A systems analyst is typically confined to an assigned or given system and will often work in conjunction with a business analyst. These roles, although having some overlap, are not the same. A business analyst will evaluate the business need and identify the appropriate solution and, to some degree, design a solution without diving too deep into its technical components, relying instead on a systems analyst to do so. Systems analysts need to be familiar with different operating systems, hardware configurations, programming languages, and software and hardware platforms. They can be involved starting from the analysis phase of the project until the post deployment assessment review.

The main responsibility of systems analysts in the IT industry is to figure out how to solve a problem by linking different computers or systems and to specify what platform, protocols, software, hardware and communications medium can be used to solve that problem.