Business analysis: innovating through collaboration

Global economic, technological and environmental changes require organisations to be in a constant state of awareness for improvement and innovation. Responding to such changes is essential if organisations are to endure and grow, and typically concerns areas such as staff expertise, process efficiency or technology innovation. Dr Debra Paul explores.

Summary

Business analysis is a worldwide discipline that is essential for successful business change, and requires a range of skills
Two new disciplines, business architecture and service design, are now at the forefront of organisational development
Service frameworks which define business analysis offer career clarity and progression for individuals as well as supporting organisations
Rapid change requires organisations to innovate continually; business analysis and its newer sub-disciplines can be vital to success

Too often, change is driven by cost reduction without regard to the impact on the organisation and, accordingly, the service received by customers.

Improvement and innovation initiatives need to be holistic, encompassing many capability dimensions and extending across the organisation. This holistic approach has underpinned the development of business analysis, a worldwide discipline that offers skills that are essential for successful business change. Proficient business analysts bring an extensive toolkit of techniques and skills, including the ability to investigate situations, develop creative change options and, through analytical evaluation, identify the most promising avenues for improvement.

Latterly, two newer disciplines have emerged that can enhance an organisation’s ability to respond to environmental forces, create opportunities for efficiency and innovation, and extend business analysis careers: business architecture and service design. These two disciplines are at the forefront of organisational development and are particularly relevant given the pressures on organisations to offer services that meet increasing customer expectations.

The three service frameworks

The Business Analysis Service Framework (Paul, 2018) was developed to define the services offered by business analysts to their organisations. The business analyst role had been subject to much discussion and misunderstanding over many years. The motivation for establishing this framework was to help clarify the role.

The concept of a service framework was extended to encompass business architecture, resulting in the Business Architecture Service Framework (Hunsley et al, 2025). A Service Design Service Framework was also developed, using the original principles in the BA Service Framework (Paul and Hunsley, 2026).

All three frameworks are intended to help organisations clarify the work conducted by the professionals working within these disciplines and to offer a basis for collaboration. This is particularly the case when investigating a situation or service and establishing a case for improvement. The frameworks are intended to be customised so that they reflect the objectives and requirements of an individual organisation.

The relationships between the disciplines

Questions are often raised about the ways in which business architects and service designers interact and collaborate with business analysts.

While the work of each of these three disciplines is conducted by specialist practitioners, there are many areas where their activities and skills overlap, and collaboration is essential. Essentially, there is a three-way, mutually supportive and enabling relationship between these disciplines that has the potential to offer significant advantages to organisations.

Service improvement example

An example that demonstrates the links between these three disciplines concerns an organisation wishing to develop a new service or enhance an existing service. The three disciplines are involved in the work as follows:

The service owner initiates a service design investigation
A service designer investigates the service requirements and identifies the value proposition, key service journey features and required, measurable outcomes
The overview service design is reviewed by a business architect, in collaboration with the service designer, to identify the primary activities required to fulfil the value proposition, the capabilities needed to conduct the activities and the information requirements of the service
A business analyst investigates the current capabilities and information available to deliver the service and highlights the gaps with the desired capabilities and information. The business analyst collaborates with the service designer and business architect to identify and evaluate options that will address the gaps while continuing to achieve the desired service outcomes and value proposition
The requirements for the new service are defined by the business analyst. These requirements address the five POPIT elements and enable the development and deployment of the solution
The business analyst collaborates with other stakeholders to develop the solution (the roles conducting this work depend upon the solution requirements)
The business architect reflects the capability and information enhancements, and ensures the service value stream is documented accurately
The service designer validates that the service value proposition will be met and that the outcome measures achieved
The new/enhanced service is deployed by change management and other specialists as relevant to the situation

Business analyst career development

One of the principles underlying the service frameworks is that they offer career clarity and progression for individual professionals as well as supporting their organisations. Business architecture might appeal to business analysts who focus on the more strategic, organisational-wide aspects, while service design might appeal to someone drawn to analysing customer needs, journeys and service outcomes.

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Two pathways begin with a typical entry service for business analysts: requirements definition, then extending into business process improvement. One pathway then graduates to other business analysis services: situation investigation and problem analysis, and business change deployment. The other path uses the skills gained from business process improvement to support development into the business architecture discipline, conducting the business architecture services of target operating model design and strategic roadmap development.

An alternative pathway begins with another typical entry service for business analysts — business process improvement — and then moves towards situation investigation and problem analysis. The skills gained there then enable the business analyst to move into a service design discipline, conducting CX analysis and service definition.

Conclusion

Environmental change is ongoing and relentless, requiring organisations to adapt and innovate continually. The business analysis discipline has demonstrated the importance of analytical, holistic thinking when responding to such changes. The advent of the newer disciplines of business architecture and service design offer significant advantages for organisations and career pathways for business analysts. Effective collaboration between these disciplines should ensure that improvement and innovation opportunities result in change that is beneficial for all.

Dr Debra Paul is a Visiting Fellow at The Henley Business School and Non-Executive Director at AssistKD (www.assistkd.com), which offers training and certification services designed to support business analysts who wish to progress their careers via the pathways outlined above.