Interview Preparation

AON Consulting: Interview Preparation For Business Analyst Role

AON Consulting: Interview Preparation For Business Analyst Role

AON Consulting is a global professional services firm renowned for its expertise in risk, retirement, and health solutions. By combining robust data, advanced analytics, and deep industry knowledge, AON helps organizations navigate volatility, make better decisions, and achieve measurable business outcomes.

Its clients span insurers, financial institutions, and enterprises across sectors where operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and customer experience are mission-critical. In this environment, the Business Analyst plays a pivotal role, translating complex datasets and stakeholder needs into clear, actionable insights that shape how work gets done.

This comprehensive guide provides essential insights into the Business Analyst at AON Consulting, covering required skills, responsibilities, interview questions, and preparation strategies to help aspiring candidates succeed.


1. About the Business Analyst Role

In AON Consulting’s hybrid NCR-based team, the Business Analyst is a core contributor to Target Operating Model (TOM) programs across Health, Insurance, and Shared Services. The role centers on conducting strategic business reviews and detailed activity analyses, working with large, complex datasets to assess performance, risks, and efficiency opportunities.

You will synthesize qualitative and quantitative findings into structured insights, storyboards, and recommendations, enabling leaders to optimize processes, strengthen controls, and deliver consistent client and colleague experiences across regions.

Functionally, this role sits at the intersection of business operations, data and analytics, and transformation governance. You will author business requirements, design future-state processes, and develop standardized SOPs, playbooks, and TOM toolkits to drive adoption at scale. Using Excel, Power BI, and Tableau, you will build clear visualizations, scenario models, and decision support artifacts for senior stakeholders. The work is highly visible and strategically important aligning change initiatives to enterprise goals, embedding controls, and enabling data-driven execution across AON’s priority functions.


2. Required Skills and Qualifications

Strong analytical rigor, operating model design expertise, and clear communication are essential. Candidates should combine insurance/financial services domain knowledge with hands-on experience in process analysis and data visualization to shape TOM outcomes.

Educational Qualifications

  • Mandatory: Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Engineering, Data/Analytics, or a related field.
  • Strongly Preferred: Relevant professional certifications such as Lean Six Sigma, CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional), PMP (Project Management Professional), or Agile/Scrum certifications.

Key Competencies

  • Target Operating Model (TOM) Design and Implementation: Expertise in conducting strategic business reviews, detailed activity analysis, and designing future-state operating models for complex business functions. This includes creating standardized TOM frameworks, playbooks, and toolkits for enterprise-wide adoption.
  • Business Process and Data Analysis: Advanced skill in analyzing and visualizing business processes, working with large and complex datasets, and performing both qualitative and quantitative assessments to identify improvement opportunities.
  • Requirements Development and Strategic Storytelling: Ability to translate analytical findings into clear business requirements, structured insights, and compelling storyboards to communicate actionable recommendations to senior stakeholders.
  • Governance and Implementation Support: Experience in supporting governance, risk, and control activities within operating model transformations, ensuring changes are effectively embedded and managed.

Technical Skills

  • Data Analysis and Visualization Tools: High proficiency in Microsoft Excel for analysis and modeling, and data visualization tools like Power BI and Tableau for creating dashboards and reports.
  • Insurance and Financial Services Domain: Strong, prior business analysis experience within insurance, financial services, or large corporate environments. Specific experience in insurance brokerage, underwriting, or claims operations is a key requirement.
  • Process Modeling and Documentation: Skill in process mapping, designing operating procedures, and creating documentation that supports the implementation of new operating models.
  • Scenario Modeling and Analysis: Ability to build models to assess different operational scenarios and their potential impact on the business.

3. Day-to-Day Responsibilities

Below is a typical cadence of responsibilities aligned to TOM delivery and stakeholder outcomes.

  • Conduct strategic business reviews and detailed activity analysis for key functions like Health, Insurance, and Shared Services.
  • Work with large, complex datasets to perform qualitative and quantitative assessments.
  • Translate analytical findings into structured insights, storyboards, and actionable recommendations.
  • Develop business requirements and design future state processes and operating procedures.
  • Create standardized Target Operating Model (TOM) frameworks, including playbooks and toolkits for consistent regional adoption.
  • Perform data collection, analysis, and process visualization using tools like Excel, Power BI, and Tableau.
  • Conduct scenario modeling and support governance, risk, and control activities.

4. Key Competencies for Success

Beyond core analysis and documentation, these competencies differentiate high performers who deliver sustainable TOM outcomes and stakeholder trust.

  • Structured, hypothesis-driven thinking: Frames ambiguous problems, tests assumptions with data, and iterates rapidly toward actionable solutions.
  • Data storytelling for executives: Distills complex analysis into compelling narratives and visuals tailored to senior stakeholders.
  • Change management & adoption: Anticipates resistance, supports training and communications, and measures adoption and value realization.
  • Insurance domain fluency: Understands brokerage, underwriting, and claims processes to ground recommendations in real operational context.
  • Controls and risk orientation: Designs processes that are efficient and well-governed, aligning with enterprise risk and compliance expectations.

5. Common Interview Questions

This section provides a selection of common interview questions to help candidates prepare effectively for their Business Analyst interview at AON Consulting.

General & Behavioral Questions
Walk me through your background and why you’re a fit for AON Consulting.

Connect your experience to TOM work, insurance/financial services context, and data-driven problem solving.

What motivates you about business analysis in a risk, retirement, and health-focused firm?

Show alignment with AON’s mission to improve decisions through data and analytics.

Describe a time you influenced stakeholders without authority.

Highlight relationship building, structured storytelling, and measurable outcomes.

Tell me about a complex problem you simplified for leadership.

Emphasize framing, synthesis, and clear recommendations tied to value.

How do you prioritize competing initiatives?

Discuss value vs. effort, risk, dependencies, and data-backed trade-offs.

Describe a project where your analysis was challenged.

Cover data validation, assumption testing, and collaborative resolution.

How do you handle ambiguity in requirements?

Explain iterative discovery, hypothesis testing, and rapid feedback cycles.

Give an example of driving change adoption.

Mention stakeholder mapping, communication plans, and adoption metrics.

What is your approach to time management in multi-workstream projects?

Discuss planning horizons, cadenced reviews, and buffer management.

How do you ensure accountability and follow-through?

Explain RACI, action logs, and clear success criteria.

Use STAR structure and quantify outcomes; tie behaviors to TOM impact and client value.

Technical and Industry-Specific Questions
How do you approach Target Operating Model (TOM) design?

Outline current-state assessment, capability model, future-state processes, KPIs, and adoption plan.

Explain your method for activity analysis and effort baselining.

Cover sampling, time capture, workload drivers, and validation with SMEs.

Which process modeling notations or practices do you use?

Discuss clear, consistent models that enable control design and handoffs.

How do you validate data quality before analysis?

Mention profiling, reconciliation, outlier checks, and lineage understanding.

Power BI vs. Tableau when do you prefer each?

Compare enterprise integration, DAX/Power Query vs. visual flexibility, and audience needs.

What metrics matter in insurance operations?

Examples: quote-to-bind, loss ratio inputs, cycle time, FNOL-to-settlement, NPS, rework rates.

How do you embed controls in future-state design?

Define control objectives, map to risks, add preventive/detective steps and monitoring.

Describe your approach to scenario modeling.

Set assumptions, sensitivities, and stress cases; present implications and recommendations.

How do you manage requirements for multi-region rollouts?

Use a core model plus localized variants; strict versioning and traceability.

What’s your approach to KPI design for TOM adoption?

Define leading/lagging indicators, baselines, targets, and governance cadence.

Anchor technical answers in tangible TOM artifacts models, dashboards, BRDs, and KPIs.

Problem-Solving and Situation-Based Questions
A process spans multiple regions with inconsistent SLAs how do you fix it?

Propose a harmonized TOM with standard KPIs, local exceptions, and phased rollout.

Data from two systems conflict what do you do?

Reconcile sources, define golden records, document lineage, and remediate root causes.

Leadership wants quick wins what do you prioritize?

Low-complexity, high-impact changes with measurable benefits and minimal risk.

A stakeholder resists a control you propose how do you proceed?

Clarify risk, show incident scenarios, quantify impact, and co-design pragmatic controls.

Cycle time spiked 20% last quarter diagnose your approach.

Drill into volume mix, backlog, handoffs, rework, staffing, seasonality, and policy changes.

How do you handle scope creep mid-project?

Use change control, re-estimate benefits/timeline, and get sponsor decisions documented.

You must design an SOP for a new control what do you include?

Purpose, roles, steps, evidence, frequency, thresholds, exceptions, and audit trail.

Claims rework is high what analysis do you run?

Segment error types, root-cause Pareto, control gaps, and training needs; test remedies.

How do you ensure TOM benefits are realized post go-live?

Define benefit KPIs, owners, tracking cadence, and remediation triggers upfront.

Describe your approach to risk-based prioritization.

Combine impact, likelihood, control strength, and regulatory exposure into a score.

Frame scenarios with clear assumptions, options, and a recommended path with risks and mitigations.

Resume and Role-Specific Questions
Which project in your resume best demonstrates TOM design?

Pick one with clear before/after metrics, artifacts, and adoption results.

Describe a dashboard you built and its business impact.

Explain users, decisions enabled, and quantified improvements.

How have you documented BRDs and ensured traceability?

Discuss version control, requirements IDs, and linkage to test cases.

What insurance operations experience do you bring?

Tie exposure to brokerage, underwriting, or claims and relevant KPIs.

Share a time you standardized SOPs across regions.

Highlight localization vs. standardization and governance mechanisms.

How do you measure success for your BA work?

Define outcome metrics: cycle time, quality, cost-to-serve, control effectiveness.

Tell us about a difficult stakeholder and your approach.

Show empathy, evidence-based dialogue, and mutually agreed success criteria.

What’s your experience with hybrid collaboration?

Cover rituals, tooling, and documentation to keep teams aligned.

How do you ensure compliance is embedded, not bolted on?

Map regulatory/operational risks to process steps and define controls early.

Why AON Consulting and this NCR-based role?

Align to AON’s data-led impact, TOM scale, and hybrid teamwork culture.

Prepare concise, metric-backed stories that mirror the responsibilities and tools listed in the JD.


6. Common Topics and Areas of Focus for Interview Preparation

To excel in your Business Analyst role at AON Consulting, it’s essential to focus on the following areas. These topics highlight the key responsibilities and expectations, preparing you to discuss your skills and experiences in a way that aligns with AON Consulting objectives.

  • Target Operating Model (TOM) design: Study capability models, org/process design, control frameworks, and measurable adoption plans to articulate end-to-end TOM blueprints.
  • Process and activity analysis: Practice mapping current-state workflows, workload drivers, and bottlenecks; be ready to quantify benefit opportunities with defensible baselines.
  • Data visualization and analytics: Refresh Excel, Power BI, and Tableau skills especially data shaping, KPI design, and executive dashboards that drive decisions.
  • Insurance operations fluency: Review brokerage, underwriting, and claims lifecycles, core metrics (e.g., cycle time, rework), and controls relevant to risk and compliance.
  • Governance, risk, and controls (GRC): Understand how to translate risks into preventive/detective controls, define monitoring, and support scenario modeling.

7. Perks and Benefits of Working at AON Consulting

AON Consulting offers a comprehensive package of benefits to support the well-being, professional growth, and satisfaction of its employees. Here are some of the key perks you can expect

  • Competitive compensation with performance-linked variable pay: Fixed and variable components aligned to impact and outcomes.
  • Hybrid work under AON’s flexible working framework: Supports collaboration and work-life balance while delivering client value.
  • Health, retirement, and wellbeing programs: Comprehensive benefits that typically include healthcare and financial wellbeing (offerings vary by country and role).
  • Learning and professional development: Opportunities to upskill through role-relevant training, knowledge sharing, and support for professional growth.
  • Inclusive culture and colleague networks: A focus on inclusion and community through global initiatives and colleague resource groups.

8. Conclusion

AON Consulting’s Business Analyst role sits at the heart of data-driven transformation designing Target Operating Models, standardizing processes, and enabling governance across Health, Insurance, and Shared Services. Success hinges on rigorous analysis, clear storytelling, and stakeholder alignment, backed by strong skills in Excel, Power BI, and Tableau.

By mastering TOM design, process and activity analysis, and industry-specific nuances, candidates can demonstrate immediate value. AON’s hybrid environment, meaningful work, and structured frameworks create a strong platform for impact and growth. Prepare concrete, metric-backed examples that show how your work improved performance, controls, and client outcomes and be ready to translate these results into AON’s context.

Tips for Interview Success:

  • Show TOM mastery: Bring a concise case that covers as-is, to-be, KPIs, and adoption plus quantified benefits.
  • Lead with data stories: Present dashboards and models that influenced decisions; highlight the “so what.”
  • Connect to insurance ops: Tie examples to brokerage, underwriting, or claims metrics and controls.
  • Evidence governance thinking: Explain how you embedded preventive/detective controls and monitoring.