Business Analysis is the set of tasks, knowledge, and techniques required to identify business needs and determine solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement or organizational change. The person who carries out this task is called a business analyst or BA.
Organizations may need to introduce change to solve business problems which may have been identified by the strategic analysis, referred to above. Business analysts contribute by analyzing objectives, processes and resources, and suggesting ways by which re-design BPR, or improvements BPI could be made. Particular skills of this type of analyst are soft skills, such as knowledge of the business, requirements engineering, stakeholder analysis, and some hard skills, such as business process modeling. Although the role requires an awareness of technology and its uses, it is not an IT-focused role.
Three elements are essential to this aspect of the business analysis effort: the redesign of core business processes; the application of enabling technologies to support the new core processes; and the management of organizational change. This aspect of business analysis is also called "business process improvement