Business Analyst Team Lead (Merchandise and Planning) - (PERMANENT) (N)

Duties and responsibilities:

The Business Analyst Team Lead is responsible for leading and coaching a team of Business Analysts to maximise productivity and increase business delivery within the Business Analysis space. This includes the fostering of cross-discipline relationships to constantly review and improve on ways of work.

Information Seeking & Analysis

• Align closely with business and delivery stakeholders around strategic roadmaps.
• Assist to shape the demand for the specific area.
• Assist with lean business cases / PAC / Board approvals.
• Perform high-level analysis activities in the CE cycle (assisting to unpack Features, identify high-level impacts and dependencies etc.) at a Senior / Specialist proficiency level.
• Ensures E2E processes are documented, understood & aligned with business and architecture.
• Solid understanding of E2E for area of responsibility.
• Have a deep understanding of the value streams within the domain and products they support, to assist in shaping the roadmap for those products.
• Focus on customer centricity and customer experience throughout all operational processes and value streams and help to create a culture of customer centricity within the BA discipline.
• Surfacing and delivering regular insights to the Business Stakeholders with sound recommendations, allowing our Business Stakeholders to make informed strategic decisions.
• Produces innovative ideas or solutions that challenge traditional assumptions, and approaches ongoing developments from new perspectives.
• Devises, initiates and drives effective change initiatives in own area or department as well as across various disciplines

Leadership, Facilitation & Influencing

• Collaborating with stakeholders (within IT and Business) to identify and consider opportunities for improvement and efficiency.
• Promote best practices and persuade stakeholders to change practises and consider other alternatives.
• Coaching and mentoring for BA's in BA tools, standards, best practices, processes and delivery.
• Promoting a culture of collaboration and cross-discipline engagement within the team;
• Ensures that the contribution of others is recognised through formal reward processes and also gestures of informal recognition.

Lead a team of BA's:

• Defines standards for appropriate behaviour and addresses inappropriate behaviour from others.
• Ensure that individuals know what is expected of them.
• Pushes autonomy and empowerment downwards through the organisation. Inspires enthusiasm and a positive attitude in people about their work and their contribution to the organisation’s success.
• Identifies development needs in others and ensures they are aware of the resources available for their learning and development. Connecting individuals with learning and development contacts.
• Identifies, attracts and recruits high calibre individuals as organisation-wide assets.
• Responsible for quality assurance of BA deliverables, and coaching regarding quality issues identified.

Communication, Building & Maintaining Relationships

• Assist with identification of resources to be allocated to work requests based on specific knowledge areas or skills
• Foster a partnership between business stakeholders, delivery teams, architecture and the rest of the BA community
• Identify business and organisational constraints affecting options for change.
• Align with the PMO and Business on upcoming projects, initiatives and work request, so that we can start planning and communicating this, and anticipate resource requirements to ensure that resources are brought on board / assigned timeously.
• Collaborating with all disciplines and benchmarking value adding solutions.
• Evaluate and improve solution assessment and validation.
• Eliciting and analysing cultural, business and organisational constraints effecting options for change.
• Continuously support the business environment and provide recommendations for improvement
• Thinking partner and ambassador for the business.

Organising, multitasking & time management

• Strong commitment to organisational objectives and ensuring high quality delivery on work.
• Ensuring costs are monitored and users and the organisation benefit.
• Able to coach the business analysts on organisation and effective time management.

Knowledge and Application

• Creates and encourages a climate of team-working and collaboration across the organisation, acting as a visible role-model of these values and behaviours.
• Proactively consults with a broad cross-section of stakeholders during all aspects of decision making.
• Able to coach the business analysts in terms of methods used to analyze and benchmark business cases, which will align with the business strategies of the organisation (including feasibility and business benefits).
• Research and identify opportunities to improve the business' offering and add value to our customers through the solutions we provide.
• Able to coach the business analysts to drive / shape input into the scope of solution and ensure understanding of scope by business user.
• Drive the change management barriers impacting User Acceptance Testing.
• Solve & mitigate project risks.
• Liaise with Products Owners and other stakeholders to co-ordinate interdependencies and resolve issues.
• Actively contriute in the development of the BA practice within the organisation.
• Act as an SME in CoPs to share knowledge and expertise with the community.
• Demonstrates detailed and comprehensive knowledge of own area and is recognised as an expert by people across the organisation. Maintains a comprehensive knowledge of related external issues and knows about research and upcoming developments.
• Engages in industry wide and cross-industry discussions and events seeking to advance own and the organisation’s current and future thinking. Seeks to be actively involved in cutting-edge research and development activities.
• Shares knowledge and expertise openly and freely. Ensures that the necessary organisational structures and processes are in place for others to do so. Positions knowledge sharing as an organisational priority.
• Proactively investigates ways that new technology can support the achievement of organisational objectives and significantly enhance overall performance.
• Demonstrates extensive understanding and in-depth knowledge of the working and overall function of organisational departments. Sees how they inter-relate and work together as an integrated system.

Company and Team Values

Pro-actively apply and live-out the IT Values defined for:

• Collaboration - One Team
• Delivery - we get things done
• Innovation - invent and simplify
• Integrity - we do the right things right
• Quality - we do I.T. well
• Recognition - we value you
• Stewardship - looking after today for tomorrow

Requirements:

• Degree with 5 to 8 years related experience.
• Advanced Business Analyst certification, CBAP, AAC or similar
• Facilitation or Coaching qualification / experience

5+ years of SAP Merchandise Planning and Sourcing with hands on experience in the business processes in:

• Master Data (Articles, Listing, Sites, Vendors, Customers),
• Pricing (Retail and Purchase Prices)
• Promotions
• Imports & Exports (Tariffing, Compliance, Trade Preference, Cost Conditions)
• Conditions Contracts & Rebates

5+ years’ experience SAP Merchandise Planning and Sourcing (SAP Master Data, Pricing, Promotions)

Important to have:

• Previous experience in leading a team including recruitment, resource allocation and people development
• Experience working within all aspects of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Business Process Management experience
• Excellent communication, both written and verbal
• Excellent relationship management and collaboration skills
• Good planning and time management skills
• Good business and IT acumen
• Problem solving and decision making
• Ability to influence
• Organising, co-ordinating and directing
• Self-starter, with a can-do attitude
• Customer focused
• Analytical thinking
• Decision making
• Results driven

Desirable:

• Facilitation or Coaching qualification / experience
• Business understanding of the broader retail industry
• SAP experience
• Aris experience

Kindly regard your application as unsuccessful if you have not heard from the agency within 2 weeks.