All businesses have needs.
These needs can be based on what they need to fulfill their objectives or triggered by some unforeseen event, either way all businesses have needs which have to be fulfilled.
When a new business is started the leaders would have some goods or services which they would like offer to the public.
To be successful the business would have to have efficient operations. It is the job of the business leaders to set the goals and objectives for the enterprise and set up effective teams who would work hard to deliver on these goals and objectives.
These goals and objectives are the business needs; they are the things the business must achieve to operate a profitable, efficient, and successful business.
When the business needs are defined at the highest level they may include the business mission statement or improvement needs which could increase efficiencies, decrease costs, effort, or time-to-market.
Strategy analysis knowledge area include tasks which express and define the enterprise’s business needs.
These tasks include identifying and understanding the business’s goals; expressing its strategic direction; and recording any key concerns related to the business’s successes, challenges, risks, or problems.
But identifying the business needs is not always easy, the business leaders may not be sure of what they need but they might know what their pain points are. These pain points could include process bottlenecks, process inefficiencies, wasteful activities or regulatory issues.
So, it would be up to the business analyst to apply critical thinking skills to successfully analyse and interpret the business needs.
To successfully identify the business needs the business analyst should ask the following questions:
- What are the business objectives or goals?
- What are the desired outcomes?
- What are the issues preventing the business from achieving their objectives?
- What are the potential solutions which could help fulfill these business needs?
Business needs are usually expressed as specific statements describing the strategic objectives such as reducing the time to market for the enterprise’s goods and services, improving on their business processes to reduce costs and improve output.