The Future of IS Analysts

Unfortunately it’s the end of my blogs! 😦 Therefore I’m going to take a look at what the future holds for IS analysts and what is likely to be required of them.

The five following characteristics are sure to be vital:

1. Emphasising clients’ needs
2. Communicating between clients and technicians
3. Maintaining a high degree of involvement with the client
4. Maintaining a high degree of synergy between analyst and client
5. Increasing client understanding of the innovation.

I think the future predominately lies in innovation! It is a given that analysts must possess the technical expertise to do their jobs. However, there must be more interaction with end users by systems analysts. The orientation of the analyst must be more toward the end user rather than the IS department. The solution to the problem must be what the end user needs, not what IS perceives are the users’ needs, as has been the case too often in the past. The analyst must demonstrate genuine concern for the clients’ needs. Further, the analyst must be able to identify the opinion leaders among the users and seek their help in convincing others about the benefits of the system.

Once information systems requirements have been finalised, systems analysts play a continuing role in the structuring of that information in terms of the way it is collected, processed, stored and reported.

As end users become more IS literate, new systems building efforts should be even more effective than those of today. As users are better able to explain their needs, the whole process improves and the company becomes more competitive because it has systems that truly reflect their needs. It is only after the true information requirements of users have been determined can the analyst proceed in the logical and physical development process.

As we move forward in time, people knowledge along with technical knowledge will pave the way toward a new level of IS expertise.

Thanks for following my blogs! 🙂

Reference :

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-11666118/future-role-systems-analyst.html

IS Analysts & Business Enterprises

The Changing World of Business Enterprises

This is my fourth and final discussion of forces that affect the work of IS analysts.

I’m going to focus on the need for business enterprises and IS analysts to work with Big Data.

We create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data very day!  That means that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere!  Posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction records, and cell phone signals all contribute to big data.

IS analysts must deal with 3 characteristics of Big Data:

• Volume: Enterprises are constantly introduced with ever-growing data of all types.
• Velocity: Sometimes 2 minutes is too late. For time-sensitive processes such as catching fraud, big data must be used as it enters into your enterprise in order to maximize its value.
• Variety: Big data is any type of data – structured and unstructured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click streams, log files and more. New insights are found when analyzing these data types together.

Big data is more than a matter of size! It is an opportunity for IS analysts to find insights into new types of data and content, to make business enterprises more agile, and to answer questions that were thought to be impossible.

IS analysts face the challenge of controlling these increasing quantities of data. There might even be a shortage of talent necessary for organisations to take advantage of big data. By 2018, the US alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytic skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.

For interesting facts and figures check out this short video 🙂

A few more facts and figures

Google’s Eric Schmidt claims that every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.

48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content every day.

Data collection volume increased by 400% in 2012, from an average of 10 collection events per page

By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States .

70% of data is created by individuals – but enterprises are responsible for storing and managing 80% of it.

A survey reported that more than 37.5% of large organizations said that analyzing big data is their biggest challenge.

 

Thanks for following my blogs! 🙂

 

References:

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/products/ie/en/category/SWP10

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/mgi/research/technology_and_innovation/big_data_the_next_frontier_for_innovation

https://www.espatial.com/articles/20-shocking-facts-and-figures-about-big-data/

IS Analysts & The Digital Firm

Today I will continue my discussion on the forces that affect the work of IS analysts

Emergence of the Digital Firm

A digital firm is one in which uses digital technology to enable business relationships. Their business processes are carried out through digital networks spanning the entire organisation or linking multiple organisations.

Due to the emergence of the digital firm, the work of an IS analyst is now centred upon:
• Digitally enabling the firm’s relationships with customers, suppliers and employees
• Carrying out core business processes through digital networks
• Digitally managing corporate assets
• Sensing and responding rapidly to environmental changes

An IS analyst must use their skill base to achieve these requirements as digital technology is becoming increasingly popular.

This video explains how the digital firm uses IS to manage their supply chain. Enjoy!

Other references can be found at :

Managing the digital firm from Sushant Kumar Mishra

IS Analysts & The Information Economy

The Growth Of The Information Economy

 

My last post  discussed the effect globalization has on the work of IS analysts. Today I will look at the information economy!

An information economy is one in which information is seen as being a valuable commodity. Society’s growth in demand for information has been quantified in different ways, including our capacity to store information. The world’s technological capacity to store information from 2.6 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007, which is the equivalent of 60 CD-Roms per person.
The OECD has employed Porat’s definition for calculating the share of the information economy in the total economy. This means the information society has been defined as a society where more than half of the GNP is produced and more than half of the employees are active in the information economy.
IS analysts have to dealing with growing demands as information becomes increasingly valuable. We depend on the information society daily, which can even be seen in the increasing popularity of social media websites and E-Commerce. IS analysts must therefore change their range of skills to meet these demands as well as adapting to new technological advantages, including the growing increase in data available.

 

Hopefully this diagram helps!

 

 

Reference:
The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information”, Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011),
free access to the article: martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html

 

 

Forces Affecting The Role of IS Analysts

As I previously mentioned, the changing role of IS analysts is subject to certain forces, one being globalisation! Please take a look at how this affects their work.

Globalisation is changing how the world works! Multinational corporations face the challenge of developing global information systems for global data processing and decision-making. The Internet provides a broad area of services that business and individual users can easily access. Therefore, their needs and wants are constantly changing, altering the role of IS analysts. Because the World Wide Web can reach any Internet-connected computer in the world, the Internet is closely related to global information systems.

Across the globe, information systems create beneficial characteristics of products and services such as quality, safety, reliability and efficiency at an economical cost. The internet also allows businesses to understand what the international market demands, and adapt their businesses accordingly. As a client’s requirements change, so does the role of the IS analyst. This then calls for the IS analyst to constantly update their skills and adapt to the changing industry.

 

References:

Gensler, P. J. & Chou, D. C. (1991). “Managing global information systems.” Information Executive, 4(4):35-37.

Economic benefits of standards – International case studies.(2011.) ISO. ISBN 978-92-10556-7

The Changing Role of IS Analyst

Over the past decade the work of IS analysts has changed dramatically, due to the increasing importance of the internet in our everyday lives. Internet computing is changing the nature and scope of information systems. Most IS methods and techniques were created before the invention of the Internet and IS analysts must therefore adapt to these changes and work out what methods and techniques will be relevant.

 

Powerful forces changing their work include:
1. Globalisation
2. The rise of the information economy
3. Emergence of the digital firm
4. The changing world of business enterprise

 

Each of which will be described in detail later!

 

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The Role of an IS Analyst

An IS Analysts is often referred to a Business Analyst, Business Systems Analysts or a Requirements Analyst. The role of an analyst is to help organisations understand their challenges and to satisfy their needs correctly in the final solution. The client needs to define the role a IS analyst plays in their firm. Such responsibilities include ensuring required tasks are documented correctly before the solution is created.

If requirement aren’t captured and documented accurately, the analyst is held accountable. If the solution meets the documented requirements, but the solution doesn’t accurately match the requirements of the client, the analyst is held responsible.

                       

Process Responsibilities

The analyst makes sure that the overall project meets the client’s requirements. They work with the client to achieve their prioritised requirements. However, this doesn’t mean that the analyst does all the work, but the will the one held responsible if the requirements aren’t met.

Analyst Skills

The analyst must have good people skills as well as business, technical and soft skills. These include abilities such as being organised, building positive customer relationships to develop joint vision for the project and managing client expectations through communication. Analysts must use negotiation skills to create a final consensus on what the final requirements will be and ensuring that stakeholders know the implications of their decisions.

Many interesting slideshows can be found at: www.slideshare.net