Senior Business Analyst

We’re BDO, an accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world. We work with ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high-growth businesses that fuel the economy and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.

The Operations PMO was created in Jun 2021 and is responsible for maximising BDO's change investment; helping deliver change in the most effective and efficient way; track, record and report on expectation, help build change delivery capability across the firm; and bring in teams to help the firm deliver. Our motto is “REALISE STRATEGIC VALUE, THE RIGHT WAY, FASTER.”

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, which comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships. You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working proactively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with.

Operations PMO provides change delivery services to the 3 core client delivery streams – Tax, Audit and Advisory and to all the PMDs (Practice Management Departments). We are looking for an experienced Senior Business Analyst who possesses strong communication and presentation skills with the capability to listen and influence stakeholders in delivering the right solutions.

In this role you will:

• Work closely with the 3 core client delivery Business Streams and PMDs to facilitate, document and interpret business processes, business and functional requirements and translate these into application and operational requirements.
• Mentor/Coach less experienced BAs in the team.
• Build trusting relations with business stakeholders to enable the translation of their business strategies and build growth plans into BA delivery pipeline.
• Establish yourself as a trusted partner to the business by championing BA best practices to help deliver the change agendas.
• Model business structures, systems, and processes in light of proposed changes.
• Support the project manager to manage external supplier selection and evaluation processes.
• Design test scenarios and test scripts and support the business in conducting adequate regression and user acceptance testing.
• Understand the inflight and upcoming changes in project business requirements.
• Promote good working relationships and respond quickly to deal with conflict or breakdowns in communication.
• Negotiate effectively to achieve agreed courses of action with stakeholders whilst maintaining their buy-in.
• Drive and support business users to follow good governance practice such as regular review of issues, risks and dependencies.
• Facilitate meetings incorporating business, technology and user groups to gather information and client requirements.
• Gather data to enable understanding of business processes, related barriers, risks and client needs.
• Use questioning techniques to challenge requests if the scope, benefits and proposed deliverables are unclear.
• Support the growth of the Business Analysis function through actively contributing in building the core components of the BA centre of Excellence.
• Actively contribute in the BA Communities of Practice and lead sessions if required.

You’ll be someone with:

• Strong analytical and interpersonal skills.
• Natural curiosity to understand the business challenges and help solve them through the engagement of sound change practices.
• Experience of interpreting business requests and translating them to requirements.
• Experience of writing requirements specifications.
• Demonstrable evidence of gathering, analysing and documenting business processes using BPMN techniques.
• Experience in outcome driven analysis skills and techniques.
• Experience in use of data insights to drive sound recommendations.
• Experience in Agile BA practices.
• The ability to present to an audience in both formal and informal situations.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal including active listening.

Nice to have:

• Experience in Big 4 professional services firms / consultancy experience / experience working in large complex organisations.
• Experience in Lean Six Sigma Business Process Improvement methodologies.

You’ll be able to be yourself; we’ll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We’re committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand. At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs. Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy. Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions. We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better.