Business Analyst (12 Month FTC)

Role Purpose:

Partnering with internal and external teams to understand and define both the as-is and to-be state across business processes and systems as per project and programme requirements. This will involve working closely with key business sponsors and stakeholders to ensure requirements are captured, signed off and shared with development teams for review.

A Business Analyst plays a critical role in project and programme lifecycles, supporting more senior colleagues in the projects. In addition to project work, a Business Analyst will also have the autonomy to identify existing inefficiencies in processes and systems outside of designated assignments.

Key Accountabilities:

Strategic:

• The Business Analyst will partner with senior stakeholders and sometimes alongside Senior Business Analyst and their teams to understand their system, technology, and process needs and helping them align this to Business and IT Strategies.
• The Business Analyst will capture, analyse, question, and validate requirements, modelling the related current ‘as-is' and future optimal state ‘to-be' business processes.
• The Business Analyst will assist in the ongoing management and evolution of the Digital Transformation pipeline and delivery and have responsibilities for projects within it.

Operational:

• The Business Analyst will use modelling tools such as Visio, or in-application tools such as Dynamics 365 Task Recordings, to document ‘as-is' and ‘to-be' business process covering both functional and non-functional. The Business Analyst will use collaboration tools such as SharePoint Online, Office365 and Dynamics 365 to create, update and manage and related artefacts. They will advise on the best methodologies to use for each of the projects they own.
• The Business Analyst will create the presentation of Projects at any Change Approval Process. The Business Analyst will drive, validate, and document any options analysis or RFP including evaluation/trial of solutions both internal and external. Identifying risks and opportunities in the project.
• The Business Analyst will be responsible for evolving user stories/requirements through conversations with developers and business stakeholders. The Business Analyst is responsible for the functional review of the product after each iteration and ensuring that the project team are aware of any areas of concerns so solutions can be created to keep the projects on time and within budget.
• The Business Analyst is required to becoming familiar with the products and applications compromising the assigned line of Technology landscape.

People & Collaboration:

• The Business Analyst will partner with senior stakeholders ensuring that they take ownership of maintaining regular communication, updates and reviews are completed.
• The Business Analyst will initiate and manage relationships with any third-party vendors, acting as a conduit between them and internal roles. The Business Analyst will be responsible for knowledge transfer to the relevant teams, both functional and technical, with relevant documentation.
• The Business Analyst will also arrange and manage any post-implementation project reviews. The Business Analyst will collaborate with team members to create detailed functional and/or technical specifications
• Experience and Qualifications Proven experience of working as a Business Analyst, preferably within the retail or hospitality sectors.
• Experience in business analysis and business change; formal business analysis qualifications are beneficial. Experience delivering technology projects.
• Proven experience of working closely with and managing stakeholders to transform processes, drive efficiency and successfully deliver project and programmes. Demonstrable knowledge of the project management life cycle stages, and experience of working through the full lifecycle from concept through to post-implementation reviews.
• Experience in working in, and prioritising work across multiple projects and business functions. Demonstrates evidence of delivering clear communication and training where required.

Role Specific Competencies:

Technical:

• Experience and ability to understand and analyse complex concepts and business processes to produce requirements definition for projects and translate these requirements to functional specifications, that are in simpler language that all stakeholders understand.
• Demonstrated an advanced level of understanding in several tools and concepts, e.g. producing high quality data models in Excel, layered diagrams in Visio, or undertaking financial cost/benefit analysis in order to produce business cases.
• Is familiar with JIRA and DevOPs as platforms and has a broad understanding of the range of systems across Fortnum and Mason. Has an ability to explain the purpose and function of these core systems and the role they play in the F&M business ecosystem.
• Has the ability to describe the integrations it has with surrounding systems, i.e., what data flows in and out, and with what frequency and format. They are comfortable being able to draw architectural diagrams and will understand the base concepts of data architecture, storage options, governance rules, and processing techniques.
• Will have experience of process mapping will be able to produce initial process maps quickly, during meetings, with refinements added later.
• Can demonstrate experience of managing multiple elements within a project process, and Retail process awareness in order to manage and facilitate business change, such as: change of owner, of tool, information flow, physical set-up/stock movement, customer experience, and changes in KPI/measurability of an outcome, or change of order of steps.
• Has the ability and experience of undertaking testing and validation exercises on projects.
• Retail industry best practice awareness and the ability to challenge established process.
• Retail process awareness and the ability to manage and facilitate business change.

Impact:

• Demonstrates good stakeholder relationships and not afraid to challenge back but in a collaborative and respectful way, which builds stronger trust and two-way conversation.
• Questions and listens to understand the interactions between people processes and technology, before providing recommendations to stakeholders and pragmatic insight. Leading others when required.
• Makes sense of complex situations and provides clear communication, training material, presentations and plans. Desirable
• Actively demonstrates curiosity about the business, its goals, and operational challenges.
• Pragmatic problem solver and innovator who is prepared to be hands-on and deliver solutions with gravitas and offer and identifies opportunities for improvements.

Effectiveness:

• Excellent personal and project organization skills, with an ability to work to agreed timeframes and at pace, highlighting risks, priorities, and solutions and be familiar with both Agile and Waterfall methodologies principles.
• Experience in cost management of projects and an ability to track costs against project budgets, and feed this into departmental spending figures. You are expected to have a high level of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Experience and ability to delivery key communication and structured updates on projects milestones in easily comprehensible way to a variety of stakeholders, on the purpose and function of a core system, such as data flows explanation, architectural diagrams, governance rules, and processing techniques. etc..
• Experience of working in an agile and dynamic working environment.
• Familiar with the urgency/importance matrix, and impact/effort matrix, and be able to plot projects on both to help justify prioritization.
• Experience of the creation of technical documents (e.g., FDDs for simple developments, or material enabling a BSA to write FDDs for complex developments); and non-technical documents (training guides for retail, operations, or business users)
• Ability to create project plans in a simple software package, such as Excel or Microsoft Project, which includes timelines for key activities, milestones, and interdependencies, so they can be used for presenting progress, escalations of any blockers. Ensuring there is a RACI for each project they are working on.

In return, we offer: 

• A competitive salary

• A generous store and restaurant discount of up to 40%

• 25 days holidays pro rata (excluded bank holidays) and an extra day off for your birthday

• A fantastic subsidised staff restaurant which uses Fortnum's ingredients

• A range of opportunities to develop and grow personally and professionally

• Excellent pension scheme