The current business environment shows that there are more than 52 % of global enterprises that leverage advance and predictive analytics[1]. Having access to the data is great, but the real resource of competitive advantage is having great business analysts who provide their organization with greater insights and contextual intelligence out of the data.
Complex projects are complex for a reason. Actually, it’s usually a multitude of reasons, colliding together at a place and time to jointly pose a business continuity threat. Usually that threat is manifested as a resource-related deficiency needed to meet the targeted project outcomes.
In the IT industry, perhaps somewhat more than in many other industries, the importance of understanding the specific business characteristics simply carries more weight to it – as the proper planning will later - once the project goes into its production phase - reflect on optimal, or less-than-optimal use of resources such as the man-days, licenses and other resources needed to deliver a project successfully.
Among the IT subindustries, the IT system integrators tend to have a higher percentage of diversely complex projects in comparison to some highly specialized IT industry “siblings”. The reason for this phenomenon is fairly logical and straightforward: unless the system integrator is specialized in a particular filed, they are probably a multi-vendor, meaning that they likely cater to a larger number of solutions from a large number of their vendors. Additionally, system integrators, more often than not, engage with more than just a few industries at a time. Thus, the specific problematics of different industries add up to the diverse plethora of challenges to be met.
In IT industry, many would argue that the core workforce would come from the developers, system engineers and other IT-native staff pool. However, great businesses tend to have teams of real champions in the horizontally supportive functions, such as business analytics. The business analytics team’s contribution falls along most phases of solution delivery, yet, it is arguably very important in defining the approach. Great business analysts have a thorough understanding of the specific business domain, experience in implementation of such projects, and technical understanding of technologies and tools pushed by the partner vendor network. That ability to bridge the two usually polar opposites of an IT organization, “the engineering” and “the business”, makes business analysts a unique asset for the organization.
A recent research by Harvard Business School[2], shows that global enterprise businesses are increasingly embracing the importance of quality business analytics, and forecasting the growth in the investment into business analyses capacities for the 71% until the end of next year. It’s only obvious that the field of business analyses and its practical further implementation in the business informed decision-making processes will continue to grow, thus giving more weight to their business analysists.
One of the companies that has recognized the value of its business analytics domain is Comtrade System Integration. Comtrade System Integration is a regional IT company headquartered in Belgrade, and will full-fledged offices in Ljubljana and Sarajevo. The company is focused on helping businesses enhance performance through complex system integration services. The company was founded in back in 2001, and employs more than 500 IT professionals with top industry certifications. Through our partnerships with global technology leaders, including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Dell and other, the company offers premium IT products, professional services and expertise in design, development and integration of systems and applications. Our portfolio includes: Data Center Design and Implementations, Cloud Services and Solutions, ICT infrastructure, DWH/BI, Big Data Analytics, CRM, ECM, cyber security, custom applications and others. Company’s business analysts team currently consists of 12+ highly experienced professionals, that both carry highest formal certifications such as well as a vast hands-on experience with complex projects in various industries.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2018/08/08/global-state-of-enterprise-analytics-2018/?sh=3844a2c06361
[2] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/importance-of-business-analytics