Business analyst in IT projects: why they are needed and why you can’t do without them

The success of any IT project rarely depends solely on code or design. The main goal is to create a product that solves specific business problems and delivers value to users. This is where the business analyst plays a key role. They act as a bridge between the business and the development team: formalizing customer needs into clear requirements, helping to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary costs, and ensuring that the final solution aligns with the initially agreed objectives. In a broader sense, business analysis is the discipline that connects a company’s strategic goals with concrete technical solutions. Thanks to this work, the project follows a predictable trajectory, reducing the risk of errors and accelerating time-to-market.

In this article, we will explain why a business analyst is essential, why their role in IT projects cannot be underestimated, why UX design is an integral part of successful development, and share our own experience.

A Business Analyst (BA) is a specialist who helps transform business needs into clear and understandable requirements for the development team. Business analysis is necessary to identify strategic goals, collect and analyze information, describe processes, and create a technical specification that becomes the foundation for programmers and designers to work with.

In essence, a business analyst is a “translator” between the language of business and the language of technology – without them, the project risks going down the wrong path.

Business Analyst: How They Differ from a Systems Analyst and a Project Manager

Business analysts are often confused with other roles in IT projects. However, each role has its own area of responsibility:

• Project Manager manages timelines, resources, and communication, being responsible for the organization and overall success of the project.
• Systems Analyst focuses on the technical side: describing system architecture, interfaces, and module interactions.
• Business Analyst, on the other hand, focuses on understanding customer and user needs, ensuring that the project aligns with business objectives and delivers value.

Together, these roles complement one another but do not replace each other. The absence of a BA often results in the team developing functionality “blindly” or wasting resources on unnecessary tasks.

To truly understand why a business analyst is needed on a development team, it’s enough to look at their key responsibilities.

1. Gathering and Formalizing Requirements

The core functions of a business analyst in software development include collecting and formalizing requirements so that the IT team works with clear and verifiable data. The analyst conducts interviews with the client and end users, studies business processes, and analyzes the market and competitors. As a result, scattered wishes are transformed into well-defined specifications and requirements that can be tested and implemented. This approach helps avoid ambiguity and reduces the risk of developing unnecessary functionality.

2. Communication Between the Client and the Team

A business analyst in IT translates business requests into the “language of development,” formulating requirements in terms that are understandable to developers, testers, and designers. Thanks to this, the team works on what truly matters for the company’s goals, and the client receives the exact result they expected.

3. Working with Documentation: Specifications, Schematics, and User Stories

To formalize agreements and ensure transparency of the process, the business analyst prepares documentation such as:

• Technical Specification (TS) – the foundation of the project and the working document on which all participants rely.
• UML Diagrams – used in large-scale custom systems where development starts “from scratch” and a formal description of the architecture and relationships is required.
• Integration and Adaptation Schematics – applied in typical implementations of ready-made solutions, where the key task is not building the architecture anew but correctly configuring and connecting modules.
• User Stories – a format that describes end-user needs in simple language: “As a [role], I want [goal], so that [result].”

This approach allows choosing the right tools for each specific project: in some cases, it’s critical to thoroughly describe the architecture, while in others, the focus should be on integrations and user scenarios.

UX design is not just about visualizing interfaces – it’s part of a broader process in which the business analyst helps connect corporate requirements with real user needs. In fact, this is the stage where actual software design happens: user workflows, interaction logic, and the future system structure are defined.

To make this process as effective as possible, the analyst uses several sequential tools.

• Analysis of User Scenarios
  Real user steps are studied: which actions are performed most often, where difficulties may arise, and which processes should be simplified. For this, the following methods are applied:
  • interviews and surveys;
  • customer journey maps;
  • use case scenarios.
• Creating Prototypes and Visualizations
  Based on these scenarios, prototypes of the future product are built. They allow the client and the team to share the same understanding of the final result. For this, the analyst, together with the UX designer, uses:
  • wireframes (screen skeletons);
  • interactive prototypes in Figma, Axure, or Moqups;
  • BPMN diagrams for visualizing business processes.

Impact on Development Speed and Budget

Validating UX solutions before coding begins saves both time and money, since it eliminates the risk of numerous revisions. This makes it possible to bring the product to market faster while keeping it user-friendly. Additionally, the analyst applies:

• mind maps to align logic with the client;
• usability checklists to evaluate interfaces;
• A/B testing of prototypes with real users.

Thus, UX design becomes an essential part of business analysis: it ensures the business gets a solution where both functionality and interface work toward real user needs.

The work of a business analyst directly increases the chances of a project’s success by reducing risks and ensuring process transparency. In short, the BA’s contribution to a project can be summarized as follows:

• prevents misunderstandings between stakeholders by formalizing requirements into verifiable criteria;
• minimizes the risk of costly rework through clear task definition;
• creates a “single source of truth” – specifications, process diagrams;
• makes communication clear and transparent for all participants, reducing the likelihood of conflicts.

BA and Project Success: Real Examples

Over the years, our team has implemented more than 100 IT projects for companies across various industries – from manufacturing and logistics to services and eCommerce. In every case, we started with business analysis to fully understand the client’s processes and propose a solution that truly addressed their needs. Below are a few cases where the role of the business analyst and UX prototyping became key to successful outcomes. You can find the full list in our portfolio.

The Role of a Business Analyst in the FOROSTINA Project

In the case of developing a CRM for FOROSTINA, the business analyst played a crucial role: they studied the company’s internal processes, conducted interviews with departments, and documented real business needs, turning them into a project specification. Equally important was UX prototyping: at an early stage we created an interface layout with sections and navigation. This allowed the client to visualize the future CRM, make adjustments, and approve the logic before development even began. As a result, the analyst’s work and the use of prototypes helped avoid rework, save resources, and deliver a system convenient for the company’s employees.

How Business Analysis Worked for the HELPER Project

HELPER is a scalable SaaS startup for the beauty industry, where the business analyst was critically important in unifying the needs of different categories of users into one system.

The BA studied the market and competitors, identified the truly in-demand features (online booking, inventory management, payroll modules), and eliminated unnecessary ones – laying the foundation for the project’s competitive advantages. They formulated universal requirements that supported both small salons and large chains, providing tariff plans, multi-user access, and a superuser panel.

Special attention was given to UX prototyping: mockups of key screens – online booking, work schedules, payroll modules, and the admin panel – were created. This made it possible to test the logic in advance and align it with the client.

As a result, HELPER combines the universality of SaaS with the flexibility of customization: the system includes settings for branches, staff, and loyalty programs, making it both convenient and scalable.

There are projects where the involvement of a business analyst becomes critically important for success. Among them are:

• Large-scale custom systems (CRM, ERP) – big projects require detailed requirements analysis and process formalization; otherwise, the risks of errors and delays increase significantly.
• Startups and MVPs – the analyst helps validate the business hypothesis and identify only the necessary functionality, avoiding wasted resources on redundant features.
• Integration projects – when combining multiple systems into a single ecosystem, the BA ensures consistency, describes integration scenarios, and prevents incompatibility issues.

The role of a business analyst in IT projects cannot be overstated. They help prevent misunderstandings between the team and the client, reduce the likelihood of errors, accelerate development, and make the process more transparent. Thanks to business analysis, a product is created that truly solves business problems and delivers value to users – rather than becoming just a collection of unnecessary features.

If you are planning to launch an IT project, our team is ready to help – from business analysis to the implementation of a complete system. Order custom software development and get a product fully tailored to your goals.