Business Intelligence and Solutions Analyst at Vector Logistics

Job Purpose

• The purpose of the role is to manage, maintain and further develop the organisation's BI environment and associated costing and profitability models, ensuring that they provide accurate and reliable information for financial, commercial and operational decision making. The role is primarily responsible for maintaining the Activity-Based Costing model, including the underlying logic and assumptions that underpin the model. The model is used extensively for profitability reporting, new business costings, forecasting and budgeting. The incumbent will manage the end-to-end flow of data through the model and ensure the integrity of the system. The role acts as a key point of support for users of the system.

Key Responsibilities

TM1 Maintenance and Administration

• Coordinate and execute the monthly and routine updating of data into the TM1 models and reconciling back to source systems.
• Maintain and develop the organisation's models including its Activity-Based Costing model to ensure that costs are appropriately allocated to activities, business units, customers, products and services.
• Maintain the cost drivers, assumptions and allocation methodologies underpinning the model to ensure that costing outputs continue to reflect the operational reality of the business.
• Ensure that all models provide accurate and meaningful information for commercial and management decision-making.
• Investigate variances and anomalies to identify and resolve potential data, model, allocation or business-process issues.
• Identify and incorporate business and masterdata changes into the model.
• Administer and maintain the organisation's TM1 environment, including cubes, dimensions, hierarchies, subsets, rules, feeders, processes, security and user access, to ensure the system remains stable, secure and fit for purpose.
• Monitor TM1 processes and model performance, investigate system issues, and implement appropriate solutions to maintain reliable and timely outputs.
• Maintain appropriate documentation of TM1 models, processes, structures, logic, assumptions and changes to support effective system management and continuity.

Time and Motion Process Management

• Manage the collection, validation and maintenance of Time & Motion data, ensuring accurate employee time allocations are reflected in TM1 and appropriately incorporated into costing models and cost drivers.

Data Integrity and Validation

• Perform data validation and reconciliation across source systems, ETL processes and TM1 models to ensure the accuracy and integrity of critical costing and profitability information.
• Identify data-quality issues, investigate root causes and implement appropriate corrective actions to prevent recurring errors.
• Maintain appropriate controls, validation procedures and audit trails over key data
• and model inputs.

Data ETL and Integration

• Extract, transform and integrate data from SAP ERP, SAP BW, SQL databases and other disparate sources to provide reliable inputs for TM1, semantic models, costing, profitability and reporting solutions.
• Use SQL and an understanding of relational databases and data structures to query, manipulate, validate and investigate data.
• Develop and maintain production data warehouses in SQL server.
• Develop and maintain automated ETL workflows using Alteryx to streamline data preparation, improve data quality and ensure the timely and consistent availability of information.
• Apply appropriate business rules to cleanse, transform, join and aggregate data from multiple sources to produce fit-for-purpose datasets.
• Monitor automated data processes, investigate failures and data anomalies, and implement corrective actions to maintain reliable data flows.
• Document key data flows, transformations, dependencies and controls to support the ongoing management and integrity of the data environment.

Stakeholder Support and Engagement

• Act as a subject-matter expert for TM1-based costing and profitability models and provide guidance and technical support to users on the interpretation and use of system outputs.
• Investigate and resolve user queries and discrepancies and provide clear explanations of technical, costing and data-related issues to non-technical stakeholders.
• Manage development projects end-to-end from gathering requirements to final delivery keeping scope, timelines and stakeholder expectations on track.
• Escalate decisions involving fundamental costing methodologies, material financial assumptions, system architecture or business policy to appropriate stakeholders.
• Share knowledge and provide training to users where required.

Automation, Development and Continuous Improvement

• Support the ongoing development and enhancement of the models and functionality to meet changing business and reporting requirements.
• Develop specification documents for new models and functionality, and manage testing, migration and deployment of changes into production
• Engage with Finance, Commercial, Operations, IT and other stakeholders to understand business requirements and translate them into practical solutions.
• Identify manual, repetitive or inefficient processes and develop automated solutions to improve efficiency and reduce manual intervention.
• Continuously evaluate opportunities to improve the TM1 model performance, data processes, reporting functionality and costing methodologies.
• Challenge requirements where appropriate and recommend solutions that improve efficiency, accuracy, automation and sustainability.
• Identify and evaluate the impact of business process changes on existing reporting systems and models.
• Identify opportunities to integrate systems and improve the flow of information from source systems through to costing, profitability and management reporting.
• Coordinate with external service providers or consultants where relevant.

Key Relationships

Internal

• Senior Management teams across Vector
• Commercial, Engineering and Finance teams
• IT and Risk
• Operational managers across the Business
• Cross functional project teams
• Technical teams

External

• Service Providers
• Consultants

Qualifications, Skills and Experience Required for the Job

Qualifications and Experience

• Degree or equivalent in Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Analytics, Finance, Data Science.
• Experience in administering and developing TM1 / IBM Planning Analytics models.
• Relevant SQL, database, data analytics or business analysis certification.
• Experience developing and maintaining Powerbi semantic models.
• Previous SAP ERP and SAP BW end-user experience is highly advantageous.
• Experience in Activity-Based Costing, financial modelling or management reporting.
• Experience in logistics, warehousing, distribution, manufacturing or other operationally complex environments.
• Experience using Alteryx or comparable ETL/data preparation platform.

Skills and Competencies

• The incumbent is expected to develop proficiency in Alteryx; a strong foundation in SQL, data and ETL is essential to achieving this.
• Sound understanding of financial statements, systems and accounting principles.
• Understanding of OLAP systems, dimensional modelling, semantic models, data analysis and data modelling.
• Understanding of, and experience working with, SQL Server, TSQL, relational databases and ETL tools.
• Understanding of data structures and data integration principles.
• Understanding of Activity-Based Costing or management accounting principles.
• Business requirements analysis, information gathering and documentation.
• Advanced Excel
• Knowledge of Power BI report creation and models, DAX, Python, VBA.