills, no matter if they’re just starting out or more seasoned.
Technical Skills
Using process management expertise and technical know-how, business process analysts work with decision-makers to locate IT solutions that align with their company’s budget and long-term goals.
Research Experience
Before business process analysts can develop new operational strategies, they must first identify the challenges they’re trying to tackle. Every issue a business is facing – most likely – has multiple solutions with some being more effective than others. This is why professionals in this role conduct in-depth research into business performance before making their recommendations.
Interpersonal Abilities
They often work with a wide range of people who have differing opinions about process management and business optimization. The best way for a Business Process Analyst to do this successfully is to refine their interpersonal abilities and learn how to practice active listening before stepping into the role. By using active listening it’s possible for them to make meetings productive by really hearing what everyone says, not just waiting their turn to speak.
Communication Skills
BPA’s must be able to tailor the information to meet the needs of different stakeholders. For example, BPA’s might prioritize the technological aspects of a new IT deployment when speaking with Sys Admins, but emphasize cost savings and productivity improvements when pitching it to the C-suite executives.