The Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) is a professional designation certificate that is offered by IIBA, the International Institute of Business Analysis, based in Canada. This certificate acts as the premium evidence of your expertise in the domain of Business Analysis and is thus preferred by sector employees to give a boost to their career growth.
IIBA came into existence in 2006 and has been offering multiple certification courses since then, with CBAP certification being the most popular one. Today, there are more than 1000 CBAP professionals worldwide, spread across different countries. These professionals display themselves as leaders in the business analysis sector, which is expected to show a Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.3% in the period 2021-26 [Source: mordorintelligence.com].
Candidates with a CBAP certification earn around 12% more salary than their colleagues without a certification [Source: iiba.org]. The average salary of a CBAP certified professional in India is around ₹10 lakh per annum, while a candidate without CBAP certification earns an average package of ₹7.6 lakh per annum [Source: payscale.com]. This is one of the key reasons why candidates rush towards pursuing such professional courses.
Pursuing a CBAP certification is not a simple process like other online certification courses and involves a lot of factors and evaluation criteria. Let’s discuss them in detail one by one below.
What are the Career Prospects After a CBAP Certification?
While a simple experience in an ordinary Business Analysis certification will land you in a common job role of a Business Analyst, a CBAP certification opens multiple doors of opportunities for you. A CBAP certification validates your expertise and imparts essential skills with the help of which you can perform various roles.
Business Analysis is a realm made up of various sub-segments and CBAP aims to master you in most of them. The key sub-segments are:
- Business Analysis
- Business Process Management
- Design Thinking
- Data Analytics
- Business Intelligence
- Product Management
- Agile
- Cloud Application Management
- Cyber Security Analysis
- AI and ML
Based on these sub-segments, there are various job roles available for CBAP certified professionals. The table below lists them along with average remuneration.
| Job Role | Average Salary Package |
| Business Analysis Professional | ₹6,06,000 |
| Enterprise Architect | ₹27,06,000 |
| Product Manager | ₹13,05,000 |
| Project Manager | ₹12,64,000 |
| Digital Business Analyst | ₹7,40,000 |
| Data Analyst | ₹4,39,000 |
| Data Scientist | ₹8,24,000 |
| Machine Learning Scientist | ₹9,96,000 |
| Scrum Master | ₹12,50,000 |
| Cloud/SaaS Architect | ₹18,38,000 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst | ₹5,29,000 |
| Information Security Analyst | ₹5,54,000 |
| Design Thinking Consultant | ₹15,00,000 |
Which are the Recruiters Hiring for CBAP Professionals?
Some key companies hiring CBAP candidates are:
- Natwest Group
- RBS Bank
- Cognizant
- Fractal Analytics
- HCL
- PayTM
- IBM
- HSBC
- Infosys
- Franklin Templeton India
- Larsen and Toubro
- Shell
These are just a few names out of multiple companies. A CBAP certificate is preferred by any company over a typical Business Analytics certification course.
What are the Key Skills Taught in CBAP Certification?
The entire worth of CBAP certification is due to the skill it imparts to students. The rigorous exposure to a dynamic skillset spread over multiple segments of an Enterprise Analysis is the reason why CBAP professionals can outperform their counterparts. Written below are the key skills that students get to learn in a CBAP course.
The competency elements taught in CBAP are grouped into 6 key Knowledge Areas (KA). These are the main elements that improve their proficiency and make them ready for the analysis world.
KA 1: Planning and Monitoring
- Plan Business Analysis Approach
- Planning of Stakeholder Engagement
- Governance of Business Analysis
- Information Management
- Identifying Performance Improvements in Business Analysis
KA 2: Elicitation and Collaboration
Elicitation has a separate meaning in the case of Business Analysis. “Requirements Elicitation” refers to the set of activities that relate to gathering information from various users and stakeholders about what needs to be applied in the solution of a design. The topics in this chapter are:
- Preparing for Elicitation
- Conducting the Prepared Elicitation
- Confirming the Results
- Communicating Information
- Managing Collaborations with Stakeholders
KA 3: Requirements of Life Cycle Management
- Tracing Requirements
- Maintaining Them
- Prioritizing Requirements Over Others
- Assessing the Changes in Requirements
- Approving
KA 4: Strategy Analysis
- Analysis of Current Situation
- Defining Future Course
- Assessing Risks
- Defining the Change Strategy
KA 5: Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
- Specifying and Modelling the Requirements
- Verifying
- Validating
- Defining Requirements Architecture
- Defining Various Design Options
- Analyzing Potential Value
- Solution Recommendation
KA 6: Solution Evaluation
- Measuring Performance of Solution
- Analyzing Performance Measures
- Assessing the Limitations of Solution in Real World
- Assessing the Limitations of the Organization/Business
- Recommending Future Course to Further Improve Value
Note: All this data has been taken from the official website of IIBA.
How to Pursue a CBAP Certification?
After having detailed insights into all those factors which make CBAP an extremely important certification, let’s check how to pursue it.
The course is best suited for those who are already working as Business Analysts or Consultants. Those who already have IIBA’s CCBA certificate can also look for it. Pursuing CBAP certification is not easy and requires some essential eligibility criteria to be fulfilled. These include:
- Minimum 7500 hours of work experience as a Business Analyst in the previous 10 years.
- Out of the 7500 hours, a minimum of 900 hours should be devoted to each of any 4 KAs mentioned above. This means a minimum of 3600 hours in 4 KAs.
- The candidate should also have completed 35 hours of Professional Development Units (PDUs) in the previous 4 years.
- The candidate should be able to provide 2 references from experienced professionals in this field.
Once you meet these criteria, you are eligible to appear for the exam. You need to register on the website and then appear for the exam. Once you clear it, you are set to become a certified CBAP professional.
If you think you are also interested in such a kind of career role, do not wait and sign up for an online course in CBAP from an Authorized Training Partner (ATP) today itself. Some of these include Simplilearn, Coursera, etc. Just make sure that you fulfill eligibility requirements and you are all set to put your foot in this arena.
Next, you may also like to read about: 10 Benefits of Six Sigma Certification
