The Pivotal Role of the Business Analyst in a Service Oriented Architecture World
By Jack Hilty, Founder and Managing Principal of SentientPoint, and Gil Laware, Associate Professor at Purdue University
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Should You Seriously Consider Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture?
According to a recent Yankee Group Survey of over 400 organizations, the use of Web Services has improved collaboration with business partners, driven revenue increases, trimmed application development costs, and reduced the complexity in distributed applications. This early feedback from companies currently using Web Services clearly supports the strengths of this technology.
The survey also states that not only are companies enthusiastic about the promise of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), 71% intend to increase their spending on Web Services during 2005. According to SiewJoo Tan, a Senior Analyst at Yankee Group, Web Services are now established enough for most companies to give the technology serious consideration. Could failure to recognize the benefits of Web Services threaten your organi-zation's competitive position?
Maybe.
As more organizations incorporate Web Services into their strategic plans to increase business and wring out costs, the value of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) continues to grow. But, like all good things, time, energy and in-vestment are required. Building SOAs requires special skills and a unique brand of individuals who are both business and tech savvy. In a complex business organization, we are fundamentally talking about Busi-ness Analysts. Business Analysts are individuals who are responsible for recognizing the critical details of business processes and have the unique ability to interpret business requirements into business models. This paper focuses on the changing demands of the Business Analyst in the successful transition to a Service Oriented Enterprise.
The SOA Talent Crunch
The increase in Web Service and SOA indicates a growth in the number of people working as Business Analysts. Unfortunately, in many organizations today, the Business Analyst role has morphed into the IT organization (usually in the form of a Systems, Data or Process Analyst) with a diminished business focus. While some Business Analysts are tech-savvy, many others are not. And, we have found that most also lack at least some of the most sought-after skills required to develop appropriate business models in the SOA environment.
As SOA technologies mature, organizations will be able to more accurately design and develop systems that simulate real life business situations. As a result, the successful enterprise will require Business Analysts who can: (1) communicate with business executives on a strategic level and (2) work with architects to interpret business needs into service oriented, process driven business models using Unified Modeling Language (UML).
For SOA to succeed, more “translator” people need to exist. Now that Web Services and SOA are increasingly considered key to profitable growth, having the right talent to execute these technologies can directly impact the bottom line and the ability to compete in a challenging global marketplace.
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