Rationale for Business Analysis
• The role of the BA throughout the stages of the business change lifecycle
• Understand the scope of the BA role within the context of strategic analysis, business analysis, and IT systems analysis
• Recognise the competencies required of a BA across the areas of Personal Qualities, Business Knowledge, and Professional Techniques
Understanding the strategic context
• Apply the MOST and Resource Audit techniques to analyse an organisation’s internal environment
• Apply the PESTLE and Porter’s Five Forces techniques to analyse an organisation’s external environment
• Explain the purpose of a SWOT analysis, and apply SWOT to a given scenario
• Understand the relationship between Critical Success Factors (CSF), Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Performance Targets
• Use the Balanced Business Scorecard
Understanding the current situation
• Identify generic stakeholder categories using the Stakeholder Wheel
• Identify the relavent Investigation Techniques for a given scenario
• Understand the rationale for taking a holistic view when investigating a business situation
• Interpret the business situation represented in Rich Pictures, Mind Maps, and Fishbone Diagrams
Stakeholder Analysis and Management
• Explain different stakeholder perspectives based on elements of CATWOE, to compare their world views
• Describe stakeholders in terms of their power/influence and level of interest
• Select an appropriate stakeholder management strategy based on the position on the Power/Interest Grid
• Apply the CATWOE technique to explore stakeholder business perspectives
Analysing and modelling business activities
• Understand the rationale for building conceptual models of a business situation
• Construct a conceptual business activity model (BAM), based on a given scenario
• Understand the role of the five BAM activity types, and the dependencies between them
• Understand types of Business Events, and the business activities to handle them
• Analysing business rules
• Understand the rationale for the consensus business activity model
Identifying potential solutions
• Understand the differences between types of business rules
• Understand how to carry out a Gap Analysis
• Define a new business model across the components of POPIT
Building the business case
• Understand the rationale for developing a business case
• Describe the contents of a business case
• Identify and categorise costs, benefits, risks, impacts
• Understand the rationale for financial appraisal techniques
• Understand where a business case sits within the business change lifecycle
Exam Format
Certification is dependent on achieving the Pass Mark of 26/40 correctly answered Multiple-Choice Exam questions. The Exam is paper-based, closed-book, and has a duration of 60 minutes. Additional time is available under certain circumstances, which are outlined on the BCS website.