Why the profile of Business Analyst is considered as the best entry to a long term career in IT ?

Throughout my experience till now, I got the opportunity to interact with many like minded people working as business analysts, consultants and architects around the world in different multinationals .

One thing that I observed in them was that not all of them had a background in IT .

These people started their journeys in some totally different domains and industries and over the period of them took the switch into IT due to perks that this industry offers to its employees.

Upon asking further, I got to know that their decisions were based on few important parameters. One of them was the longevity that IT sector offers to anyone working in this line.

There are really numerous of profiles one could get into and that too without any need to formal degree.

One of these profiles is that of a Business Analyst and here we will discuss the reasons why it is the most sought out career option even now :

1) Techno functional profile

The profile of Business Analyst is a kind of techno functional profile where the emphasis is given more on the soft skills than your technical skills.

So, people find it relatively easy to get into this profile than getting into the role of a developer or tester, where the knowledge of technical skills is a mandatory criteria to get selected.

You can read more about the key skills of a business analyst here.

2) This profile is Technology independent

Now, what does this mean?

It means that it is not necessary for the business analysts to keep themselves abreast with the new technologies showing up in the market every now and then, although it is a good practice.

Unlike programmers , Business analysts are not restricted to a particular technology stack and hence are not affected much if any new changes arise.

Let me explain you with an example:

Mr. John started his career in IT as a .net developer back in 2002. After working for almost a decade, he started realizing the fact that .net as a technology isn’t being used in the industry that widely as it used to be earlier when he started his journey.

He observed that companies are more inclined towards hiring Java developers due to more projects being developed with Java and there is a totally new breed of technology that has come up in these years like Salesforce, Azure, Cloud, Machine learning, Artificial intelligence. So, now was his time to switch to something new and learn the concepts of that new field from scratch.

Had Mr.John be working as a Business Analyst, he would have been less impacted with all these changes.

3) Integral Part of Project Teams.

Almost every company nowadays needs business analysts to be a part of their project team. Imagining a project team without BAs would be similar to driving a car without headlights.

Business Analyst is an important part of a project team as he is the one who gathers the requirements from the clients and documents it in a way that is clear enough for the technical team to understand.

He plays an important link between the clients and his technical team. 

4) Chance to enter the Project Management.

The business analyst profile is considered as a stepping stone to the world of project management. It allows you to make a transition into the Project manager or Product owner role after attaining a certain amount of experience.

The business analysts are perceived to have the right knowledge of essential skills of project management which they get by working along with their project managers .

Even the technical people like developers or testers find it difficult to move into the project management side in later years of their life.

5) No formal degree / certification required to start your journey.

Although there are industry certifications for business analysts , you don’t need one to become a Business Analyst.

If you have a good knowledge in general of how the web applications, mobile applications , different processes around you work and are confident to make a sound impact in people’s life through your inputs then you are good to go.

You can read about the industry certifications here.