This podcast is on Business Analysis View of an Organisation. This is Venkadesh Narayanan from Fhyzics Business Consultants Private Limited.

You might have read in management books about the definition of an organisation. Typically, organisations are defined as the group of people working towards a common goal to deliver products and services to the customers. This definition is perfectly fine but need to be further elaborated to understand the specific role of a business analyst within the organisation.

We business analysts need to define the organisation as follows.

Organization is an amalgamation of people capabilities, process capabilities and system capabilities tied together in a seamless manner to deliver capabilities in the form of products and services. And all the three capabilities must be in the right capacities.

Whether it is a small organisation or a large one, this definition perfectly fits. Using the three capabilities organisations are selling products and services to the customers. Whenever you buy a product or service, you buy a capability. If a product is not delivering any capability, why would someone buy it? Be it a saloon or a cement plant this definition is equally applicable.

Let us understand the difference between the capability and capacity. Capability is the ability to do something. Capacity is the measure of such capability. In other words, capacity is the rate at which the capability is performed. The question on capacity doesn’t arise without capability.

In summary, a business analyst is basically dealing with the capabilities and capacities of an organisation in terms of people, process and systems. Thank you.