Data and Analytics Translator

Our FTSE100, global organisation, continues to grow and is moving from strength-to-strength. A large part of this is the Group’s data and insight space, which is an exciting and key aspect of us achieving the Group’s Destination 2025 strategy. We need to create a place where people ask the right questions, seek insights, and predict trends, to drive value and stay ahead of the competition.  To make this happen, we are creating a new culture, shifting mindsets, and investing in our people by building capability across the organisation whilst ensuring our new data and analytical tools are best in class.

The Data & Analytics Translator is vital to our success. You are the bridge between our operational and technical experts to shape analytics solutions and ensure we deliver successful, well understood data-driven products and services. You will combine your deep business knowledge with a strong understanding of what can be achieved with Advanced Analytics, playing a crucial role in understanding requirements, ensuring insights are interpretable and actionable and that the products we build are adoptable and scalable.

Responsible for:

* Delivery of value cases, as identified and prioritised by the D&A Leadership team.
* Acting as a translator, bridging the gap between technical and business knowledge, to define and enable solutions that drive value.
* Running discovery workshops, to identify, qualify and validate opportunities
* Framing the problem, by asking the right questions; and applying data solutions in the context of the problem
* Ensuring requirements captured are interpretable and actionable
* Ensuring products built are adoptable, scalable and deliver value. 
* Stakeholder management, encouraging communication and collaboration across the D&A community globally, through effective management, visibility, and communication of value cases. 
* Responsible for measuring realisation of the value attributed to each value case. 

Leaders in RS Group lead a culture where people are: 

* Customer and supplier obsessed 
* Highly engaged and ambitious 
* Stripping out barriers to execution 
* Creating fresh ideas and new markets 
* Delivering on promises – making it happen 
* Driven by outcome, with fully aligned objectives 
 
Therefore, to do that I: 
 
Show Passion: I connect deeply with others – colleagues, customers, and suppliers 
* I share my aspirations. I am transparent and honest. I act and communicate with integrity 
* I collaborate with others, so together we thrive and transform our business 
 
Act with Humility: I enable others to ask, ‘what if,’ and do amazing things 
* I listen to understand diverse views, as I do not have all the answers 
* I empower others to try new, exciting things; and challenge limiting beliefs. Sometimes we fail, but we do it together and we learn 
 
Demonstrate Trust: I lead by example, align others around ambitious goals, and check in regularly 
* I commit to and am accountable for two or three key priorities; and I deliver on them
* I join the dots for people across matrix teams, give them ownership, and make sure we always know how we are doing ? 

Key Deliverables for my role Identify opportunities to drive value across the RS Group
* Support the creation of a strong backlog of value cases that drive value using advanced analytics including data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
* Run discovery workshops (Product Primers), to identify, qualify and validate opportunities.
* Capture requirements that are interpretable and actionable, resulting in products that are adoptable, scalable and deliver value.
* Be able to articulate the art of the possible e.g., be able to outline the possibilities and what potential solutions could be.
* Challenge the status quo and find new solutions and drive out of the box ideas 
* Have a deep understanding of advanced analytics solutions, so that you can quickly turn business requirements into a feasible solution. 
* Have the conceptual ability to be able to understand what is involved in building and implementing an advanced analytics solution.
* Be fully conversant with data, BI and reporting solutions
* Drive the end-to-end delivery of value cases, orchestrating meetings, aligning resources and timelines etc. 
* Guide analytics team to develop the right visualisations for presenting results.

* Act as a Translator, bridging the gap between the technical teams and the business teams, clearly articulating the problem to be solved, to enable data-driven decisions which drive data driven solutions and deliver value
* Ensure value identified has been approved by the relevant business owner and Finance leads, before committing to delivering change
* Ensure that business teams fully understand how to utilise new products and services, to drive the value they have identified. 
* Work with the business owner to ensure benefits are realised, as identified in the value proposition. 

Community 
* Act a champion for the adoption of advanced analytics across the RS Group
* Be an Evangelist, educate people so that the Translator skillset starts to perforate wider, building this skill across the Group.
* Encourage communication and collaboration across the D&A community globally, through effective management, visibility and communication of value cases. 
* Leads communication of advanced analytics outputs; displaying new capabilities, product and services.

Who do I need to consult with?
* SVP Automation, Data & GSBS
* CDAO (Chief Data & Analytics Officer)
* D&A Leadership Team 
* D&A Leaders across the Group
* Business / Functional Teams
* Technology Leadership Team
* Technology Team 

Who do I need to keep informed and engage with?
* CDAO
* Head of D&A Portfolio Delivery
* D&A Leadership Team
* D&A Leaders
* D&A Practitioners

Useful Experience

* Prior experience in data science, software development and/or business translator roles is an advantage
* Deeply understands and is passionate about the application of AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), Analytics and BI across multiple business functions. 
* Organised, pragmatic and action oriented with an analytical mindset
* Able to challenge, whilst remaining unbiased.
* Loves working in multidisciplinary teams alongside engineers, data scientists etc.
* Hands-on experience translating business requirements into functional specifications that Data Engineers and other technical resources can act on. 
* Value focussed and always looking to delivery products and solutions which solve real customer problems. 
* Experienced in implementing a value mapping/process mapping mindset.
* Believes in incremental delivery, to ensure value is being delivered at every step
* Effective communication skills, with prior experience in presenting technical solutions in a simple and clear manner to non-technical stakeholders and senior management.
* Curious and questioning – identifying gaps before they become issues
* Tries new things, evaluates and sticks with what works, shares and promotes learning with colleagues
* Has an innate curiosity and constantly ask “why” or “so what”?
* Can articulate a vision for a product or solution, cutting through the noise of requirements to zone in on what’s important
* Strong business acumen skills, with a good understanding of generic business processes
* Commercially focussed, looking to deliver products and solutions that solve real customer problems and drive value   

Nice to have:
* Familiar with managing and / or developing analytic designs that enable complex multi-functional views of data to support critical business decisions 
* Passionate about technology and excited about the impact of emerging / disruptive technologies 
* Ideally some experience Implementing a solution and executing on insights by driving adoption among business users