“Sales? No… I don’t want to work in sales. That also for financial products…? No way.. See I cannot sell insurance products to the customers by visiting in their home and convincing them to buy one… That’s not my job…” – This was my reaction after 1 month of my job…

and then I left it. I got an interview call from a software company. I went for it. The lady who interviewed me, mentioned, “You have to read a lot of documents. I’m not sure you will be able to do it. Let’s see”. I was a fresh MBA, failed in my first job and joined this software company as a Project Executive. I was supposed to read customer’s requirements, prepare pre-sales document (proposal) and also post sales document (project document).

When I joined in the company, I felt everybody is so quite and silent unlike our management guys who keep screaming, dominating, discussing, giving view points etc. It took me some time to settle down and understand my job roles. Initially I thought I am not working on my goals but now I look back and realize it was also business analysis job.

My Job Role involved the following responsibilities:

1. Read all the documents sent by the client for customized website development. This job was really difficult because the documents are not well organized and I was supposed to get fetch the meaning out of it.
2. Create a documentation that lists down the customer’s requirements on a very high level. This document included Scope of work, Proposed technology, Process flow, Project timeline, Cost etc. This document was shared with customer for approval.
3. If the customer agrees, I had to prepare another document. This was little bit extended version of what I have already built. This document was prepared for our technical team so that they can design and develop the website.
4. Clarify any doubt if the technical team needs.

– I left the company in 8 months. I joined another IT organization in sales. Not again. I don’t like the word. Here also I had to prepare the similar kind of documentation with additional responsibility to close the deals. My performance was measured by the number of customers and revenue I bring in. Documentation was not the priority. It may look good or bad but at the end of the day the question was “When will the customer decide?”. By the was I was dealing with products like real-estate software, recruitment software, ecommerce solutions. – I left the job in 1 year.

Knowledge Gathering: Now, I realize I have gained good knowledge on the subject of software development, website development etc. I appeared in another interview and landed a job for Pre Sales Consulting for ERP and HRMS products. I was in this role for 3 years, spoken to 70+ odd customers on their complex requirements for ERP, HRMS, Website, Custom Solutions etc. I wrote proposals, presentations, gathered requirements, closed many deals, clarified requirements to the technical teams. I was the king. Without me, no one had any understanding on the requirements nor they had the confidence to deal with the customers.

The Shift: Later I joined a CMM level 5 organization for real business analysis job. It’s been close to 5 years and still I’m learning new techniques. Now here I realized what a business analyst do. My previous experiences of sales, proposal writing, requirement gathering helped but it’s long way to go. I understood the process of creating documentations, what information to go in a document and what information should be out of it. Here I was also fortunate enough to learn functional consulting which gets more into techno functional role (slightly above than a generic business analyst). I love my job. I am the key for any project. I lead requirements and I own it throughout the project. I take part in other activities like testing, design etc. This also helps me to learn more and trust me it has no limit.

Business analysis is such a sophisticated profession that you get to learn so many things all together. The you get paid to learn. You apply what you learn. You need not be technical in the beginning. Now all the business analysis profession are not same. I will talk about the different types of Business analysts in a separate article. Also BA should be technical or non-technical; will get future attention.