What is Business Analysis (BA)?
What is business analysis (BA)
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Business analysis is a business process of assessing an
organisation structure, processes, technology and
capabilities to identify and define solutions to roadblocks
that impede the achievement of organizational goals.
Business analysis encompasses all activities necessary to study
the entire organization or a specific unit thereof, to identify
specific problems and define suitable solutions often involving
ICT or IT component
It helps organization to adapt to the ever changing business
and regulatory environment to allow the organization to grow
in a manner defined by the management.
People entrusted with business analysis must have the
appropriate skills and techniques to do it well.
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Business analysis and
Industrial revolution
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Artificial Intelligence and machine learning
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Robotic algorithms
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Are humans being replaced by robots?
Climate change and renewable energy
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Self driving cars
How will it influence the way we conduct businesses
Electric cars
The surge in online businesses
Business ecosystem
Business Analysis
The Strategy and Competitive Intelligence
Process
Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
 Understand why strategies are formulated.
 Understand strategic planning, strategic management
and the strategic decision making process.
 Understand the various options for management in
formulating internal and external growth strategies for
an organisation.
 Understand how competitive intelligence as
phenomenon, encompasses knowledge about threats
and opportunities created by external business elements
which impacts on present and future organisation’s
competitiveness.
Strategic Planning & Business
Analysis
This process helps an organisation to
attain a competitive advantage.
 A competitive advantage is the distinct
way the organization is positioned in the
market for it to obtain an advantage
over its competitors.
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Generic Strategic Planning Process
Assess External
Environment
Strategic
Direction
(Vision &
Mission)
Internal
Organisational
Assessment
Define and Select
Base Strategy and
Contingency
Plans
(Goals &
Objectives)
Evaluate
Performance
Implement
Policy/Strategy
Program
Strategic Decisions
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The matching of an organization's activities to its
environment
The matching of the activities of an organization to
its resource capability
Determine implications for change throughout the
organization
The allocation and reallocation of significant
resources of an organization
The values, expectations, and goals of those
influencing the strategy
The direction the organization will move in the long
run
Generic Strategic Management
Framework
Organisation
(internal view)
Environment
(external view)
Competitors
Goals and Values
Communities
Resources and
Capabilities
Customers
Structure and Systems
Strategy
Government
Industry
Institutions
Interest groups
Media
Public
Strategic Thinking
According to Fleisher and Bensoussan (2003:5)
strategic thinking is a;
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combination of intuition and creativity,
marriage of information and insight (intelligence);
Offers an integrated perspective of the organisation;
and
concentrates on interrelationships.
Competitive Intelligence
Michael Porter in his book Competitive
Strategy, states that modern
organizations need some sort of
competitive intelligence. He stated
that business needs some sort of
mechanism - some sort of competitor
intelligence system (1980:72).
Competitive Intelligence
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Fleisher and Bensoussan (2003:2) state that
strategies are needed because times change,
technology changes, markets changes, and
rules of competition and competitors changes.
A company can only out perform its rivals if it
can establish a difference of value to customers
that can be preserved over time.
This advantage is evidenced by the
organization's ability to generate and maintain
sustained levels of profitability above the
industry average. Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Competitive Intelligence
The Intelligence Cycle is a systematic
process or cycle for collecting and
analysing information about
competitor’s activities, one’s business
environment and business trends to
further one’s organisational goals
Fleisher and Bensoussan (2003:6).
Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning and
Direction
Evaluate &
Control
Decision
Makers
Disseminate
Intelligence
(distributed)
Other Users
Analysis and
Reporting
Collect &
Process Data
Competitive Intelligence
Process (CIP)
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Why is this process used?
Competitive Intelligence Process (CIP) is used
to assess the capabilities and behaviour of its
current and potential competitors.
The process of determining value could either
be qualitative or quantitative, depending on a
particular attribute of the analysis.
A relative degree of 'correctness' of data must
be confirmed by data from a reliable source as
well as the reliability of the original source of
data.
CIP
Extracting results from competitive analysis has
become an important facet in recent years
because of the following;
 Increased level of competition
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Global economy is knowledge economy
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Globalization vs. barriers
Rules of the game have changed
Capability to act
Increased imitation
Increased complexity & speed
Where does analysis fit into CIP
Herring (1996, pp. 70-73) suggests five basic types of
intelligence analysis:
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Preventing surprises to the organization by providing
early warning.
Supporting the decision-making process.
Competitor assessment and monitoring.
Intelligence assessment for planning and strategy
development.
Comprising a key part of collection and reporting.
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Note : Good competitive and strategy intelligence requires
effective analysis.
Additional material
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHC
Ttgg05Hk