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How to become a business analyst | FAQs
If you are looking for a career as a business analyst there are a few useful ways to break into the BSA industry. Brent Combrink, Head Tutor of the University of Cape Town Business Systems Analysis online short course, talks you through some tips on becoming a systems analyst, highlighting the necessary milestones you need to hit to enter the industry, fully understand the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and succeed as a business analyst.
You’ll need to have an aptitude for systems but you also need to have a keen interest in the people you’ll deal with as a BSA. You’ll be working with the improvement of processes so any interest in project management or general business development will serve you as a systems analyst. On top of this, having in-depth knowledge of a particular system or process within your organisation will be useful if you want to break into the industry as a business analyst and help your organisation improve the way it conducts business as you optimise the SDLC.
Want to gain the expertise to become a BSA?
Find out more about the UCT Business Systems Analysis online short course.
Transcription
When looking to start out as a business systems analyst, it really helps to not only have an aptitude for the kind of work that a BSA does but also to be very keenly interested in people, organisations, business improvement, process improvements and the general goings on to make business better. Your foot in the door could be as a Project Manager or any other kind of subject matter expert in a systems development project. So you could be a superuser or you could be customer end user, you could be giving input or be involved in the project team work, or you could even be a specialist in a certain field. It does help to have industry knowledge, for example, if you are a call centre agent or you work in the food processing industry or financial services organisation and you have inside business knowledge of what that system is used for.