Business Consultancy & Analysis Lead

We’re 1st Central, a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And that’s the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too!

We’re looking for a Business Consultancy & Analysis Lead who’ll be responsible for the definition and delivery of Business Analysis and Business Consultancy services. These services, in collaboration with Enterprise and Solution Architecture, support business strategy and plan development to enable the definition and delivery of high-quality business solutions aligned to those plans.

In addition to strong Business Consultancy/Architecture skills, you’ll possess strong leadership skills as this role comes with line management responsibilities for our Business Consultants and Value Stream Business Analysts as well as the leadership of the Business Consultancy & Analysis Community of Practice.

Core skills we’re looking for to succeed in the role:

• Significant experience in Business Consultancy and/or Business Architecture
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong leadership skills
• Strong workshop and meeting facilitation skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Strong analytical and conceptual skills; ability to create original concepts and theories for a variety of projects
• Strong anticipatory, statistical and information analysis skills
• Strong problem resolution, negotiation and influencing skills
• Ability to quickly understand the objectives, structures, operations and policies of a business area

What’s involved:

• You’ll manage and lead a team of Value Stream aligned Business Analysts, and cross-enterprise Business Consultants including Resource assignment and capacity forecasting through horizon scanning, managing any issues.
• Performance management and objective setting.
• You’ll identify training requirements and ensure completion of mandatory training.
• Leadership of the Business Consultancy & Analysis Community of Practice (BCA CoP).
• Definition of Business Consultancy & Analysis standards, practices and policies as part of the Agile Change Delivery Framework.
• You’ll monitor effectiveness, identifying and implementing changes through a process of Continuous Improvement.
• You’ll define and develop Business Consultancy & Analysis services.
• You’ll ensure the delivery of high-quality business solutions that align with organisational goals.
• You’ll lead consultative services that support business strategy development, including internal and external analysis, opportunity identification, technology and business cases, and business portfolio development.
• You’ll collaborate with Enterprise Architects in the definition of target operating models.
• You’ll engage with senior stakeholders to identify business and technology innovation opportunities that enable and drive business strategy and value.
• You’ll work closely with Enterprise Architects to construct deliverables that help business leaders identify and make business and technology investment decisions.
• Deliverables include, but are not limited to, business outcome statements, strategy on a page, scenario plans, business capability models, value-streams maps, business process models, ecosystems models, customer and user profiles, journey maps, human-centric design and investment roadmaps.
• You’ll help business stakeholders build effective communication and targeted messaging to support transformation objectives.
• Builds out the story building blocks by asking and answering key business and operating model questions.
• You’ll review current and target business-states, applying business modelling and analytical techniques (e.g. process mapping, SWOT analysis, options analysis, statistical and database analysis) in order to identify and prioritise gaps.
• You’ll collaborate with delivery teams to ensure continuous delivery of business value, as well as to leverage shared technologies, tools, and processes that impact speed to value and time to market.
• You’ll maintain up-to-date knowledge of industry trends and best practices in business consultancy and analysis.
• You’ll instigate, prepare, facilitate and lead meetings, workshops and presentations for a wide range of audiences, demonstrating consistently high qualities of communication and strong powers of influence.
• You’ll develop close working relationships with Subject Matter Experts, Sponsors and Senior Stakeholders to support and drive change decisions.
• You’ll comply with the requirements, and act in accordance with the Group Code of Conduct and Fitness and Propriety policies at all times.
• You’ll ensure compliance with Company Policies, Values and guidelines and other relevant standards/regulations at all times.

Experience & knowledge:

• Significant experience of roles with a direct responsibility for strategy formulation and translation, business consultancy/analysis and business architecture, ideally within an agile change framework.
• Experience developing and monitoring delivery of efficient and effective solutions to diverse and complex business problems.
• Knowledge of EA tools to develop business architecture deliverables.
• Proven leadership and management of Business Consultants and Analysts within an Agile delivery framework.
• Experience in the application of business architecture techniques including business models, capability mapping, value streams, information mapping and operating model definition.
• Experience in facilitating change within a business, to include defining/re-engineering existing and new processes as well as the development of new services and products.
• Experience in financial analysis and business case development.
• Able to communicate, influence and persuade — both business and technology leaders, as well as peers. Uses the language of business leaders.
• Ideally an insurance or financial services background, although other backgrounds will be considered.
• Knowledge of FCA requirements (including Consumer Duty).
• Experienced at building relationships with and managing internal and external stakeholders.

Skills:

• Significant experience in Business Consultancy and/or Business Architecture.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong workshop and meeting facilitation skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical and conceptual skills; ability to create original concepts and theories for a variety of projects.
• Strong anticipatory, statistical and information analysis skills.
• Strong problem resolution, negotiation and influencing skills.
• Ability to quickly understand the objectives, structures, operations and policies of a business area.

Qualifications:

• Business Analysis and/or Business Architecture certification/formal qualification.
• Formal training/certification in one or more Agile frameworks is preferred.

Behaviours:

• Understands, advocates and augments the business and technology strategies — and, more specifically, EA development and service delivery.
• Is prepared to “sell” the EA process (overall, not just for enterprise technology architecture), its outcome and ongoing results, and to lead the communication or marketing activities needed to ensure enterprise success and use.
• Trusted and respected as a thought leader who can influence and persuade business and technology leaders, and maintain a high level of customer trust and confidence.
• Commercially focused and results driven taking a pragmatic approach to delivering value.
• Highly collaborative and supportive of business and of its ideals and strategies.
• Organisationally savvy — comfortable, experienced and accomplished at working with business executives, and able to push back in a professional and diplomatic manner.
• Self-motivated and enthusiastic with an organised and pro-active approach.
• Highly innovative with aptitude for foresight, and design and systems thinking.
• Emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy.
• Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business.

So, if you’re up for the challenge and would like to join our vibrant and busy team, we want to hear from you today.

What can we do for you? People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive.

To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here. Intrigued? Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what we’re offering, so feel free to get in touch.