Product management vs Business analysis

Look at the 2 Job descriptions (JD) prescribed by Linkedin for the role of business analyst vs product manager. Guess which JD belongs to the former and the latter!

Sample 1

Sample 2

Do these JDs look similar to you? Can you identify with confidence which one is for a Product Manager and which one is for a Business Analyst?

Maybe not with 100% confidence. While some larger firms might have these 2 roles being very distinct but there are many startups that have product managers doing the job of a business analyst as well. So while these lines are sometimes blurry, it's also an advantage, because transitioning from Business Analyst to Product Manager then becomes seamless.

In this business analyst vs product manager article, we shall look at both these roles closely so that you can understand and decide for yourself which role is more suitable for you as a career option.

Product Manager vs Business Analyst

The product manager is often called the ‘mini-CEO’ of their product. PMs are the owners of the complete product lifecycle, from ideation to launch. They build and manage products, working at the intersection of business, technology, and design.

Business analysts on the other hand own an organization’s processes. They work on building and improving internal systems through data-driven recommendations and market analysis. They work on solving business challenges by understanding the organizational vision and metrics.

So while PMs are developing products , BAs are developing the business capabilities.

Roles and Responsibilities in Product management vs Business analysis

Product Manager

• Defines the vision and strategy for the product
• Owns the Product Roadmap and continuously updates it with evolving business requirements
• Works on Prioritisation of various features and requirements to create maximum impact for both users and business
• Work on understanding, identifying, and resolving the pain point of users. They are the voice of customers representing their needs and requirements.

Business analyst

• Evaluate the business processes and internal systems, develop projects and monitor performance
• Responsible for gathering requirements for further improvement of the projects
• Develop metrics and prototypes that can be used to drive business decisions
• Creating algorithms to extract information from large data sets also and has a strong vigor to convert business problems to query process
• Command on tools like SQL/R to extract and analyze data from RDBMS systems

Business analyst vs Product manager Salary

Salaries generally are a function of many variables. Some of them are like :

• Location —Some locations like Gurgaon, Delhi, Bangalore are hotspots and salary scales might be higher than Tier 2 or Tier 3 towns. However, this pay disparity due to location is now weakening due to policies like remote working, hybrid work culture now becoming a new normal
• Years of Experience — While higher years of experience generally have a direct proportion to salary.

But often I feel, it’s the quality of the experience that matters more than the quantity. If you are able to justify that, then you can turn the tables around even with lower years of experience.

• Company Type — Compensation structure also varies hugely based on whether you are working in a startup, government sector, PSUs, MNCs etc. With the rise of entrepreneurial ventures in India, startups are offering lucrative packages to lure the top talent.

There are other factors like your industry, education which also have an effect on the overall CTC being offered.

Here are the snippets of Product Manager and Business analyst salaries. I have taken this data from Ambition Box based on their data. But you can get compensation ranges from sites like Glassdoor, Linkedin Salary.

Product Manager Salary

Business Analyst Salary

These average salaries are however only indicative. I believe that if you are able to prove the value you bring to the table to your employer, then these figures do not hold much ground. We are in times where employers, founders are seeking out skilled, enthusiastic people and are ready to pay handsome salaries if you have the ability to deliver.

Skills Required for Product Management vs Business Analysis

Business Analysts

• Understanding of business objective — Understand the business challenges and opportunities, to propose the right strategies
• Effective communication — Business analysts are required to share their data insights and analysis effectively with the team
• Analytical Problem solving — Proficiency with SQL, Advanced Excel, R, BI tools, dashboarding technique, Expert at data visualization and presentation.
• Industry Knowledge — Having domain knowledge, knowing the industry trends, helps BAs deduce if the organization is headed in the right direction. It also helps them in proposing the right business strategies for the organization.

Product Managers

• Excellent written and verbal communication — PMs need to be very articulate in their communication. They would be often required to over-communicate to avoid any confusion. Documentation and crisp writing skills are also very critical since PM’s are writing many feature specs, requirement documents (PRD) which are read by multiple business stakeholders.
• Data-driven — PM’s need to be very hands-on with data and analytics of their product to make decisions based on it
• Teamworking skills — Need to work in collaboration with marketing, sales, design, engineering teams to drive product growth. The ability to influence cross-functional teams without being authoritative is a very rare but key skill for product managers.
• Technical knowledge — While not needed to be an expert but understanding tech definitely helps in better interaction with engineers

Both roles are very critical for the progress of any business. Product management vs Business Analysis based on your interest, skillset you can choose the desired role. If you are an aspiring Product Manager and want to learn, upskill yourself then do check out the course at PM school.

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