Business Analyst

The Business Analyst role is responsible for shaping and structuring small to medium sized strategic initiatives without direction. BA will be required to support ideation and discovery, including conducting relevant analysis to validate requirements and recommend solutions that will achieve desired business outcomes. This role requires excellent analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills to work with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to understand business needs and requirements. As a BA, you will play a pivotal role in translating business needs and requirements into solutions. The BA will step-in (when required) as a proxy Product Owner, wherein you will be primarily responsible for defining and prioritising the product backlog, working closely with stakeholders, and ensuring the engineering team understands the product vision and requirements. This role will focus on driving continuous improvement through measurable, quantifiable, and repeatable processes, including contributing to building the Business Analysis Community of Practice at River Island

Key Responsibilities:

• Review and input into Business Planning activities, providing the detail and analysis around proposed work and solutions. Assist with business case development and benefits identification.
• Support business stakeholders in defining the scope and ensuring the outcomes meets the product/stakeholder vision.
• Lead and facilitate workshops and meetings with stakeholders to gather and document detailed business requirements, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation, including business requirements, process flows, use cases, and user stories.
• Translate high level business requirements into detailed user stories (with acceptance criteria) in a timely manner for delivery, highlighting any dependencies.
• Maintain the healthy backlog in collaboration with the delivery teams.
• Work closely with technical teams, including architects and engineers, to ensure accurate interpretation and implementation of business requirements.
• Collaborate with delivery managers and cross-functional teams to prioritise requirements, define business outcomes, and contribute to planning and estimation.
• Assist in business process redesign and training as needed for any new technology solutions implemented.
• Support business acceptance testing by the stakeholders as required.
• Work with the change team to generate appropriate communication, process and educational plans for mitigating the disruption of change.
• Continually seek opportunities to increase business / customer satisfaction, deepen relationships, and effectively manage business expectations.
• Contribute to the development of the Business Analysis Community of Practice at River Island.
• Where broader improvements are identified outside of the delivery teams, work with Senior Tech stakeholders or other business functions to gain buy in and work towards those improvements.

Experience & Skills:

• Worked as a Business Analyst or in similar role in an agile environment.
• In-depth understanding of retail business processes and familiarity with one or more retail applications or systems
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to evaluate complex business problems, gather requirements and propose effective solutions.
• Ability to demonstrate excellent stakeholder management and highly effective communication skills.
• Strong leadership, interpersonal, negotiation skills are also required.
• Demonstrate lateral thinking with an ability to identify and manage impacts and dependencies.
• Able to apply skillset across other subject matter areas as and when required.
• Ability to perform a Scrum Product Owner role.

Behaviours & Competencies

• Analytical Thinking: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to gather and interpret complex data, identify patterns and trends, and provide insights for decision making.
• Communication: Strong verbal and written communication.
• Business Acumen: In-depth understanding of the industry, market trends, and organisational objectives, with the ability to analyse complex business problems and provide strategic insights and recommendations.
• Ensures Accountability: Holds self and others accountable to meet commitments.
• Collaboration: Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams, including business stakeholders and delivery teams to drive successful outcomes.
• Adaptability and Flexibility: Ability to adapt to changing business requirements, priorities, and environments, and effectively manage ambiguity and complexity.
• Willingness to Challenge: Ability to respectfully challenge the status quo in a constructive manner.
• Continuous Learning: Eagerness to stay updated with emerging trends, technologies, and industry best practices in business analysis, retail, and IT, and apply them to drive continuous improvement and innovation.