Category: Business analysis

Costco Wholesale Corporation: Analysis of Background, Corporate Governance, Internal Environment and Objective Setting

Company’s Background

Costco was first opened in San Diego in 1976 and opened in Seattle in 1983. Since launching its service, Costco became the first company to make $3 billion in sales in just six years. To further connect to more consumers, Costco merged with Price Club and became PriceCostco in 1993 and had 203 locations which generate $16 billion in annual sales.

Costco’s plan of action is to create high sales volumes and quick stock turnover by offering members low costs on a restricted determination of broadly marked and chose private name items in a wide scope of product. Costco’s plan of action is based upon client memberships, who join and renew every year.

Costco has a vision to be a platform for members to enjoy unmatched savings with their efficient supply chain & business model and a mission to provide members with highly cost effective, high quality products.

Elements of Corporate Governance in Costco

The Board of Directors of Costco Wholesale Corporation have adopted the Corporate Governance guidelines in which it has many elements. The two elements that we would like to highlight are the Board Compensation and Audit Committee.

Compensation Committee

The purpose behind the Compensation Committee is to discharge the duties of the Board of Directors concerning compensation matters for the Company’s executive officers and other employees and consultants. (the compensation committee is set up to ensure that the remuneration of the entire staff,including the BOD, is fair based on their performance in the company.)

The Compensation Committee’s capacity is to survey the pay rates, rewards and stock-based pay given to executive officers of the Company and to regulate overall administration of the Company’s pay and stock-based compensation programs. Their responsibilities include incorporating yearly announcement to Costco’s investors on executive compensation matters, administering the company’s equity and other compensation plans and address other matters as the Board may from time to time authorise. (The compensation committee’s role is to ensure that the CEO must not be present in the meeting when his remuneration is done

Having a Compensation Committee which consists of independent members would likely have the ability to scrutinize executive proposals unbiasedly because of less pressure from management. Besides, they will determine an appropriate compensation package that repays with the measure of work done by the management which is objective and would impossible reason any debate among Board members. They will devise a transparent and independent procedure in developing policy on director and executive remuneration, which strongly aligns with the company’s objective and on the basis of the adequacy and effectiveness of the director or executive personnel’s duty that is discharged to meet those objective(s).

Audit Committee

The purpose of the Audit Committee in Costco is to provide oversight of the monetary revealing procedure, the audit process, the organization’s arrangement of inner controls and the organization’s consistency with laws and guidelines.

The duties of the Audit Committee are to appoint and accommodate the remuneration of the Company’s independent auditor, manage and assess their work, instructs the independent auditor and internal auditor to prompt the Committee if there are any uncommon subjects that require special attention. The Committee will meet with management and the independent auditor to discuss the annual financial statements and the report of the independent auditor, and to discuss significant issues encountered in the course of the audit work.

Some other responsibilities includes:

• Review significant changes to the Company’s accounting principles and practices
• Review the scope and results of internal audits
• Evaluate the performance of the internal auditor
• Provide minutes of Committee meetings to the Board, and report to the Board on any significant matters arising from the Committee’s work
• Evaluate the performance of the Committee, review and reassess the Charter
• Prepare the Committee report required by the SEC to be included in the Company’s annual proxy statement
• Conduct or authorize such inquiries into matters within the Committee’s scope of responsibility as the Committee deems appropriate

Having an Audit Committee would ensure that Costco significant risks are identified and ensure that the Board is completely assessed of these risks. In addition, Costco’s Board executes its hazard oversight obligations fundamentally through the Audit Committee which receives management reports on the potentially significant risks, including (without limitation) cybersecurity matters, that the Company faces and how the Company is seeking to control risk where appropriate and oversees internal control over financial reporting. The Audit Committee reports to the full board on its risk-management tasks, including the enterprise risk management review.

Costco Internal Environment and Objective Setting

Internal Environment

Risk Management Culture

To facilitate effective communication of issues raised at all levels management, Costco introduced an “Open Door Policy” to empower employees to make them feel that their opinion is valued and to gain insights from issued face by employees from the ground level, middle management to senior management. This policy motivates the employees to communicate with management about any problems they face. Costco also includes a private number for the employees to call if they are not comfortable to talk to their management. By having employees feel their importance and are well-respected by the company so that they would be more likely to voice out any misconduct, oversight or loophole and have more loyalty to the company.

Costco believes that building a culture with values of passion, pride, integrity, treating and empowering employees goodly will drive prosperity and growth to the company. With their philosophy as such, Costco continues to attract, train and retain high performing and experienced employees in the company by providing them with good welfare benefits such as medical insurance covering extensive healthcare needs from life and disability to dependant care, encouraging employee development by providing college student retention programme and competitive compensation among many others.

Costco values all their employees, be it part-time or full-time employees, to create a culture of non-discrimination, by having a equal standardised payscale which are competitve in the industry as well as other employee benefits to encourage retention, improve employee productivity, engagement and faithfulness to the company.

Costco has recognised that the Human Resource and Risk Management functions are closely related as the Human Resource can help to set a good risk management culture so that the job of the Risk Management of identifying the risk of the company much easier. That is why the Human Resource and the Risk Management are put together as one department.

• https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-costcos-obsession-culture-drove-success
• https://www.hrfuture.net/strategy/risk-management/what-is-risk-management-in-hr/

Risk Management Organisational Structure

Costco has a structure that supports risk management. The Audit Committee primarily oversees the risk management function on behalf of the board. It does not have a risk committee that specifically manages risk, but delegates the responsibility to the management. The management is responsible for developing short and long term objectives and to manage all operating & business risks, which includes identifying, evaluating, managing and mitigating risks that are inherent to achieve those objectives. The risk management function at the management’s level would be managed by the Human Resources and Risk Management department lead the department’s Senior Vice President. The Audit committee will access the adequacy and efficacy of risk management handled by the management and reports it to the full board. However, when addressing the risks of new market entrance, it will be directly handled by the full board and the Chief Executive Officer in the oversight and execution of all risk management governance and policy matters. Costco takes reference from the OECD framework for risk management to ensure its due diligence effectively addresses and mitigates its risks (1a). In 2019, Costco has recognised the increased need to invest in the risk management function and has engaged Citi to provide risk management services by seconding Patricia Pistelli, as Costco’s Chief Risk Officer.

Business Analysis: Reflective Essay on Job of Business Analyst

Introduction:

A Business Analyst is responsible for knowing what the goal of a project is, how to achieve it, managing any changes to the goal, and ensuring that all deliverables are aligned with the goal.

Most of the people fail to understand the meaning of Business analysis, Business analysis is the process of determining business needs and providing solution for the issues. Some say it is not really a profession, but more of a line of work or collection of activities. Others say it is a business practice [11]. The International Institute of Business Analysis defines business analysis as “the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Business analysis enables an enterprise to articulate needs and the rationale for change, and to design and describe solutions that can deliver value” [8]

According to my understanding business analysis is the activity of identifying the business’s needs to improve its performance by accessing multiple models and technology, and the person who performs these activities is known as a Business analyst. BA are the one who bridges the gap between the business and technology, today’s business analysts are considered as all-rounders as in they need to manage the change is business goals, formulate the business strategy, developing business models, managing the workflow ( more like a manager role), finding the business problems and resolving the same.

Challenges and opportunities for business analysts in organizations today

One of the challenges faced by the business today is the business analysis framework related IT system development [1], I understand that there is a lack of understanding in the requirement analysis. According to the research, most of the software development failures and deficiencies are related to requirement gathering [2]. The reason is pointed towards the Business analysts with the inadequacy of relevant skills and knowledge on business analysis activities.

Few of the other challenges are unrealistic expectations, users and management give solutions not requirements, business analysts don’t understand business complexities, combining tech and non-tech vocabulary, Business Analysts do not ask the right questions, do not listen to the business owners, problems not completely defined, scope not defined, Getting requirements from just one person and misunderstandings and misinterpretations [1]

In my perspective with unclear requirements and if the requirements change there will be a huge impact on the project which may lead to project failure and according to my understanding BA with skill full knowledge has a lot of opportunities in most of organizations today.

In this modern world, effective supply chain management has become a potentially valuable way of increasing organizational performance where BA business analysis is identified as an important tool for SCM. BA is not a technology, but a group of approaches, organizational procedures, and tools used in combination with one another to gain information, analyze that information and predict outcomes of problem solutions in any of the four areas (Plan, Source, Make, and Deliver)[3] BA are being increasingly used in SCM, improving SC performance has become a continuous process that requires an analytical performance measurement system.

Business analysis is gaining importance, what i observe is the companies that are more process-oriented are in a better position to utilize BA to improve their performance. This means BA systems have to be process-oriented to link across breaks at both the strategic and tactical levels. Fig1 represents the relationship between BA activities and the supply chain performance, which represents the importance of Business analytics.

Figure 1 [3]

The rise of the internet has led to the rise of big data. Currently, a huge explosion of data is observed in many organizations in the world. Industry analysts and businesses are looking toward Big Data as the next big thing to provide opportunities, insights, solutions, and a new way to increase profits in business [4].

Looking at big data I can say that its main task is related to data management to store and handle the data, here it requires businesses to understand the various problems with the existing data which is real challenge this opens the gate for the business intelligence team which are also known as Business analysts.

Till now i have walked you through the opportunities for business analysts in supply chain and big data management, now let’s get into the role of BA and how it’s been changing.

Role of business analyst from past 30 years:

Over time the project life cycle has changed and yes it has impacted the BA role. Looking at the early 1990’s system and process errors often had manual back-up procedures. Now we are so dependent on technology, that in many cases, business shuts down when the system does not work, orders don’t process, inventory does not move, or money doesn’t flow [5].

Fifteen years ago, most BAs were probably working on in-house software/process projects that involved 2-3 systems and manual paper procedures, supporting a single business unit or product. The entire project team shared space on one floor or even one large room and many of the stakeholders were just a few floors away. BAs often grew to understand systems and processes so well, they did not need extensive assistance from subject matter experts [5].

Business and project complexity grow as companies expand and merge, and it’s happening more often and faster than before.

Below are the few points that has impacted the BA role:

• Accurate requirements become even more important than in the past as customers and operations are impacted more when requirements are missed.
• Contingency plans for key functions become critical to protect employee/customer relationships.
• BAs become risk managers and need to effectively communicate risks, dependencies, and constraints so that projects do not move forward with bugs, gaps or inefficiencies that will compromise the value of the solution being implemented.
• BAs need to be able to adapt and work with changing requirements to ensure the most value is delivered.

In the 1990s, most BAs worked in a traditional waterfall environment where templates were the norm and the software development life cycle was clearly defined with a regimented organization-wide or application release schedule.

Today few organizations continue to operate in this fashion, but more organizations are trending to using an Agile or hybrid approach to deliver solutions.

A practical definition of analytics is how a business arrives at an optimal or realistic decision based on the existing data [6].

The period of the 1950s to the mid-2000s is known as the era of Business intelligence where descriptive analytics and reporting activities were used for internal data analysis, spreadsheets and other tools used for large quantities of information. In 1980s computers were used as decision support systems, since then analytics began to evolve with the development of a wide variety of software tools and applications

In the era of Big data (mid-2000s to 2015) – internet-based companies such as google, eBay, and Amazon began to collect and analyze the new kind of information captured from social networks.

Table 1 shows the different activities performed by business analysts over time from the 1980s to 2010s.

Decades

User functionality

Platform

BI software

Pricing

1980’s report

Static report

Desktop

Desktop

User based

2000’s Analyze

• Interactive reports
• Dashboards
• OLAP

Web

Web

Server based

2010’s Monitor

• Self-service visual
• Interactive
• Predictive
• Data storytelling

Cloud

Platform

Value based

Table 1 [6]

As business users interfaced directly with software engineers their needs got lost in translation. They simply could not speak “technology” and articulate their needs effectively while programmers could not always interpret what the business users were trying to convey, this led to the raise of Business analysis today. [7] Business analysts are usually called system analysts and they were typically played by software engineers in addition to his programming duties. The modern Business Analyst is not only concerned with the requirements, but also the meaning of the requirements.

Till now I have reflected on the various role of a business analyst from the early 1990s where they used papers for documentation of reports and now using technology to generate the reports, earlier BA used the waterfall model, and today they use Agile methodologies like scrum and XPS. In today’s organization role of BA is not just the generation of reports it involves project management, stakeholder analysis, risk management, consulting, identifying the business issues, and providing the solution for the same.

Techniques and skills for Business Analyst:

Looking at the early 1990’s the BA was just analyzing the business needs and documenting the solutions to improve the business performance there was no coding or technical knowledge required, but today the scenario is different there are important technical and functional skills required for a Business analyst.

Below i have described few important skills that today’s Business analysts require to stand out successful in their careers.

Business sense: BA are considered as business domain experts, they need to understand the trends and norms in the industry they work.

Strong Communication: This is one of the important skills required for most of the job in today’s world, looking at BA they need to interact with customers/stakeholders, create business documents, and articulate their findings in a business context.

Listen and question: Listening makes all the difference by helping to identify, understand and address the needs of customers/stakeholders. As a business analyst one needs to challenge the business they operate in and ask the true question to understand what the customer needs.

Research capabilities: As a BA one must research and gather the relevant information. This helps the analysts to analyze and come up with multiple unique solutions.

Technical and analytical skills: In today’s organization this is considered as one of the important skills, BA needs to have the technical programing language such as R, Python or Tableau which helps to represent their understanding visually through graphs to the stakeholders. BA must be analytically strong, which involves visualizing and evaluating the problems and then solving them using optimal methods.

For data, analysis BA should have a basic knowledge of using any one of the tools such as R, Python, Tableau, MS office suite, MS Excel and so on. This helps them to interpret their understanding visually to the customers/stakeholders.

However, apart from the above skill BA needs to understand how to use the frameworks, and agile methodologies. They can do certifications such as Prince for project planning and management, CBAP – Certified business analyst professional etc. which will help the BA to succeed in their career.

The pressure that a Business analyst encounters and strategies to overcome the same.

It is seen that day by day the use of technology is been increased and customers are expecting the solution in a short period. Here I would like to say time and cost have always been the focus of solution delivery Organizations apply strong pressure on their project teams to deliver solutions faster. This pressure has resulted in tighter timelines for BA’s to perform business analysis and finalizing on the requirements.

Sudden requirements change also makes the business analyst to work under pressure and make the new changes to accommodate in the agreed timelines. From the pie chart (source [10]) it is clearly seen stakeholder holders are the primary reason for the BA being under pressure, the reason being Stakeholders imposing the BA views, and Stakeholders causing delays in providing input. The second reason is pointed towards time constraints.

Figure 3 [10]

According to my understanding BA will be loaded with multiple projects and deadlines with pressure, below are a few strategies that can help to overcome the pressure.

• First thing is to plan and prioritize the projects based on deadlines and allocate the time for each project and track the progress for the same.
• Use the BA tools and techniques to maximize the efficiency.
• Scheduling frequent meetings to track the progress of the project.
• Communicate with stakeholder and make sure the requirement is in line with the scope, because most of the project gets delayed when the stakeholder take more time the give the input.
• Make sure not to accept the change in requirements once the project is signed off and convince the stakeholder that new changes will be done in next release.

Conclusion:

Overall, I would like to summarize the business analyst is evolving role, from using paper-based documentation to using Big data analytics technology has taken the business analyst role to another level, and companies have realized their need for strong business requirements to support their IT efforts. BA is a project management support role rather than a leader. While PMs always need our assistance, all projects benefit from having a strong BA with a focus on delivering the business needs. I can say Business Analyst is a navigator, responsible for reaching the end destination, which means a satisfying resolution of a business problem. The BA’s always knows what the end destination is, and how to get there, and is capable of handling course adjustments as they arise.

References:

1. Naicker, S. and Singh, A. (May 2019). Developing a framework towards improving business analysis of integrated public e-service systems – IEEE Conference Publication. [online] Ieeexplore.ieee.org. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8703612 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
2. Atkins, C. (2013). An Investigation of the Impact of Requirements Engineering Skills on Project Success. [online] Dc.etsu.edu. Available at: https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2708&context=etd [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
3. Trkman, P., McCormack, K., de Oliveira, M. and Ladeira, M. (2010). The impact of business analytics on supply chain performance. Decision Support Systems, 49(3), pp.318-327. [Accessed 13 Feb. 2020].
4. kanchi, S., sandilya, S., Ramkrishna, S., Manjrekar, S. and Vhadgar, A. (2015). Challenges and Solutions in Big Data Management. IEEE Conference Publication. [online] Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7300848 [Accessed 13 Feb. 2020].
5. Wick, A. (2020). The BA Role: Has it really changed in the last 15 years? [online] BA Times. Available at: https://www.batimes.com/angela-wick/the-ba-role-has-it-really-changed-in-the-last-15-years.html [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
6. Miah, S. and Yeoh, W. (2019). Applying business intelligence initiatives in healthcare and organizational settings. United States IGI Global, pp.25-30. [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
7. Hermes, M. (2020). The World’s Theory – The History of Business Analysis & Evolution of the Business Analyst. [online] BA Times. Available at: https://www.batimes.com/articles/the-worlds-theory-the-history-of-business-analysis-evolution-of-the-business-analyst.html [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
8. https://www.batimes.com/kathleen-hass/the-future-is-now-the-21st-century-enterprise-business-analyst.html
9. den Berg, D. (2020). 20 Lessons learned over 20 years of doing Business Analysis. [online] BA Times. Available at: https://www.batimes.com/articles/20-lessons-learnt-over-20-years-of-doing-business-analysis.html [Accessed 17 Feb. 2020].
10. Hudson, L. (2019). Coping with the pressures of BA life – 6point6. [online] 6point6. Available at: https://6point6.co.uk/insights/coping-with-the-pressures-of-ba-life/ [Accessed 17 Feb. 2020].
11. https://www.cio.com/article/2436638/project-management-what-do-business-analysts-actually-do-for-software-implementation-projects.html

Business Case for Effective Execution of System for a Victoria Infringement Management System: Business Analysis

Introduction

The critical duty of a business analyst is incorporating new techniques for new procedures, making and actualizing it effectively in business. They had the responsibility of reducing any barrier between information technology and business by utilizing constant examination and information process by determining the business procedure. They can adapt and implement sophisticated innovation for the effective usage of the system by accomplishing business destinations and objectives (Podeswa, 2009). Infringement Management and Enforcement Services (IMES) is starting at now using explicit specialized administration programming to supervise infringement warrants, demands status of a warrant, finishing and issuing of warrants to offenders. The goal of this report is to set up an effective data innovation system for the Victoria Infringement management System (VIMS).

To build and customize a useful system by the arrangement of new information to the Victoria Infringement Management System (VIMS). Being a business analyst, it is coordinated to boost the advancement duties and vital functionalities alongside undertaking business analysis core knowledge areas.

The wide segment of the business analysis is partitioned into six knowledge areas and distinctive underlying competencies promoting the compelling and promising completion of tasks carried out by business analysts. Every single undertaking allocated to the business analyst is bolstered by a related strategy that gives strong and enough information with respect to stages for achieving each and every task. VIMS is at present confronting specialized issues in the usage of the infringement management system inside the IMES. To beat these insufficiencies and deficiencies of system viability a strategy for system improvement life cycle is embraced by the analyst with the goal that a viable information system is built and great utilization of it may be made. This system procedure finds the steps of advancement intended to deal with the whole system. At the first stage, it distinguishes the functional necessities of the system and analyses its adequacy and usefulness of the system of action then the incorporation of various programming and hardware is done to fix the problems. This whole procedure needs to experience six stages known to six learning areas of business analysis (Frisendal, 2012).

Business case:

1. Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring:

Business analysis planning and monitoring illustrate and identify the planning and monitoring activities and they were arranged accordingly, and deliverables will be produced based on task for the perfect execution. It includes the phase of recognizing the stakeholders of business characterizing related jobs and obligations of the partners performing different errands identified with business analysis, planning out effective communicative plans, developing business analysis tasks, deciding the analysis measurement required to screen viability of whole procedure. The whole process of planning and analyzing is a continuous process through processing data and generating the output of the procedure. In this procedure business necessities, specialist’s judgment and authoritative resources are put into the procedure pursued by directing errands like arranging the business analysis approach, managing and conveying business plans and dealing with business analysis execution and state holder analysis (Maczko et al., 2012).

Business analyst plays out an assessment of the planned answer for a guarantee that the arrangement meets the acknowledgment and assessment criteria and meets the affirmed necessities. At the point when the solution has been developed, the business analyst approves the guaranteed answer for the problem and is recognized, their causes are known and communicated to the key players.

The business analyst does an assessment of arrangement execution on numerous occasions inside the venture. Right off the bat, an assessment of the execution of the current arrangement recognizes shortcomings of the arrangement and supports the examination of the reasons for poor execution. This information fits and supports investigation led inside a big business analysis. Also, the business expert assesses the execution of the arrangement once it’s prepared for an organization so as to guarantee that the arrangement conveys the normal incentive to the business.

The essential measures for settling the insufficiencies or building up the system procedure of VIMS the senior analyst needs to plan and structure the business analysis process and supervise the same so that it can improve the information system further. It helps to perform a task before deadlines and delivers within schedule. The monitoring phase helps to perform and approve within the planning time.

Tools and Competencies:

1. The team should work in a manner to collaborate and gather information
2. Effective communication with offenders. Clearly stating the information verbally and non-verbally.
3. Consistent and clear goals with time framed.

2. Elicitation and collaboration:

This critical knowledge area is the primary focal point of the business analysis as it recognizes the prerequisites of the business and provides the clear, total and appropriate solution to the issues. The most important aspect of the business analysis is the stakeholders. The methodology of elicitation with stakeholders with helps analysts to implement real-time techniques and tools to improve the process (Gerosa et al., 2013).

This task can be achieved by a comprehensive understanding of stakeholder needs and methods by designing and implementing solutions. The capacity to perceive and characterize an issue or opportunity empowers the creation of the correct solution. The way to structuring an effective solution is by gathering valuable data from stakeholders by encouraging great connections, setting up solid joint effort, and checking stakeholder’s affairs (Learn.cpaaustralia.com.au, 2019).

• Preparation of Elicitation: This stage helps to understand the scope of the system by selecting supportive information from resources. The required outcomes will be based on stakeholder involvement.
• Conduct Elicitation: This phase draws out collaborative, experiment and research techniques in elicitation.
• Confirming Elicitation Results: This phase is to check the accuracy of the data and consistency of the data.

Basic competencies: Verbal and nonverbal skills are important to execute this phase. Business analysts must have communication with external and internal stakeholders. Continuous interaction may help in effective elicitation. Business policies and rules, documents, data, regulations, and hindrances, past data can help the business analyst (IIBA., 2015).

Tools and techniques:

Meeting and stakeholders for the interview is the very effective method. A lot of business and other information can be collected from stakeholders and helps to develop long haul relationships between analysts and stakeholders. This involves a dynamic collaboration between key players (IIBA., 2015).

3. Requirements life cycle:

This period of life cycle management distinguishes and watch the progressive ways for characterizing the administration ways and correspondence requirements of an expert. This procedure with Requirements definition, Requirement validation, Requirement documentation, and requirement management.

This is an essential stage and includes the procedure of necessity assembling to VIMS. It is likewise termed the requirement extraction phase. After data gathering, they were sorted out and documented for further utilization. The second phase is the conditions or needs required for meeting a goal, thinking about the necessities and requests from different stakeholders. Approval of requirements is fundamental as labor and assets are assigned according to prerequisites. Requirement documentation is a phase were planning and activities were documented to establish validity to them. Key points include stakeholders, planning and specifications of the project current situation. In the last phase, it consists of planning, monitoring, verbal and nonverbal skills and monitoring the requirements was done by management. If it is mismanaged the final result will be most affected. Due to miscommunication between team members, many warrants and fine notices are getting expired without making payment. Additionally, the criminal and common issues identified with guilty parties are not expressed in the log book of the system leading into incomplete information of the offenders.

Basic competencies:

For the successful completion of this, the person had to develop analytical thinking skills. Developing this skill may help to think out of the box, helps to learn new methods to solve issues, and helps to make better choices and improves the ability to process through technology.

Tools and techniques:

SWOT examination is the best method of recognizable proof of the primary driver and analyzing its related impacts on different variables. With the assistance of SWOT examination strategy intrinsic qualities, shortcomings, threats, and opportunities are resolved viably.

4. Strategy analysis:

This phase main purpose is teaming up with stakeholders for recognizing a business needs and empowering organizations intending to the arrangement of the subsequent result with different business techniques. The process of analyzing, understanding and identifying the business environment is strategy analysis. Internal and external considerations are accounted for and analysed (Frisendal, 2012). To achieve the objectives of sustainability and an upper hand in business both micro and macro are considered. This aide in the future advancement of the organization. The appropriate methodology must be created by an analyst for issuing, finalizing of the notices.

• From the beginning point, an organization needs to finish its environmental factors of its present methodologies. Internal issues such as financial constraints, operational inabilities, employee morale, and productivity of employees. External conditions such as inappropriate political patterns, monetary matters and changes in consumer behaviour.
• A key motivation behind the strategy analysis is to decide the adequacy of the present methodology in the midst of the overall business condition.
• Formulated strategic plans and alternatives.
• After assessing all alternatives best strategy will be adopted.

Basic competencies: An analyst adopting the process of analyzing and planning must have sufficient information with respect to organization and elements influencing the credibility. With the code of behavior and moral values, an analyst will almost create common trust with the organization. This variation of reliability will enable them to promote making acute and solutions for improvement.

Tools and techniques: Regular analysis of the environment will help to be successful. This can be performed through SWOT. This technique helps analysts to identify relevant factors and risks causing the low rate of productivity of an organization. Moreover, the root cause analyzing technique helps to recognize the fundamental cause and its related consequences for improving an organization.

5. Requirement analysis and design:

this period of analyzing recognizes and examines the prerequisites of the business that must be satisfied inside the allotted time. At first, all the related necessities are distinguished, at the point of time and evaluated according to the needs. With the assistance of organizing and sorting out the necessities of business analysis, the desires for the clients are met inside the time limit. This examination helps to decide the nature of necessities to business. After analyzing key elements, the examiner communicates with key stakeholders to approve the procedure.

Basic competencies: Interaction and business information skills are the basic skills that advance the leadership skills and negotiation of agreements within an individual to determine the contentions and improves the productivity of employees and employee participation.

Tools and techniques: The gap between business requirements and aspects can be analyzed and identified by using the indispensable procedure Gap analysis. Gap analysis helps to analyze the internal and external factors stopping the organization to meet the prerequisites promoting profitability and productivity in an organization. Gantt chart is another compelling system that plans diverse tasks and activities the new system or project improvement leading to a progressive chart (Chemuturi, 2013).

6. Solution evaluation:

This is the last period of the business analysis procedure and strategy that distinguishes and recommends impeccable and legitimate solutions for all the business conflicts and evaluating the impacts of the same to know whether its usage is done timely and perfectly. It is the way toward approving an array of solutions that are or going to be enforced upon any business conflict or circumstance. Assessment of this procedure decides how adequately a solution is executed to address the issues and necessities of the stakeholders.

Evaluation of organizational availability to changes assumes a critical job in an undertaking’s success. The aftereffects of the appraisal decide the extent of the project as far as moves to be made to prepare staff, alter business forms, change certain exercises and revealing, also changes to conduct and convictions. These outcomes likewise bolster a meaning of progress necessities that portray how the arrangement ought to be actualized and discharged into a generation with negligible disturbance to the current arrangements and procedures.

Basic competencies: To make a constructive and viable answer for any business conflict an analyst need to have critical thinking and basic leadership abilities and capabilities that will advices the person in creating required skills to distinguish and analyze the power of the circumstance and run additionally with the stream to achieve ideal results.

Tools and techniques: Brain storming, risk analysis, root cause analysis, Data flow analysis are the best techniques that will help analysts in evaluating the risk related to the business strategy and creating vital solutions. With the assistance of this numerous factors are confined and an important decision was taken to alleviate the threats to the business.

Conclusion:

The target of this report was to set up a business case for the effective execution of system for a Victoria Infringement management System (VIMS). In this report, the centre learning territories of business analysis were depicted in detail. Moreover, capabilities, aptitudes, and instruments required for undertaking every information region were featured. The report featured that business analysis knowledge areas are fundamental for effectively recognizing the issues, necessity analysis, gathering information and inspiring the correct systems for the revelation of the correct solutions which line up with the business objectives.

References:

1. Podeswa, H. (2009). The business analyst’s handbook. Boston, MA: Course Technology.
2. Frisendal, T. (2012). Design thinking business analysis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
3. Maczko, K., Tanaka, J., Smith, M., Garretson-Weibel, C., Hamilton, S., Mitchell, J., Fults, G., Stanley, C., Loper, D., Bryant, L. and “Rooter” Brite, J. (2012). Ranch Business Planning and Resource Monitoring for Rangeland Sustainability. Rangelands, 34(1), pp.11-18.
4. Gerosa, M., Sylvester, A., Vassileva, J., Vreede, G. and Antunes, P. (2013). Collaboration and Technology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
5. Learn.cpaaustralia.com.au. (2019). CPA PD – Course Details. [online] Available at: https://learn.cpaaustralia.com.au/lmt/clmsCatalogDetails.prMain?site=cpapd&in_region=au&in_offeringId=63614306&in_from_module=CLMSCATALOGV2.
6. IIBA., 2015. Underlying Competencies. [Online] Available at https://vancouver.iiba.org/sites/vancouver/files/archive/Media/Downloads/CBAPCCBA%20Study%20Group%202017/Session%208_Chapter%209_underlying-competencies.pdf
7. IIBA., 2015. Elicitation and Collaboration. [Online] Available at https://vancouver.iiba.org/sites/vancouver/files/archive/Media/Downloads/CBAPCCBA%20Study%20Group%202017/Session%203_Chapter%204-elicitation-and-collaboration%20%20PDF.pdf
8. Frisendal, T. (2012). Design thinking business analysis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
9. Chemuturi, M. (2013). Requirements engineering and management for software development projects. New York, NY: Springer.

Business Analysis, Planning and Monitoring: Analytical Essay

Abstract

The case study is about the Victoria Infringement Management System (VIMS) that is used by the Sheriff’s Office to enforce all infringement notices, court orders and warrants. After being the topic of concern for almost two decades, warrant enforcement appears to be an important, ongoing problem with more warrants being released than executed. This scheme presents a major issue because not all violation notices, court orders and warrants are being followed up by the Sheriff’s office. Infringement Management and Enforcement Services (IMES) are accountable for upholding unpaid infringement notices and warrants. The IMES uses an information technology system called Victorian Infringement and Management System (VIMS) which is a system to manage court orders, and infringement notices and also records information about issuing, auctioning and finalising warrants. However, VIMS is an antiquated system and thus presents several inadequacies. This is a framework for handling infringements rather than a debtor management system. This way the criminal and civil matters referring to an offender aren’t automatically linked to the system. The usefulness of this system is also hampered by the fact that it can record only one address of each offender and hence the Sheriff’s Officers are unable to track and update any new change of addresses of the offender. Another setback of this system is causing delays due to a large number of officers trying to access the system simultaneously. Furthermore, it takes several hours to develop queries and produce reports for each offender. This case study highlights all activities in core business research. These include business analysis, planning and monitoring, elicitation and collaboration, requirement lifecycle management and strategy analysis to name a few. Further, recommendations are also provided as to how to tackle the inadequacies in the Victorian Infringement Management System (VIMS).

Introduction

According to Victorian Ombudsman (2014), court fines and infringement penalties are the foremost common sanctions for criminal behavior in Victoria. For many members of the community, the only contact they’ll have with the criminal justice system is in the form of a violation notice, quite possibly for an offence related to driving or parking. As mentioned in the case study, in 2011-12, 4.79 million notices of violation and 1,518 million warrants were issued in accordance with crimes committed in Victoria State in association with road safety and traffic, public order, business control and environmental security with the road safety offences particularly being the largest crime category. According to the study of Victorian Ombudsman (2014), the objective of the new infringement management programme does not take place as outlined in their report. This includes ensuring continuity, reliability and assurance of system operations, balancing justice, performance, and efficiency.

2. Core Knowledge area of Business Analysis

As defined in the BABOK guide, the six Core Knowledge area of Business Analysis are:

1. Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
2. Elicitation and Collaboration
3. Requirement Life Cycle Management
4. Strategy Analysis
5. Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
6. Solution Evaluation

These areas define the process of business analysis as it is implemented within the project boundaries or throughout the development and continuous improvement of enterprises. The diagram below represents the relationship among the six core knowledge area which is given in IIBA paper (2018).

2.1 Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

Business Analysis Planning and monitoring is one of the first core knowledge areas in the BABOK. It emphasizes on areas such as management requirements, documentation and collective planning. In this area, it explains how a business analyst identifies which tasks are needed to achieve the business analysis initiative. It includes a plethora of activities such as trying to gather information to identify the stakeholders, identifying the duties and responsibilities of a stakeholder, communication between the business analyst and the stakeholders, determination of the deliverables the business analyst would achieve, estimating the task for business analyst and finally, the metrics used to analyse activity on the market review are collected. These activities are planned to prepare the organization for requirement elicitation and finally to incorporate a solution that meets business needs. The planning and monitoring of a business analyst is said to be a blueprint of the project the analyst have (Milani 2019).The Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring includes several tasks to be performed. They are mentioned as below:

1. Plan Business Analysis Approach: “It defines the planning of business analysis work by selecting a methodology or a framework to plan an individual’s activities and deliverables” (IIBA 2009).
2. Plan Stakeholder Engagement: “It defines the understanding of which stakeholders are pertinent to the transition, the needs of business analysts from the stakeholders and the stakeholder’s needs from the business analysts and the best way to cooperate” (IIBA 2009).
3. Plan Business Analysis Governance: “Components of the business analysis are described to support the organization’s governance function such as risk management, allocation of resources and requirements management. It ensures that decisions are taken correctly and regularly, and follows a procedure that ensures the decision-makers to have the needed information” (IIBA 2009).
4. Plan Business Analysis Information Management: “It describes how the information, its requirement and design are developed by the Business Analysts is captured, stored and integrated with other long term usage information” (IIBA 2009).
5. Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements: “ It monitors the business analysis work and how it is performed to ensure that the commitments are met along with the continuous opportunities for learning, improving, growth and progress are recognised” (IIBA 2009).

Elicitation and Collaboration

Elicitation and collaboration is defined in the BABOK (IIBA 2018) as the Business Analyst’s role in planning and performing elicitation tasks and activities, and confirms the results obtained. This also explains the interaction with stakeholders once they have gathered the information on the business analysis and the continuing cooperation with stakeholders during the business analysis activities. Elicitation of requirements with the cooperation of the stakeholder is the primary task of the Business Analyst, and it is one of the most relevant, dynamic and essential information areas to be unpacked by the Business Analysis (Ramos 2019). Hence, to manage this area is to gain crucial understanding of the needs and identifying the requirements correctly that can bring an impact to the overall business firms. The elicitation and collaboration area involves the following tasks:

1. Prepare for Elicitation: “Business analysts plan for elicitation by identifying the expected outcomes of the operation, taking into account the stakeholders involved and the goals of the project. It also requires the identification of sources of information or the planning of an experiment to see whether a shift in the process actually results in progress” (IIBA 2009).
2. Conduct Elicitation: “Describes the work carried out to recognise the needs of stakeholders and identify possible approaches that may satisfy those needs. This can include direct contact with stakeholders, conducting research, or conducting research” (IIBA 2009).
3. Confirm Elicitation Results: “It ensures that the stakeholders have a common understanding of elicitation results and it is recorded in an appropriate manner, and ensures that the business analyst have the necessary information from the elicitation activities” (IIBA 2009).
4. Communicate Business Analysis Information: “It provides necessary information to the stakeholder at the time of their need it and it includes the right concepts and in a useful form” (IIBA 2009).
5. Manage Stakeholder Collaboration: “ It describes the involvement of the stakeholders in the overall business analysis process to ensure the delivering of outcomes” (IIBA 2009).

Requirement Life Cycle Management

Requirement Life Cycle Management characterizes the activities, business analysts will undertake with a view to handling and retaining requirements and developing knowledge from the entire life cycle of requirements. These activities include establishing relationships between related requirements and designs, assessing changes to requirements and designs when changes are proposed and analyzing and validating all changes. The purpose is to ensure that the business, stakeholders and the solution requirements and designed are aligned to one another. Typically, requirements are created at the beginning of a traditional lifecycle environment, distributed and checked at the end, and requirements are defined in an agile environment by usable deliverables that are developed, optimized and tested in a continuous process (Ramos 2019). This area involves the following tasks:

1. Trace Requirements: “ It analyses and manages the relationship between requirements, design, solution components and other products for an effective impact analysis” (IIBA 2009)
2. Maintain Requirements: “The specifications and designs are precise and current throughout the life cycle and, where necessary, facilitate reuse” (IIBA 2009)
3. Prioritize Requirements: “It assesses the risk and value linked to the design to ensure that the work is delivered at the given time” (IIBA 2009).
4. Assess Requirements Change: “Changes assess new and evolving expectations of stakeholders to decide if they need to be implemented within the framework of a transition” (IIBA 2009)
5. Approve Requirements: “Works with stakeholders engaged in the governance process to achieve consensus and acceptance of specifications and designs” (IIBA 2009)

Strategy Analysis

In today’s global and competitive climate, the speed of change allows companies to constantly reposition themselves to keep up or remain ahead of their competitors. In order to do this, companies understand quickly the need for an effective business plan. Strategic analysis describes the process of conducting research on a organization to formulate a plan and its operating environment. Victorian Infringement Management’s strategic analysis covers the processes surrounding the Victorian Ombudsman’s study, and this strategic analysis is very important to effective management in order to make the organization’s right decisions and function smoothly (Victorian Ombudsman 2014). Business Analysts are essential to help strategic planning companies, setting priorities and implement business strategies.

Business strategy analysis includes various tools such as SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter’s five force analysis, blue ocean strategy, war gaming strategy and value chain analysis to name a few. Strategy Analysis involves four basic steps. The first step involves the analyzing of the current state followed by defining the future state, then the risk assessment and defining the changes done. Strategy Analysis include the following:

1. Analyze Current State: “Understands the needs of the business and how they contribute to the manner in which the organisation works today” (IIBA 2009).
2. Define Future State: “It states objectives that demonstrate the satisfaction of the business needs and what aspects of the business need to adjust to achieve certain goals and objectives” (IIBA 2018).
3. Assess Risks: “It comprehends the uncertainties surrounding the transition, considers the impact that those uncertainties that have on the ability to produce value through a transition, and advises measures to resolve risks where possible” (IIBA 2018).
4. Define Change Strategy: “Carries out a gap analysis between existing and future status, examines options for achieving future status, and suggests the highest value strategy for achieving future status including any transitional states that might be needed along the way” (IIBA 2018).

Requirements Analysis and Design Definition

The method of determining the clients ‘ needs for an application to be developed or updated. Requirements Analysis includes all the activities undertaken to determine the needs of the various stakeholders. Therefore, it involves the analysis, reporting, testing and management of software or program specifications. The high-quality criteria are recorded, actionable, observable, testable, trackable, help recognize opportunities for business and are specified to promote the design of the programme. For a business analyst both requirements and designs are essential methods for identifying and facilitating change (Ross 1977). To distinguish between the requirements and the design is how and by whom they are used. They can be either high-level or quite specific depending on what’s suitable for those who consume the knowledge. The core concepts involved are change, need, solution, stakeholder, value and context. Following are the tasks, involved in Requirement Analysis and Design Definition:

1. Specify and Model Requirements: “
2. Verify Requirements: “
3. Validate Requirements: “
4. Define Requirements Architecture: “
5. Define Solution Options: “
6. Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution: “

References

1. IIBA 2018, BABOK Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, Version 3.0, Canvas Learning Management System, Swinburne Online, Swinburne University of Technology.
2. Milani, F., 2019. Business Analysis Plan and Monitoring. In Digital Business Analysis (pp. 111-125). Springer, Cham.
3. Ramos, E 2019, Elicitation and Collaboration, viewed 20 November 2019, < https://medium.com/swlh/elicitation-and-collaboration-the-main-path-for-business-analysis-d7eea834fe70>
4. Ramos, E 2019, Managing Business Analysis Information into Requirements Lifecycle, viewed 30 April 2019, < https://medium.com/swlh/managing-business-analysis-information-into-requirements-lifecycle-3254ee85ae96>
5. Ross, D.T. and Schoman, K.E., 1977. Structured analysis for requirements definition. IEEE transactions on Software Engineering, (1), pp.6-15.
6. Victorian Ombudsman 2014, Imposition and enforcement of court fines and infringement penalties in Victoria, viewed 17 November 2019, < https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/imposition-and-enforcement-court-fines-and-infringement-penalties-victoria>

Case Study of Discourse Community: Business Technology Analyst

I am interested in both business and technology but is there any job that combines both business and technology? The answer is yes. Although there are not a lot of these kinds of jobs. The one that I know is business technology analyst, which is the one that I wanted to do as my future career. An analyst is an individual who performs an analysis of a topic. The term may refer to one of the following professions: accounting, business, and finance. So, the business technology analyst is an emerging trans-disciplinary research area and professional in business administration. Since I want to become a successful Business Technology Analyst, I must make myself into this discourse community. I will need to do some research in this discourse community, to know what this job is doing and what kind of skills do I need to become an analyst, also introduce a system which is often used by business analysts. This would help us understand more about the business technology analyst’s world.

After doing some research, I now know what skills an analyst needs. A business analyst scrutinizes sets of data looking for ways to increase efficiency in an organization. In this way, the business analyst often acts as a liaison between different departments in a company, finding ways to streamline processes throughout the organization. The business analyst must be able to communicate well with these different groups in the organization, sometimes acting as a diplomat, and presenting solutions in ways that colleagues and stakeholders will understand. In this process, becoming a successful analyst, we need to have some essential skills, such as documentation skills, analytical skills. I found a blog explaining documentation skills and a article about analytical skill.

Starting from the documentation skills. I have found an article titled: How to Get Your Team Excited About Documentation (Again), this article is written by Adrienne Bellehumeur, this article is an excerpt from one of her books: Supercharge Your Documentation. In this article, she talks about what is documentation, and why or how to do documentation. In one paragraph I found she talks about why we should do documentation, if we did not do documentation, we will be frustrated on finding the documents. Here is a paragraph of Ms. Bellehumeur explaining why should we have a good documentation skills:

Managers often assume that their employees or consultants know how to create effective documents. These assumptions are, unfortunately, not the case: many managers are left disappointed and frustrated on finding out that the documentation created by their former consultants or employees is incomplete or unreadable and must be recreated. Rather, documentation is a dynamic skill – being a great documenter takes an understanding of these skills and many years of practice. But the skills are worth it in the end – the ability to document brings a valuable, tangible skill that you can leverage in all organizations, all industries and all projects and all operations (Bellehumeur pg. 5).

Having a strong documentation skill will really help an analyst to get started. A business analyst is responsible for documenting functional requirements, wireframes, business cases and more. Also, because the analyst always carries tons of data. They must prioritize tasks and be efficient with time and resource allocation. Having a good documentation skill means they can carry important information to the right people. That is very important, we do not want to give the wrong document to the wrong person, that may cause the organizations to have a big problem. So, creating a clear, concise documentation is a very important job for an analyst.

Going to the second analysts’ must learn skill ‘analytical skills’. Having an analytical skill is obviously a skill that an analyst has to have. I found an article in Businessphrases.net, titled: Analytical Skills. The Businessphrases.net is a website that provides us all the business skills and software knowledge we truly need. Strong analytical skills and analytical thinking are among the most required business abilities Widely used in resumes and cover letters. But what exactly are analytical skills and how can we improve them?

Analytical skills are the ability to collect, gather, visualize and analyze information in detail. They include also the ability to see a problem or situation from different points of view. Analytical skills allow you to solve complex problems by making decisions in the most effective way. That is way analytical thinking became one of the crucial skills in the workplace with a vital role in every type of business field. For example: If you are a business management developer your main goals are to find business opportunities for market growth and to increase sales. To achieve that you have to be able to gather and analyze information about company’s current position and to build a plan and strategies for business developing. If you do not possess strong analytical skills, it would be a mission impossible (“Analytical Skills”).

And the article does provide us some useful tips for us to improve our analytical skills. Below are the tips of how to collect the right information for your work:

• Determine exactly what you want to know.
• List down all possible sources of information.
• Determine which are the best sources of information and which are just useful.
• Determine the methods and ways of collecting information. For example, if you are in the marketing area, online survey tools are a great way to collect information.
• Determine gaps in your knowledge and try to fill these gaps.

(“Analytical Skills”)

A business analyst really needs to spend a lot of time analyzing all the problems, looking at hundreds or thousands of documents and determining solutions. By understanding how to interpret business, software and information workflows will help you advance in your career.

After understanding some skills that the analysts need, I would like to introduce an analytical system which is often used by the people in the analysts’ field, ‘OLAP’ (Online analytical processing). I found a company named Sisense, on their website they explained what exactly is OLAP. Sisense is a business analytical company that help their users simplifies every step of the business intelligence process, from data preparation to delivery of insights. So, what is OLAP? Here is the OLAP explained by Sisense:

OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) was introduced into the business intelligence (BI) space over 20 years ago, in a time where computer hardware and software technology weren’t nearly as powerful as they are today. Back then, given the circumstances, OLAP was groundbreaking. It introduced a spectacular way for business users (typically analysts) to easily perform multidimensional analysis of large volumes of business data. In analytics, it is often required to aggregate, group and join data.

These operations represent the most difficult types of queries for a relational database to process. Therefore, the magic behind OLAP derives from its ability to pre-calculate and pre-aggregate data (“Sicense”).

The OLPA systems have been categorized into three different taxonomy, MOLAP, ROLAP, and HOLAP, each operates together to help create a big database for the business. Thanks to the OLAP system, for the help of this system, analysts are able to have an easier way to analyze big volumes of information and not to mess up all the important information.

I know I still have a long way to go, to become a successful business technology analyst. I am just starting to learn everything related to this career, learning all the skills I need, and also learn the OLAP systems and lots of new things waiting for me to dig in. I enjoy learning new things in my discourse community. I wanted to become a successful analyst to be able to help people to grow their business or either help myself to grow my own business. I hope this long way will lead me to success and hope it will be worth it to keep staying in this discourse community.

PEST Analysis of Google

Google or Alphabet was founded in 1995 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Both of them attended Stanford grad school initially the search engines name was BackRub. Their first office was a garage in a suburban neighborhood owned by Susan Wojcicki who is the current CEO of YouTube which is another subsidiary by Alphabet. Google They now have hundreds of products mainly software related. The full form of google is Global Organization of Oriented Group Language of Earth and also the number googol. Their services range from Gmail to their google pixel line and android being an operating system.

PEST Analysis of Google

Political

Due to politically unstable situations in countries like China google is unable to fully utilize these markets fully, therefore limiting growth. China is the largest country by population as of 2020 thus google is losing one of their biggest customers Huawei. This also hinders some of their work in their US operations. Due to the U.S having a high corporate income tax google stores their money in foreign countries however recently there has been pressures to bring the money stored abroad back into the U.S this could negatively impact their cash flow. Furthermore, google is accused of having a monopoly by Europe leading to antitrust action thus there is pressure to change the way they give search results.

Economic

Due to the US being a fairly stable market that keeps growing over time this is a very beneficial for google as they can tap into other newer markets to increase revenue, moreover there is a concern regarding Alphabets huge stock cash that has been kept abroad. However this makes it vulnerable to exchange rates as keeping money abroad would mean converting back into the US dollar again therefore if the US dollar were to be weaker than the chosen currency they would lose money when they exchange for a weaker dollar.

Social

Due to the increase of social medias such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp makes the situation volatile and unable to predict the future. Google having been accused of ‘Selling’ its users information there has been controversy regarding this matter along with people opting to keep their information more private there is an increase for privacy-based search engines such as DuckDuckGo this is something google has not yet provided as a feature this gives a threat. Google has gotten good at being a website search engine but has not successfully gone to other segments of this market such as the shopping search market where 30% of users start at amazon. Along with people being more aware of their privacy in the long run google may lose customers to companies who are privacy focused.

Technological

The rise in internet usage in developing countries this provides an opportunity for google to enter these markets in addition to this due to the shift in use from desktops to mobile devices more and more manufacturers of these devices have made proprietary searches such as apple or Microsoft which uses Bing search. Even more competition is faced when apps are made by these companies in order to go to the website without visiting google. The integration of voice search with other services such as Facebook and Amazon by Amazon Alexa poses a threat towards googles long dominance. Along with the rise of new smear speakers. However, Google has its own smart speakers this has opened up a new market for this.

Major Challenges for Google

Google as a company has been labelled as not being an ethical company for hindering their search results in their favor thus making it seem that google is highly anticompetitive. The US law enforcements have been keeping an eye on google as well. Both the Department Of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are both participating in an anti-trust probe of the company. Not to mention even in the EU google is being investigated under their anti-trust commission. Moreover, google has been found in A wall street journal study to be interfere with their search engine resulting in the algorithm favoring big businesses over smaller ones.

In June of 2019 a shareholder meeting was bombarded with its handling of sexual harassment allegations along with their work with China to build a censored search engine given the code name ‘Project Dragon Fly’ however google ended this along with ‘Project Maven’ a contract with the military to review drone footage when such plans are let go some employees are let go as well thus this leads to an unsure and skeptical workforce that may end up being more in efficient in the long run.

If in the future suppose Google were to decide to expand into China further with a regulated search engine this could be made very troublesome due to the current tariffs between China and the US this leads to uncertainty in one of the biggest markets in the world not to mention major competitors of google come from China. Huawei uses to be one of the largest Chinese consumer of android however the recent phones cannot have a updated android system.

Recommendations for Google

Based on the source of many of these problems in my opinion can be attributed to googles secrecy thus it leads to long term consequences such as ‘Project Dragon Fly’ releasing a regulated search engine to China which is bad for publicity. This also leads to contusion among investors and an individual looking to invest in google may turn away due to their nature in being unable to detail with clarity why it missed its quarterly earnings in 2019. I would suggest Google to be more transparent in their actions along with that take care of employee harassment cases more seriously, ignoring these will damage Google’s public image and be labelled further as a bad employer. Many of there factors are external factors except for employee skepticism I would recommend google not to take short term projects that could reduce employee morale when they are let go or transferred away. Therefore, if this is applied well this may increase long term efficiency amongst employees.

Implication of Trends on Business Analysis

A business systems analyst (BSA) can be described as someone who undertakes business analysis tasks as stated in the BABOK Guide. A BSA is responsible for finding, extracting and interpreting information from a range of business sources including tools, procedures, documents and stakeholders. A BSA ensures that the requirements of the stakeholders are well elicited. This involves examining and articulating their stated needs to establish the problems in a system and its causes.

The role of a BSA is to align the planned and implemented strategies with stakeholder needs. The tasks that analysts perform include: understanding enterprise problems and goals; analysing needs and solutions; devising strategies; driving change; facilitating stakeholder collaboration (BABOK v 3.0, 2015).

When trying to deliver a project, business analysts’ employee the use of multiple methodologies. Organisations have historically used waterfall model to deliver these projects. But with advancement in technology and the need to deliver systems faster, companies have moved towards using agile as a preferred framework. But to align to a new methodology is not an easy task. It comes with its own set of challenges. At the centre of this integration are the various roles and commitments that key project team stakeholders need to serve. BSAs are a key part of these members that were required to change their way of working and embracing agile methodology. The have adopted new roles and are now responsible for different goals and achievable (Shah, 2017).

With growing use of technology in each aspect of the market, the data being generated daily is huge. Companies try to use this data for important decision making process and perform multiple operations on millions of lines of data each day. Compiling all this data together in a single place and then segregating it into chunks with similar attributes is a task that was initially carried out by engineers. But making sense out of this data and delivering useful information to the top level management is the job of someone who can understand the business well. This is where Systems Analysts come in. Nowadays, business analysts not only have to perform their regular tasks, but dive deep into the world of big data and data analytics to generate information that can be put to use to make important business decisions.

Agile

According to Kumar (2019), Agile Methodology believes that the procedures needed in today’s market to produce high value software are not predictable. Needs change, technology evolves, and efficiency of individual team member is highly unpredictable. When activities are not stable, and effects cannot be anticipated within reasonable range, we cannot use predictability-based planning techniques. We need to change the methods instead and direct them to produce our intended results. Agile project management achieves so by having development readily visible, monitoring project results regularly, and retaining the capacity to respond to changing situations when required.

Today, agile methodologies — which include new ideals, concepts, procedures and advantages and are a revolutionary alternative to traditional style management — are expanding through a wide variety of sectors and roles, and even into the C-suite. National Public Radio uses agile approaches to develop innovative content. These are used by John Deere to build new machinery, and by Saab to manufacture modern fighter jets. Intronis, a major provider of cloud storage services, uses these to market their products effectively and innovatively. C.H. Robinson, a multinational logistics supplier to third parties, extends the use of agile to human resources. Mission Bell Winery uses it for everything from wine making to storing to managing its senior management department. And GE relies on these methodologies to drive itself from being a 20th century conglomerate to a ‘digital industrial enterprise’ of the 21st century. By taking people out of their organisational silos and positioning them in multidisciplinary groups that are self-managed and client-focused, the agile model not only accelerates economic growth but also helps to develop a new breed of professional team managers (Rigby, Sutherland, & Takeuchi, 2016).

A ‘mindset’ is the set of behaviours that we put into one aspect of our life. In this case, we are thinking about getting an agile mentality on how we perform business analysis and how it relates to profitability in the real world. The agile approach is focused on a shared framework of human values that includes loyalty, confidence, teamwork, ongoing training, emphasis on customers and increasing value (Shane & Ananta, 2019).

In traditional software development practices, a business analyst had to gather requirements in the beginning of the project and then went ahead with planning designing and production. This created problems with longer projects in which the requirements would get changed a lot. This resulted in unnecessary delays or problems. Kumar (2019) stated that, agile focuses on moving towards clarity, instead of building complexity-managing processes. What Agile also does is compel specifications to be broken down much sooner in the life cycle, just so that their reach can be identified and converted to a User Story in the backlog to be prioritised. We have an expected autonomy among the functions because of the design of the agile specifications. Development is embedded within the user story, and each story can be individually checked, removing the need for complicated management software for specifications. Agile teams will also use advanced monitoring tools to track demands and handle them through the entire life cycle of growth.

So, while traditional software development methodologies like the waterfall model relied on complex methods to solve their problems, Agile uses simple and effective techniques to work its way around problems. Also, Agile is a faster and more efficient way to develop software in this fast paced and ever-changing market. With its whole premise being based around expecting changes, Agile works closely with changing requirements and changing stakeholder demands to ensure the end product is as market fit as possible.

As Shane & Ananta (2019) mentioned, agile practitioners concentrate on creating something, presenting it to customers, and prompt input to assess whether they are on course to fulfil the need. Agile practitioners in market research include stakeholders in discussions to create and sustain mutual understanding. Documentation does offer meaning, but only if it is written in accordance with its planned intent. Agile business analysis experts generate the required documents when they incorporate a transition and use it to promote and sustain stakeholder conversations.

Closely working with stakeholders on a project enables business analysts to ensure that any requirement changes in the project are always accounted for. In a market that is extremely volatile, the needs of an organisation changes every day and this needs to reflect on the end product. Stakeholders get regular updates so that they can guide the team whether they are on the right track or not. This makes agile a highly effective tools in a business analyst’s arsenal as he is the one who will always be in contact with the stakeholders on the inside and out. He is the one making sure that everything runs smoothly.

Big Data & Data Science

With the growing use of technology, data is also growing. Big data means not only large and complex data collection but also revolutionary thinking, smart technology and an ambitious technical revolution. Using big data, data analysts can process additional data and then have the capacity to manage many characteristics on a vast number of records. Big data is hugely critical and has to be analysed in order to gain valuable information and make the best business decisions (Liu, 2020).

According to Steinberg & Aronovich (2020), the use of data analytics in the industry and businesses has a variety of features that stick out. One of the most significant is that the issues are given priority, not because of the technical obstacle they present, but because of the additional value they bring the organisation. In this climate, a successful data science specialist has to recognize what powers the business of the client and recognise the influence of their assesses and resources on the end. This perception is also important for deciding which issues to include in line with the empirical engineering paradigm to set priorities.

As Murthy and Raghunath have stated in their whitepaper (n.d.), business analysis requires assessing business workflows or structures, and reviewing the business strategy and its application with innovations such as data science. Nonetheless, several companies concentrate more on the need for data scientists to believe that it will be enough to improve metrics and neglect the role of BA specialists who can actually play a critical role in this transformation process. BA experts can serve as a bridge between the analytics team and realistic solutions to business matters. Having BA professionals on deck will have an impact on whether the investment made by an organisation pays off and develops into usable information.

An organisation might feel that it can get by with only data analysts in the team but having knowledge of both business processes and accessing the right data is critical. Business analysts can provide the perfect combination with a little upskilling and can help an organisation find the right data to base its results on. As Khanna & Singh (n.d.) explain, the BA specialist can use his or her industry expertise to determine the correct set of data needed to test the prioritised concept, verify the usability of the data and confirm the legal rights to use the details, given that some of these data could come from interfaces used by consumers. The next stage, once the staff has access to the right data, is to search for lost, insufficient, inaccurate and distorted data. The BA expert can then pick the data which yields the best business impact for the client based on his or her industry experience. It can also prove useful to do a cost benefit analysis or a business case on the dataset chosen for the analysis.

Requirement gathering can thus be improved by ensuring a close-knit workplace with data analysts and business analysts where the data analysts work on the technical side of the data and the business analyst ensures that the data is always relevant and presents value to the business.

The use of data and data science in the healthcare sector is particularly promising. In the last five years, healthcare providers have committed billions of dollars in technology to maximise patient engagement, increase the quality of patient care and reduce the overall care costs. And investors in healthcare are highly curious about investing in Healthcare IT. Electronic medical records or EMRs have evolved rapidly due to innovation in technology. (Roth, 2019)

Big data continues to affect healthcare firms. “Few dispute that organizations have more data than ever at their disposal”, said McKinsey and Company (2016). “But actually deriving meaningful insights from that data—and converting knowledge into action—is easier said than done”.

Roth (2019) tells us that, business analysts are a valuable tool for healthcare companies as they are wading through a large volume of data and putting it to effective use. Data science is a valuable asset for healthcare institutions but it is useless if left unused. Business analysts help corporate leaders draw on the importance of big data for enhancing the health of patients. Apart from this, BAs help the top level formulate and execute strategies that help the companies with their cost and growth.

But data science is not all sunshine. It brings its own set of problems for companies implementing it. All stakeholders do not have the technical understanding to comprehend the information derived from the operations performed by the data scientists. It falls on the business analysts, to analyse that information and form structure and meaning so that all level of stakeholders can understand and make informed decisions.

Conclusion

Business analysis is on the cusp of transformation and technologies like agile and data science are leading the charge. From gathering requirements in an organisation to managing stakeholders, everything is changing. Along with this change, it is time for business analysts to change their skillset as well. The boundary between business analysts and data analysts is slowly diminishing as they cross over each others functions and responsibilities. But the knowledge of business and industry expertise with a BA is still a valuable weapon in his set of arsenal.

Agile is improving the way BAs deliver software projects by expecting change all along the way of the project while the extraordinary amount of data produced nowadays helps them to generate important information which is extremely beneficial to the corporate leaders in a company.

Lego Brand Structure Overview and PESTLE Analysis

Lego is the world’s and most profitable and successful toymaker (Bhattarai, 2020). “Lego is a Danish company, best known for the production of Lego-brand toys which consist of interlocking plastic bricks” (Barakaat, 2019). Since it was founded in 1932 the brand has made innovative and ground-breaking designs to entertain children, and others worldwide. The iconic brand has a major influence and significance within the toy industry as it is the leading competitor and holds a major market share and a loyal customer base. This report breaks down the Lego brand framework and gives a PESTEL analysis to help further progress the company through a brand extension.

Mission & Key Goal

The Lego brand’s mission is “to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow” and its purpose is “to inspire and develop children to think creatively, reason systematically and release their potential to shape their own future – experiencing the endless human possibility”. Lego’s Vice President of Digital Consumer Engagement Peter Kim said the Lego mission creates a strong internal culture. “The culture is quite strong. Anyone can tell you what the mission and vision are. We have a goal to reach 300 million children by 2032: these are the things that people who come to (work at Lego) understand and know” (Handley, 2018). Lego is a global company that aims to reach children across the globe in hopes of educating them through their endless product designs. The core values of the brand include imagination, creativity, fun, learning, caring and quality which are combined to create innovative products which millions of people enjoy and use as a creative outlet. Lego is the number one leader in the toy industry due to its solid and fulfilled mission to inspire and develop people across the globe.

Core Customer Group

Lego’s primary audience is children ages 3-15 (Bakaraat, 2019), with the main target being children ages 5-8 (Riley, 2017). However, like many smart toy companies the brand also targets an older audience by marketing to parents and adults. Parents are concerned about the toys their children play with and by creating a parent-approved product, LEGO makes it easy to access the wallets of its target audiences (Dodge, 2020). Lego’s customers range from toddlers to adults as the brand markets towards all ages. Lego bricks can be used for play and education as well as a stress reliever for adults needing a break. Adults have become a greatly desired market for toymakers confronting competition and product growth (Bhattarai, 2020).

PESTLE Analysis

Political

As such a well-known global brand it is important that Lego maintains a political neutrality to attract customers. Getting involved in political affairs can negatively impact the reputation Lego has worked so hard to build and can result in a decrease of consumers therefore political neutrality remains a core value of Lego. (Barakaat, 2019.) Before 1980’s a higher import tax also prevented Lego to enter some markets, therefore Lego has to outsource its production line in certain countries to lower production costs and make the products more of a threat to competitors (Turner, 2002).

Economical

Lego outsources its manufacturing to China to decrease cost of production to produce more and lower costs for consumers. The toy industry has developed strongly over the years and can be seen as economically stable in the recent years which positively impacts Lego’s market and profit.

Social-Cultural

The Lego foundation has strayed from traditional toys to create more dynamic and modern ways of play. The brand encourages learning through creativity and imagination and works to empower children worldwide through their own ability to think and develop. The brand is inclusive to all ages creating a large customer base and makes the Lego foundation appear to be acceptive and supportive of children and adults globally.

Technological

Lego not only market their classic plastic bricks but have since extended into new technologies to improve products for their customers. The brand has also collaborated with movies to create product lines such as Lego Jurassic World and Lego Star Wars to market to a larger audience by advertising their product in conjunction with other popular movies. In 2014 the Lego foundation released their own animation film, The Lego Movie which resulted in $4.4 billion sales of the plastic bricks in February 2014. (Brown, 2017.)

Environmental

The Lego foundation is constantly striving to make Lego bricks 100% from sustainable resourced by 2030. So far, out of 3,600 elements just 80 are made from sustainably sourced polyethylene. However, Lego is vigorously experimenting with different plant-based materials and recycled sources in hopes of creating more sustainable products. Today, the majority of Lego packaging is cardboard or paper-based which is recyclable however by 2025 Lego hopes to make all packaging from renewable or recycled in hopes of limiting their negative economic impact. Lego also have a replay program, which enables customers to pass along their bricks to others through a donation processor as part of their planet promise (Lego Group, 2020).

Legal

There are multiple laws and regulation associated with copyrights, trademarks, unfair competition, counterfeiting that Lego must obey and also ensure others are obeying in terms of the Lego company. There have been various pirate copies of Lego bricks which Lego have sued over the years. The Lego Group cooperate with manufacturers of branded products on an international basis to enforce and strengthen legislations (Lego Group, 2020). The Lego Group must also be aware of the different laws and regulations within each different country in reference to marketing and producing their products.

Competitive Environment

Lego was the number one ranked toy brand in the world in 2019, with a brand value of 6.7 billion US dollars. In 2019 the toy industry reached 89 billion dollars in annual revenue; competition between brands remaining strong (O’Connell, 2019). Lego is the most valuable brand in the toy manufacturing industry (Bhasin, 2018). However the competition is rising. Lego’s biggest competition in the toy industry consists of Bandai Namco, Fisher-Price, Nerf and Barbie. However, Lego’s revenue is more than four times Bandai Namco who are considered Lego’s biggest competitor and the second most valued toy brand in the world. Despite this, in 2019 there was a 3% decline in sales of Lego which can be attributed to the growing market from digital services such as online gaming (Haigh, 2019). According to Forbes some people predict that by 2025 the video game industry will reach over $300 billion US dollars (Koksal, 2019). This (Milne, 2020) can be detrimental to Lego’s sales as they are already seeing a decline due to the growing online gaming market. Despite Lego’s decline in 2019, in 2020 Lego reported to lift its revenue by 6% and increased its net profit by 3% to 8.3 billion (Milne, 2020). Niels Christiansen, Lego’s chief executive reported a successful increase in market share in 2020: “It was a strong year where we outperformed the toy industry and grew consumer sales and market share in all our largest markets”. Therefore, despite tough competition the Lego Brand is still experiencing growing sales and remains the strongest competitor within the toy industry.

Lego Business Identity Analysis

Lego is world’s famous and largest company of plastic toys manufacturing. Lego was using petroleum manufactured ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) to make its toys’ bricks, which is not environment friendly. Lego is proactively decreasing their carbon footprints and they also announced and took initiative in 2015 that by 2030 Lego’s products will be entirely sustainable.

LEGO company efforts towards their sustainability is significantly appraisable. Lego partnership with World Wildlife (WWF) promotes globalization which helped them to reduce their carbon dioxide emission in toys production and supply chain operations. LEGO company planned that by 2025 they will make their packaging 100% sustainable. LEGO also introduced treehouse kit in 2019, that was made from sustainable source sugar cane produce polyethylene. LEGO group present the following solutions to reach its 2030 goals:

1. Replace packaging with biopolymers.;
2. Adopt a biological mindset to identify ABS replacements and LEGO brick manufacturing;
3. Brew the plastic onsite (reduce its carbon footprint);
4. Grow the bricks (biologically).

LEGO tried to recapture the narrative and re-affirm its long-held positive notoriety by embraced an aspiring set-up of maintainable objectives for itself and also build strategic partnership with World Wildlife fund (WWF).The focal point of this initiative is LEGO’s Maintainable Materials Centre, which is expected to enrol in excess of 100 representatives with an end goal to discover and execute reasonable options in contrast to existing materials by 2030.

According to CEO and President of the LEGO Group. This is a significant advance for the LEGO Group on their way towards accomplishing their 2030 desire on maintainable materials. They have found the ways to lessen their carbon footprints and leave a positive effect on the earth by decreasing the packaging size, by presenting FSC certified packaging and through their interest in an offshore wind farm. They are quickening their attention on materials.

According to Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, owner of the Lego Group. Their central goal is to move and build up the manufacturers of tomorrow. They accept that their primary commitment to this is through the inventive play encounters they give to youngsters. The speculation reported is a demonstration of their proceeded with an aspiration to leave a positive effect on the planet, which people in the future will acquire. It is absolutely in accordance with the strategic the LEGO Group and in accordance with the saying of his granddad and author of the LEGO Gathering, Ole Kirk Kristiansen: “Simply the best is adequate”.

LEGO launched build the change, to achieve their future goal. It was a global initiative and it was motivational for company that they received hundreds of letters from children in those letters children expressed their ideas about environment and animal welfare. By working on all these initiatives LEGO will achieve its long-held positive reputation of sustainability with the help of World wildlife Fund for nature, organizations like bioplastic feedstock alliance and many other materials scientists.

LEGO has been utilizing acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or ABS to make its blocks. ABS is strong, lustrous, and can join dynamic shading colours. ABS is manufactured from petroleum that is the main problem. To achieve their planned sustainability LEGO face difficulties in ‘Greening’ LEGO bricks is a challenge.

According to Molly Morse, “The advanced, precision engineering required to manufacture the iconic LEGO is not easily amenable to a new polymer”. The primary specialized test is creating materials that have the equivalent physical properties, for example, solidness, rubbing, and sparkle, said Matt Whitby.

Ecological Commitment manager of LEGO Group state that, “What’s more, maybe in particular, the blocks need ‘grasp power’, the adaptability that empowers blocks to be assembled and dismantled by a kid”. Any LEGO block of things to come must meet these high specialized prerequisites, keep on driving in safety standards, and be delivered from manageable sources.

By exploring plant-based plastics, Lego had would have liked to join the preferences Vegware, with its compostable options in contrast to plastic cutlery and food compartments. In any case, the mission to supplant non-renewable energy source based plastics with plant-based options that have a less hurtful effect on nature is an extreme one, particularly as Lego would like to discover a plant-based elective that won’t corrupt after some time however will keep going for some ages of play.

The organization endeavoured to make blocks from corn-inferred plastic, yet these were dreadfully delicate to work with, and collected sets risked twisting and hanging after some time. Wheat-based plastics experienced issues uniformly circulating colour shades through the material which gave a lopsided shading, and they were additionally considered to be too dull contrasted with the brilliant, polished appearance of an ordinary block.

The LEGO Group accepts another sustainable material must have an ever-lighter impression than the material it replaces across key natural and social effect regions, for example, fossil asset use, human rights, and environmental change. For the LEGO Group, a sustainable material must be created capably utilizing inexhaustible or reused assets, producing almost no loss in their creation, and utilizing sustainable science while satisfying their high guidelines for wellbeing, quality, and strength. In any case, they are working with providers, inquire about foundations and different businesses to build up these new materials for LEGO blocks of things to come.

LEGO faced many challenges to achieve their sustainability goal including all above and they beautifully overcome all hurdles till now.

Reasons Why Sony Betamax Fails in the Market and How to Avoid it

The company named Sony is successfully running in the market but there is the product which is failed when they open the company or newly start. The product was video cassette recording which is also called vcr. The name given to the product was Betamax and in the market it was called sony Betamax. This product has several features but there are many demerits of that product due to which the product was failed in the market. The company sony launched the product Betamax in to the market in the year 1975 with the mission to earn profit and to compete in the market.

The reasons why the sony Betamax fails in the market:

1. Time. In the sony Betamax you can only record the video up to only one hour whereas in the vhs you can record up to six hours of the video whereas the minimum length of the video is two hours. For example if a person has to make a video on any topic then a person has to take the video recorder whose length will be more than hour because the normal length of any movie is two hours. So the vhs is more useful for it.
2. Market strategy. The strategy of the sony Betamax was also weak. Due to weak marketing strategy the company face the problem of the failed project. In this point the company sony do not analyze the market like they have to take feedback from the customers like what are things you like in the product as well as you like the recording time or not?
3. Satisfaction. Sony Betamax did not satisfy the customer. Customer satisfaction is the most important factor in every field. If the customer is not happy then the product should be failed in the market. In this the services provided by the sony are less as compared to the jvc. Services like recording time, picture quality and many more.

So these are the factors which lead to the failure of the sony Betamax. No doubt there will be some suggestions to avoid the failure of the product. Some of them are:

1. Advertisement. It is the very important factor which lead to the successful of the any product whether is of any brand. Without advertisement no product is survive in the market. Sony has to go door to door and give specifications of the product.
2. Environment. The company has to change with the environment. For example when the jvc launched his product then sony also has to modify his Betamax like they have to upgrade the product. By analyze the market the company has to give the tough competition to the jvc.
3. Strategies. The sony company has to make strategies if any product launched in the market then the company will have no effect on the product. Like the company has to full resources in the market that any company launched the product then his company will be no side effects. So in this way the company project will never fails.

References

1. Betamax: Stories of Tech Failure. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.appliedcommunication.org/?p=461
2. 2. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.engineerguy.com/failure/betamax.htm.
3. Schofield, J. (2003, January 25). Why VHS was better than Betamax. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/jan/25/comment.comment.