Category: Technology

The merits of agility were first pointed in good detail by Charles Darwin himself. According to his words, “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
As the world today seems to be extremely fast and up-to-date with innovations and inventions, business leaders have started to understand that everything is under constant change or transformation. The technology today is moving ahead at a very fast pace making the growth of the companies a lot volatile. If we compare the situation to the theory put forward by Darwin, we could find that only the companies which have developed the agility required to adapt to the constantly changing landscape of the business are able to survive in the industry for a longer time. Change management has emerged as a critical factor for companies all over the world today. Great business leaders possess the ability to take leverage of these changes and lead the new order rising because of it. In the modern world, the corporate models age very rapidly and in order to survive and thrive in such an unpredictable climate, one must develop the agile programming capability to reinvent at a short notice or remodel at a short span. Those who fail to do so find themselves obsolete and vanished without a trace.
Also Read : Ways Organization Can Work On Change Management
The leaders who acquire the ability to adapt to the new norms of agility across the industry rapidly are the ones who can anticipate and predict the changes before they actually happen and act upon these changes in order to ensure the survival and prosperity of their organization even after the change. Viable change management process can be developed and implemented in response to the changes in the market with timely and effective organization support for coping with the anticipated or predicted change.
A great man always sees the changes as an opportunity, an enabler; something which can be taken advantage of to reach new heights. On the other hand, those who see the changes as hurdles or inhibitor are more likely to fall prey to the Darwinism effect with their organization ultimately failing or struggling to survive in the new order.
A business leader in today’s world must learn on how to integrate and implement change management into the core foundation of their business and must possess the ability and expertise to construct a business design and strategy around it. A great leader would keep his team updated about those strategies and his resources ready at short notice. One can reap huge rewards from the agility of their enterprise by adopting a proper blueprint for integrating such agility into their business and placing the required change management tools and change management strategies in place ready for disposal at short notice.
Change management is one of the most effective strategies for implementing changes in the organization. Most of the large organizations use change management systems and tools for the task. One of the most well-known and used change management systems is the Prosci system which is utilized by many Fortune 500 companies all over the world.
Change management is necessary as although every leader is capable of developing a roadmap for the ecosystem of the company after the change, not all of them find it easy to execute it. Execution of an idea is difficult unless the tools and manpower associated with it are managed effectively. Adoption of change management systems or architecture rescues one from this burden by easing up the whole change management process in the ecosystem of the organization which can be achieved through agile programming.

It’s quite surprising how after teaching you Accounting, Marketing, organizational behaviour and even business psychology, universities and schools forget to tutor students on something they will spend a significant part of their careers doing- writing. If you go into consulting, banking or law, writing is perhaps your biggest weapon or weakest link. If your writing is crisp, so will be your communication. If sloppy, then you might suddenly find yourself responsible for the break down in a big deal negotiation because you decided to leave out a comma in an important email or forget to check up on your numbers. Remember the example:’ Eats, shoots and leaves?’
Here are the top 5 dumbest mistakes people make in business writing.

1. Er…your numbers don’t add up: You could have done every calculation right and you’re probably the brains behind the entire idea, but it takes only one table that doesn’t add up to question the sanctity of your entire report. This usually happens when excel sheets are linked and don’t update properly. So don’t trust excel. Make sure your original excel sheets are not linked to anything and have no reference value issues. Two: Paste your table as a graphic if you can. That way if something changes in your excel sheet, it won’t on your document. 
2. Unsourced data: Business writing is not a thesis. No one is looking for original thought, we are looking for coherent analysis. Everybody knows you didn’t travel to Sierra Leone to find out what percentage of their diamonds are blood diamonds. But someone did. And your data and the following analysis is much more valuable if you make a reference to them.
3. Over-reliance on spell and grammar check: Is ‘colour’ also spelt as ‘color’? Not according to my spell check. Spell check is good but doesn’t blindly accept every change. Understand the context. Sometimes Word thinks it knows better than you; it doesn’t.
4. Less is more: Keep the body of your main powerpoint presentation or report as short as possible. The best business writing gets to the point immediately. Try to put all the supporting documentation in the appendix. That said, don’t put in your own personal thoughts on why the stock market is about to crash. A good appendix is a useful appendix that enhances the main study. It is not the place where you dump research just because you spent four hours looking for it.
5. Passive writing: Write in the active voice.

Example of active voice:  Mr Prabakar leads the team.  
Example of passive voice: The team is led by Mr Prabakar.

You might think it sounds the same but look at it again. In the first instance, your focus is on Mr Prabakar. The passive voice is clunkier and leaves room for ambiguity. The active voice is more assertive and sure of itself. Only use the passive tense if you want to emphasize something in the sentence. So if you wanted to emphasize the team, you can say.

The team is now led by Mr Prabakar.

But as a rule, stick to the active tense.
Finally, get someone to read your document before you present it. This should take care of language, cross-references, acronyms that need to be expanded and odd ‘xxx%’ which will irritate your MD so much that he might take it into your consideration when paying your bonus.
Click to check out Investment Banking Courses in Mumbai
For more tips on writing, check out the following books. There is no shame in keeping a small reference library on your desk.

Who would not like to be known as the person ‘who shall fix it all’, ‘the problem solver’? If you are someone who looks at every problem as a challenge only eager to solve it, then the role of a business analyst is ideal for you as the very core of a business analyst’s role is to find solutions, to be a problem solver. Technology evolution, especially in the last couple of decades, has drastically changed the manner in which business issues and challenges are resolved by IT-based solutions. IT intervention is not limited to merely IT management, but its prominence has shifted to that of value creation, by offering technology-based business solutions. Hence a Business Analyst becomes the go-to person within an organisation to provide such solutions. Business Analyst currently is the most valued in almost all domains across industries.

Some advantages of choosing the role of a Business Analyst

Networking

If you are a person who does not like to work in silos, then this is the job for you as it is expected that you collaborate with every stakeholder and business head internally, and customer base and client, on the external front, so basically with the ‘who is who’ of the company on an internal and external front. Not to forget travel becomes a part of the job when you have to liaise with clients at their home front, to understand their processes in their environment.

Multi-Tasking on Different Fronts

A business analyst usually maintains a bird’s eye view and simultaneously works on several things at the same time. They need to Analyse Requirements, Consider Research Options, Understand Functional and Technical Requirements, be a Team Leader, the Change Agent, Document and the Meetings, and Communicate with the client via Presentations, and at the time do all this in a day! So basically they have to manage all areas of a project with flexibility and be approachable. No wonder they are the most sought-after people in an organisation.

Opens up further Career Opportunity

This role does not restrict you to IT or any specific domain, in fact, it is very versatile, with as less as 3-5 years of experience you can decide how do you want to take this role ahead. Functional Analyst becomes an option if you intend to pursue a specific domain or technology. IT Business Analyst is another option if you where you can position yourself as a mediator between Business and Technology. This role also opens up the Managerial Vertical where with the required exposure and skills one can consider a role in Project Management. Thus a career as a business analyst is highly sought after as it has the flexibility to pursue any role that you desire and achieve the growth that you seek.

Independence and Flexibility

Since your role involves liaising with top management, there is minimal micromanagement and a great amount of freedom to bring in responsibility, trust, creativity, in accomplishing tasks.
Every day of a business analyst is different. With more organisations understanding the benefit of a dedicated business analyst position, the job market is set to explode. The role offers great pay packages. With a high sense of achievement and contribution that you get while performing your tasks, it can be said that the business analyst career is close to perfect.
It has the three pillars of financial stability, professional growth, and professional satisfaction. So if you are a fresh graduate and looking at career options, a business analyst’s role should be on your list.

Also Read: Business Analyst Career Path