The Differences Between Business and System Analysts

It's already clear that most businesses, especially those who run under a partnership or corporation cannot stand to be run by a single entity. It's in this regard that small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and large business corporations require different individuals with varying skill sets.

Two important roles in many firms are the business and system analysts. However, there are many individuals who are quite new to the two job positions. Some business leaders even confuse these roles because some of their tasks provide similar functions. In this post, we're going to dive deeper into what it takes to be a business or system analyst, and the differences between these two company positions.

What is a Business Analyst?

Simply put, a business analyst analyzes the company as a whole. However, that's not the only role for the person in charge of this position. The individual will also organize, scrutinize, explore, and investigate an organization from top to bottom. Furthermore, he or she will assess the company's documents and its several business modules to formulate strategies and implement tactics.

The role given to the business analyst will mostly revolve around verifying, documenting, recording, and gathering requirements for the business. Also, many associations require their business analysts to have analyst skills dwelling in the information technology (IT) industry.

This type of analyst will act as a bridge between the business' development team and its clients or consumers.

What are the Duties of a Business Analyst?

The main focus of the business analyst is searching for opportunities for the improvement of the business in its processes. Business analysts will search for these openings with the help of technology to properly deal with problems that may affect productivity, distribution, and output. As such, this analyst needs to have a certain degree of knowledge in the information technology department to properly solve several business problems.

Ultimately, here are the main responsibilities of a business analyst: analyzing business inefficiencies and inadequacies, acting as the liaison between different entities such as the management and end users, analyzing and communicating with the requirements brought upon to the company from shareholders, and documenting and analyzing required information.

What is a System Analyst?

A system analyst has similar but slightly different tasks in comparison with the business analyst. The role of the system analyst requires the person to design, modify, transform, and evaluate different systems to ensure each unit is compatible and working with optimum efficiency.

As such, the system analyst needs to dwell on a more specific part of the organization as compared to that of a business analyst. System analysts will also have the task of turning consumer requirements into a unit or set of functional applications and specifications. This professional will also tend to work autonomously or freely than the rest of the company.

However, he or she is still a vital role for the whole organization's proper operation.

What are the Duties of a System Analyst?

The main role of a system analyst is to use the company's grasp of IT system to assist in strategically achieving business goals and objectives. This type of analyst may aid in designing and developing new systems to create or configure new hardware and software.

The professional can also use existing systems and modules to achieve additional positive results for the benefit of the organizations. Some of the main duties of the system analyst include the following: consulting with the management and the application's end users to determine the needs for an optimal system, designing a program to meet company goals and objectives, using effective techniques like structure analysis and model building to ensure the solution is both cost-effective and financially feasible, and to develop diagrams and flowcharts based on required information and specifications for a team of programmers to follow.

Upon reaching the end of this post, you should now have a better grasp on the description and differences between the business and system analyst.
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