Business Analyst Lead
Job Description
Job title: Business Analyst Lead
Company: Unite Students
Job description: The Role
At Unite Students our aim is to create a Home for Success for our students, using technology and data to empower them to find their home and have a great stay with us, and a great experience throughout their student life.
The Business Analyst Lead plays a critical role in our organisation by bridging the gap between business needs and technology solutions. This position is responsible for understanding the strategic objectives of the company and translating them into actionable requirements for IT projects and initiatives.
The BA Lead will manage a team of BAs and is team leader for the BA function. You will define the approach and methodology supporting best-practice adoption, provide QA over complex projects, mentor junior BAs, and contribute to the continuous improvement of business analysis processes.
What You`ll Be Doing
- Lead and manage a team of Business Analysts, providing guidance, coaching, and support to foster their professional development
- Continuously assess team capability with the intent to identify and implement recommendations/improvements as required
- Set up and enforce best practices, tools, standards, and ways of working within the Business Analysis team at Unite to drive consistency and quality of deliverables across projects/initiatives
- Develop relationships with the business leads to understand their people, processes, and technology, and proactively work with them to drive excellence across all three through Business Process Modelling, Process Simplification, Digitalisation & Automation, utilising a Lean Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement Culture, Approach and Toolkit.
- Mapping end-to-end business processes and identifying efficiency opportunities including removal of non value-added wastes, automating data flows and integrating systems.
- Building business cases to detail efficiency benefits realisation through return on investment and payback period
- Provide Leadership and Quality Assurance (QA) support for BA activities across the delivery of IT projects, ensuring they are completed to a suitable level of quality, on time, within scope, and within budget.
- Maintain effective communication with all project, business and IT stakeholders, providing regular updates and addressing concerns.
- Identify and mitigate project risks and issues, proactively seeking solutions to keep projects on track. Escalate to senior leadership as needed.
What We`re Looking for in You
- A proven track record of building and developing BA functions with businesses and coaching more junior team members.
- Proficiency in business analysis tools and methodologies and implementing new ways of working within the BA function.
- Extensive experience in business process designs and facilitation.
- Ability to manage and prioritise workload for yourself and the team.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with evidence of providing BA Quality Assurance (QA) across projects
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
- Proactively work with all relevant stakeholders to identify areas for continuous improvement.
- Project management capabilities to manage team utilisation, quality deliverables and to provide regular updates/reports to management.
- Experience with project management tools and techniques.
- Certification in Business Analysis (e.g. CBAP)
- Experience in both Agile and Waterfall methodologies.
- Curiosity and tenacity to explore beyond the immediate circumstances to identify further improvements
- Good understanding of data protection legislation and experience of developing and maintaining a team environment where personal data is kept protected, confidential and secure
Desirable Qualities:
- Oracle and Salesforce experience.
- Familiarity of SaaS based platforms.
About Unite Students
Founded in 1991, Unite Students is a FTSE 100 business and the UK`s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 25 leading university towns and cities, with over 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.
Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.
People make Unite Students. Employees, students, and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.
Room for Everyone
We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with a passion for creating room for everyone, doing what`s right, keeping US safe, and raising the bar. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.