The value of business analytics in software development

Many believe that for the company's automation, finding programmers and showing them what you need to automate is enough. Perhaps even a few years ago, this approach took place, but now their software and business requirements have become more complex.

To provide a high-quality product, many steps must be considered:

• To analyze the real needs of the business;
• To design the system architecture;
• To organize the work of a team of specialists;
• To develop a code;
• To design the user interface;
• To develop supporting documentation;
• To test the final result;

The product must be designed to solve real business problems

A program with a fashionable interface and high performance will not bring business profit and will not succeed if it does not solve specific business problems. That's why creating a real working product can not be without a business analytics stage, because only this allows us to understand what is the real expectations of potential users of the system, to identify existing problems (which the client is not always able to see) and work out the best solutions to them (which may differ from those suggested by the client).

Here we need good business analysts whose task is to study the client's business to analyze its strengths and weaknesses, understand how to solve problems and build work efficiently to determine how the system should look like, how it should behave, how to bring all of these requirements directly to developers, etc. A good business analyst job - is 80% of the project's success. Accordingly, the analyst is a key figure in the IT project. The vast majority of failed IT projects - are the result of an ignorant approach to analytics.

Business analysis services guarantee the profitability of your investment

Business analytics services justify the cost of it and even pay for themselves by enabling the development team to focus on business values and the primary purpose of the project. Changing requirements in the design review stage will result in minimal additional costs. However, if the quality of business analysis is not carried out at the very beginning of the project, there is always the risk of substantial costs in the future.

Losses due to poor business analysis, or lack thereof, can be very high:

• 71% of IT projects have failed due to a lack of requirements for studying.
• Error correction is 40% of all works on average project development, and 56% of these modifications are related to deficiencies in the requirements.
• In 2015, the International Institute of Business Analysis determined that insufficient study requirements are causing annual losses of 250 billion dollars on software development projects worldwide.

Thus, about a quarter of the cost of software development in the United States is spent on rework caused by incomplete or incorrect requirements! Lack of proper study requirements, questionable strategic planning and lack of focus on business requirements - all of these problems can be solved with the help of good quality business analysis.

The analyst must not only understand the client's expectations but also form them in a timely manner by directing the client to a more rational (less expensive) way to implement the project. Otherwise, the project can grow with functionality that, in fact, does not solve the main tasks, but consumes the lion's share of project resources. Conversely, useful features may be missed, which do not affect the project budget but create a very good emotional background.

Business analysis services allow to reveal hidden business requirements, which increase the commercial value of the product; create conditions for the programmers to focus on meeting the requirements with the greatest potential benefits and profits; to identify the real problems that the client wants to solve, to avoid the requirements without value to their solutions. Thus, the importance of highly qualified business analytics for software project development can not be overstated.

Best regards,
Your Ardas Team