A business analyst (BA) acts as an interpreter between the technical information and the business. They bridge the gap between the software development team and the rest of the employees and directors which allows for technical solutions best suited to a company’s specific business needs. Similar to how software development can be done through offshore development centers, business analysis can also be outsourced. Here are 7 reasons why your software development partner needs to have a business analyst to bring you the most success.

Help clarify a business idea

A BA will want to identify the purpose and future goals of a business idea by assessing the value proposition and other product benchmarks. Through doing so the BA is able to identify what are the main intentions of the business idea and how they can be translated into software ideas. This creates more business value to the final software product produced by the development team.

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Outlining problems

The purpose of creating a software product is to solve some sort of problem for a company, whether that is only something that is seen by the employees of the company itself, for example with a back-office product, or something that will be used by customers as with an online store. A BA will research the problems a business idea is trying to solve and help the software development team better understand the goal of the software, thus helping them to produce a higher quality product.

Validating requirements

Another benefit of having a BA with your software development partner is that they will be able to better determine your requirements for the project. They will interpret these business requirements into tasks for the development team to achieve so that the final software product is coordinated with the expected business value.

Allows stakeholder feedback

Since the BA is acting as an intermediate between software development and the business aspects of a project, they are able to keep the business stakeholders updated as the project takes place. Feedback on the product can then take place and the BA can then use this information to guide the development team in the right direction.

Ensure the software is successful even after launch

In an agile project, a BA will be present throughout the entire process and even sometimes be available after launching the software. This can be very helpful for a company to ensure the complete success of a software product. If the final product works but it does not meet the business’s needs, they can communicate this more clearly to a BA as opposed to directly to the software developers themselves.

Also, read: 3 Cases When Offshore Software Product Development is NOT for You

Ensuring compliance

During the development of software products for core business needs, documentation is extremely important. Having a BA can help with tracking and identifying what documentation must be done, as well as help to ensure that compliance with any regulations or rules that may exist is taken care of.

Aid in communication

The most important role a BA serves is as a translator for the business stakeholders and the software development partner. This role can be very useful when using offshore software development as clear and effective communication is critical to the success of an offshore software product.