Senior Business Analyst

As a Senior Business Analyst within the Group Transformation team, you will be working on large, complex, and high priority initiatives across JD Group. You will be responsible for assessing business impact, defining business requirements, strongly contributing to the design of solutions, and leading in business related initiatives in an exciting, fast paced multi-fascia environment.

As part of your role, you will work closely with business stakeholders, Project Managers, Developers, Architects, Suppliers and Testers to help JD Group implement the strategy. Whilst you will not be responsible directly for the BA team, you will provide a focal point for the BA community where you will educate, share best practice and coach the team to perform optimally.

Quality and agility will be at the heart of everything you do, driving improvements that help us deliver quicker to market whilst giving our customers the best possible experience. We are looking for someone passionate about business analysis, delivering great results and their own personal development. In return, you will receive the support, training, and development to further your career.

• Job Title - Senior Business Analyst



• Location - Bury (BL9 8RR)



• Working rota - Monday to Friday



• Working hours - 40 hours


What You'll Be Doing:


• Using your extensive knowledge of the company and industry, ensure new initiatives are understood and the wider impact is known to the business.


• Work with the business lead and finance department to flesh out the benefits of initiatives. Leading and challenging the figures presented, pushing for further accuracy and quality of data.


• Setup, prepare and lead requirements workshops with all stakeholder groups identified for the initiative whilst building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders at all levels of the business.


• Lead the gathering and prioritising of business requirements with supporting documentation, such as business requirement documents and requirement lists.


• Validate requirements in line with objectives and scope, identifying and managing conflicts.


• Depending on your project type working in an agile or waterfall way. Using your experience to adhere to the lifecycle and being proactive in BA actions.


• Process mapping the as-is and to-be for your initiatives at a proficient standard, with the ability to also upskill the wider BA team.


• Leading business analysis and group transformational process improvements. Proactively pushing, creating and challenging improvements, driving engagement with the team.


• Coach and mentor the BA team and continually look for ways to improve working practices and the overall BA service.


• Providing expert quality peer reviews and feedback on BA deliverables. Ensuring improvements are made and the BA understands why.


• Take responsibility for your personal development, including working with your manager to set objectives, milestones and identify your training needs.


• Identify new ways of working and supporting technologies that will assist the team to become more efficient and deliver a higher quality of business analysis.


• From time to time carry out other duties within the scope of the role, such as training and user acceptance testing.


Role objectives and KPI's:

To support the Programme Director in delivering high quality programmes of work that add business benefit and value. You'll:

• Perform business analysis at group level, programme level and project level. You will collaborate effectively with different business functions to deliver projects professionally and to ensure the JD group's stakeholder needs are met.


Competencies and behaviours:


• Presenting and Communicating Information


• Writing and Reporting


• Analysing


• Learning and Researching


• Planning and Organising


• Delivering Results and Meeting Customer Expectations


• Adapting and Responding to Change


• Coping with Pressures and Setbacks
  
  Extensive business analysis experience gained in ecommerce, retail or supply chain environments is highly advantageous.


• Outstanding facilitation and influencing skills.


• Confidence to question stakeholders and identify underlying requirements.


• Proficient in establishing relationships, analysing perspectives, and managing stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds; adapting stakeholder engagement style to meet the needs of different audiences.


• Good leadership skills, can motivate, feedback and coach. Adapting communication style as appropriate.


• Pragmatic self-starter able to work with little guidance.


• Thrives in a fast-paced environment and proactively plans/manages time accordingly.


• Used to leading the capture, validation, and analysis of functional and technical requirements.


• Experience in an Agile Scrum environment, writing user stories and acceptance criteria.


• Highly proficient at producing process maps and process flow models.


• Exposure to the full software development life cycle.


• Exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal.


• Diligent, focused, and dependable, able to build strong relationships based on integrity.


• Track record of coaching and mentoring Business Analysts and BA teams in best practice approaches and improving team performance.


• A great team player who can work constructively with project managers, business analysts, programme managers, developers, suppliers, testers, business stakeholders and management.


Desirable Skills/Experience:


• Certification in Agile such as Certified Business Analyst/Product Owner/Scrum Master.


• Professional certification such as the BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis.


• Experience working with retail/ecommerce/supply chain teams such as merchandising, marketing, finance, loss control, UX, design, operations, tax, data protection, analytics, customer care, customer acquisition and retention.
  
  The JD Group is a leading omnichannel retailer of Sports Fashion, Street & Premium Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with over 60,000 colleagues over 3,400 stores across several retail fascia's in over 30 markets around the world.
  
  We are an equal opportunities employer who embraces and values differences. We recognise the importance of an inclusive workplace culture in which everyone can thrive irrespective of their background or identity.


To be a part of this successful and continuously growing company, you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people first, a digital leader and customer focused organisation which provides operational excellence and is continuous with identifying new areas of growth into our day-to-day.

We know our employees work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits:

• Incremental Holiday Allowance


• Staff Discount on qualifying purchases across Group retail stores and online


• Exclusive Colleague Bike Discount scheme


• Discounted Gym membership


• Personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work


• Access to Apprenticeships and accredited qualifications