Business Analyst Manager

The Business Analyst Manager will play a pivotal role in driving strategic business analysis initiatives, leading a small team of Senior and Junior Business Analysts, and ensuring high-quality analytical deliverables. This role is responsible for overseeing business analysis activities across multiple projects, facilitating collaboration between business stakeholders, clients, and technical teams, and ensuring alignment with business objectives.

The Business Analyst Manager will provide expert guidance on business analysis best practices, champion knowledge transfer within the team, and support business transformation efforts. They will act as a bridge between business and technology, ensuring the delivery of solutions that address operational, financial, and technological challenges while optimizing business performance. Additionally, they will play a key role in unblocking issues for both projects and their direct reports, working closely with the Head of Business Analysis to resolve challenges efficiently.

The Business Analyst Manager will use the team’s core values to ensure that their team, and their team’s initiatives, remain focused on proportionate outcomes, maximizing value, end user experience, and informed decision making to achieve the best results for the clients, subject matter experts, and project team.

• Leadership & Team Management: Lead and mentor a team of Senior and Junior Business Analysts who are focused on delivering strategic initiatives, fostering professional growth and structured knowledge transfer to ensure team members have the necessary expertise to perform their roles effectively.
• Develop and implement a structured approach for knowledge sharing, ensuring junior team members benefit from the experience of senior analysts.
• Supervise the quality of analysis outputs, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and alignment with business goals and team standards.
• Actively identify and unblock challenges faced by team members, facilitating resolutions and escalating issues to the Head of Business Analysis as needed.
• Collaborate closely with the Head of Business Analysis to ensure alignment of business analysis activities with organizational objectives and resolve high-priority issues.
• Coach and mentor team members, providing feedback based on an established skills and competencies framework and identifying development opportunities.

• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: Act as a liaison and escalation point between business units, IT, and project teams, clients and SMEs ensuring alignment and clarity.
• Manage stakeholder expectations, negotiate priorities, and ensure effective decision-making across their own and their team’s initiatives, collaborating with the Head of Business Analysis on complex and important initiatives.
• Facilitate complex discussions, workshops, and stakeholder meetings to gather and refine business requirements with the team.
• Present findings, recommendations, and analysis to senior leadership, clients and executives in a clear and compelling manner.
• Seek opportunities to optimise ways of working with other teams within the strategic project group, actively managing channels of communication during delivery.
• Surfacing risks early and articulating potential impact to the PMO to ensure timely mitigation.

• Strategic & Operational Analysis: Provide best practice enterprise business analysis services to both internal teams and clients, in subject areas which the analyst may not be familiar with, confidently partnering with subject matter experts to lead business analysis activities in the project from initiation to completion.
• Lead best practice analysis, design, documentation, and initiation of business as usual and project processes and workflows.
• Support leadership team members and peers by collaborating with others, articulating ideas and viewpoints to senior management and colleagues, identifying and initiating projects, driving the resolution of issues, and holding themselves accountable for results.

• Reporting & Communications: Support and manage customer relationships and expectations for Business Analysis within SPG, and other functions as required, by developing and maintaining a communication process to keep stakeholders appraised of project results.
• Maintain current knowledge of customer needs and strategies, utilizing formal and informal written communication methods to communicate updates and findings within the team.
• Understand and negotiate needs and expectations of multiple stakeholders.
• Serve as a liaison between Operations and IT, or other expert teams to facilitate discussion and improve understanding and outcomes.
• Stay updated on industry trends, emerging technologies, and business analysis methodologies.
• Work proactively to identify and resolve issues within projects and team activities, ensuring smooth execution and delivery.
• Champion best practices in business analysis, ensuring alignment with IIBA and other industry standards.
• Identify opportunities to streamline and improve common analysis tasks through the application of repeatable templates and frameworks, software tools or AI where appropriate.
• Drive automation efforts and recommend innovative solutions to enhance business efficiency.

The Business Analyst Manager should have:

• Extensive experience in business analysis, with a track record of delivering successful projects across various business functions.
• Experience of delivering Business Analysis as a service, including the ability to identify and articulate where specific analysis activities will add value to client initiatives.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to derive root causes and propose both tactical and strategic solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and mentor a team, fostering professional development, structured knowledge transfer, and accountability.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and negotiation skills, with experience engaging senior leadership.
• Expertise in business analysis frameworks and methodologies, with the ability to apply them effectively in unfamiliar domains.
• Extensive practical experience of working in Agile, Waterfall, and Iterative project delivery methodologies.
• Experience leading large, complex projects with multiple stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• Strong documentation and reporting skills, including the ability to create high-quality business analysis artifacts.
• Intermediate-level business analysis qualifications (IIBA or equivalent) and a commitment to ongoing professional development.

It would be an advantage to have:

• Additional qualifications in related fields such as Production Management (CSPO), Project Management (PMP), or Process Optimisation (LEAN Six Sigma).
• Working knowledge of automation technologies and their use in integrations, solution design, and operational process e.g. leveraging AI tools to optimize processes, reduce costs, and boost team productivity.
• Practical experience writing and directing non-functional requirements, and interfacing with technical infrastructure and IT teams and stakeholders.