Can SMBs benefit from business analysis?
Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. In other words, Business Analysts use a series of techniques (business analysis) to understand and solve business problems. Typically, this practice has been associated with enterprise-level businesses who use technology extensively, and staff large IT departments to operate and maintain this technology. When it comes to SMBs, Business Analysis is often an unfamiliar practice with unclear value to businesses of this size.
Can SMBs actually benefit from Business Analysis?
“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.”
Stewart Brand, Writer
As the role of technology changes and encompasses all aspects of business across any sectors, SMBs began to leverage technology on a level which was previously more prevalent to large enterprises.
So, what are some of the problems that Business Analysts can help SMBs solve?
Adopt and integrate new technology
Due to their size, SMBs have different IT requirements — and often face different IT challenges — than do large enterprises, and whose IT resources (usually budget and staff) are often highly constrained. SMBs are likely to use some form of outsourced IT to set up their hardware such as telephony, network, printing and other equipment. Business Analysts can perform a similar service to integrate new technology, especially SaaS applications to be used by SMBs. Consider a scenario where an organization decides to implement a CRM that will replace a whole collection of macro-driven excel worksheets that were used for anything from keeping customer information to tracking orders. The amount of out-of-the-box offers in the CRM space is enough to make anyone's head spin. Then, after picking the CRM, there is the matter of mapping and migrating spreadsheet data to the new system, setting access for various user types, configuring and customizing workflows, integrating with other systems and much more. In this scenario, implementing a CRM is a big improvement over the current state, but it may also be an expensive undertaking when engaging CRM vendor's professional services., This undertaking may fail entirely if led by staff without relevant skills and experience. Engaging an experienced Business Analyst is the most cost effective solution to ensure a successful transition within the shortest time.
Make business processes manageable
Business Process Management (BPM) is the practice of designing, modeling, implementing, monitoring, measuring and optimizing business processes. While all businesses have processes they use to perform daily tasks and run their business, many SMBs reside within the "Initial" stage of the process maturity model where processes are invisible, inconsistent and often ineffective. Business Analysts experienced in BPM will help businesses capture processes in their current form, measure and analyze the process, identify opportunities to optimize it and finally, propose changes. Outcome of a successful BPM campaign usually includes cost savings, quality improvement, increased efficiency and transparency of business processes. Processes that are optimized and well understood are good candidates for automation, which delivers further benefit to the business. Lastly, organizations with documented and automated processes are more attractive to would-be purchasers who are looking to buy a turn-key business.
Make sense of data
SMBs are often sitting on a goldmine of data about themselves and their customers. Business Analysis can be instrumental in identifying meaningful data that already exists, or useful data that should be collected. Once such data has been identified, a BA can help pool datafrom various sources and establish relationship between different sets. This can give businesses a new angle on their operations, instilling an understanding of customer requirements which, in turn, builds better business relationships. After gaining a good understanding of data and your business objectives, BAs can define Key Performance Indicators (KPI), build dashboards and visualize data to help organizations monitor and enhance business performance.