Fhyzics Business Classification System (FBCS) has a three-tier structure as sectors, industry groups and industry. FBCS groups the economic activities into primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors (tier-1). These sectors are further divided into industry groups (tier-2) and then into a specific industry (tier-3). This three-tier structure of economic activities or businesses help us to understand the broad nature of the various economic activities. The third-tier that indicates the specific industry is known as the domain, where you are working as a business analyst. So domain refers to the specific economic activities performed by an organization or a company or a corporation or an individual.
As a business analyst you should be married to the domain. I have seen some business analysts who changes the domain very frequently and the end result is they never master in any domain. Each domain is a vast area and continuously evolving, even by spending the entire life we cannot master some of the domains. So as a business analyst you need to select a domain where you have passion and stick to the domain for your life. You not only make a very interesting career, but also make a great contribution to the domain. Such business analysts will certainly reach great heights and probably retire at the level of CEO of a company. You can change organization, but not every other year. Stay in an organization at least for 4 or 5 years, so that you will learn, but move within the same domain across geographies. As a business analyst you need to have a complete mastery over your domain. FIBAAR identified 45 most popular domains for business analysts and it is presented below.
The next question is how to master the domain. FIBAAR recommends a 15 step structured approach to master your domain.
1. Regulatory framework refers to set of laws and policies that governs a given domain. The regulatory framework of a industry includes the regulatory body, federal laws, state laws, local laws, governing bodies and international laws.
2. Industry bodies refers to associations and lobbying organizations formed by the participants of the domain to promote their cause and to represent them in the policy making bodies.
3. Institutions refers to the academic and research organizations who contribute to the growth of the domain. These institutions closely work with the various organizations in the domain for betterment in business models, technology adaptation and forecasting the future trends of the industry.
4. Standards are the various national and international standards that are applicable to the domain or the industry. Some standards may be very specific to the domain, but some other standards are applicable to multiple domains.
5. Competitors are other players in the same domain with whom your company is competing in the market place. Knowing the competitors and their activities are very important for a business analyst to ensure that you are competitive in the market.
6. Your Organization – A business analyst who doesn’t understand his own organization cannot contribute the organization. Each organization has its own history, challenges, founding fathers philosophy etc. which are shared by the entire organization. So to fit well within an organization and to better collaborate with the stakeholders, a business analyst should have a better understanding of his organization.
7. Industry Trend – No domain is static and they are constantly evolving. Some are at slow pace and some are at very fast pace. For some one in the salt (NaCl) manufacturing industry nothing would have changed much in the last 50 years. But for some in the mobile manufacturing industry things are changing pretty fast every 3 months.
8. Processes – Identify the list of primary, secondary and management processes of the domain and develop a mastery over them. As a business analyst you will be always working on the improvement of one or the other processes during your journey as a business analyst.9. Customers – develop an understanding about the expectations of your customer and their buying behavior. Some time we differentiate between the customer and consumer. A baby milk powder producing company will think about the customer and consumer, because they have to satisfy both of them. Here parents are their customer and the babies are their consumers.
10. Methodology refers to the way of doing certain activities in the domain. For example, Lean process improvement methodology is more apt to automotive industries compared to Six Sigma.
11. Systems are the software, applications, gadgets, machineries and infrastructures required in a domain to successfully perform the various processes in the given domain.
12. Events – Each industry have their trademark exhibitions, trade shows, seminars, conferences etc. Be aware of them for your domain as these offers great opportunities to keep up with the trend in your domain.
13. Magazines are a great source for continuously learn what is going on in the industry especially within your competitors. Subscribe to one or more international magazines in your domain to know the happenings in your domain from around the world.
14. Certifications – There are wide variety of domain certifications available. These domain certifications offer an in depth knowledge of the domain. For a comprehensive understanding of the domain from the business analysis perspective you can pursue FIBAAR domain certifications.
15. Related websites – There are numerous blogs, forums and websites that write about the domains. But any such information you get through these ways you have to doubly check for their veracity.
Fhyzics Business Consultants, an Approved Training Provider of BCS, UK offering Business Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Business Consulting and User Experience certifications of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, UK. All the certifications come with Training, Preparation Material and Examination. The trainings are available in both classroom and online formats. For more details, please visit our website at www.iiscm.org or email us at cs@fhyzics.net or speak to us at +91-900-304-9000.