Company description
AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious diseases. But we're more than one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca, we're proud to have a unique workplace culture that inspires innovation and collaboration. Here, employees are empowered to express diverse perspectives - and are made to feel valued, energized and rewarded for their ideas and creativity.

High Level Function and Role Overview
The purpose of Operations IT BI team is to partner with Operations business teams to improve data capture, management, reporting and analytics. The ambition of Operations IT BI Team is to provide world-class expertise and leadership in Technological solutions, BI Analytics and Information Delivery that accelerates and improves Financial and Strategic Decision Making in AZ.
* This is a global role that could operate within any region.
* The role will interact across the Ops IT Capabilities, Sites, Information & Business Information teams in response to the project/programme needs identified.
* Interaction will be across all Operations regions and suppliers.
* Data & BI lead for operations global process -- with significant focus on data & BI elements which support the supply chain; product, vendor, quality, finance.
* Line and / or task management of resources distributed across the regions.
* Requires close cooperation and change management across aligned SET functions especially Global External Sourcing and Supply Chain.
* Our goal is to improve decision-making effectiveness, via management reporting and analytics.


Key Accountabilities
The role holder should deliver tangible and measurable value to Operations by taking a technical role in the delivery of both large and small Business Intelligence projects as well as contributing to Operations IT information architecture strategy, roadmaps and capabilities. They will undertake a range of activities including business analysis requirements, BI solution architecture, agile project leadership, analytics and software engineering. The role holder will identify opportunities for innovation in their delivery, leveraging technology and methodology best practices externally and internally to improve delivery performance and team capabilities. They will support both project and service information architecture problem resolution for the Operations IT portfolio in addition to supporting wider IT in the re-use of Operations information data services and assets. They will work with BI Analysts and with wider IT to deliver improved analytics capabilities to the business.
This will be achieved by:
* Creating solutions with the Supply Chain and Operations leadership customer group to develop an in-depth understanding of business priorities and early insight into changing needs in order to create BI solutions.
* Deliver cost effective, automated solutions to support BI Analytics activities, for example data ETL workflows and visualisation to support ad hoc analysis requests.
* Deliver robust BI solutions to support frequently asked business questions/analytical demands.
* Establish strong working relationships with Operations customer groups to develop an in-depth understanding of business priorities and early insight into changing needs in order to inform and shape demand.
* Innovate and test new technologies with relevance to BI and analytics, including POCs, assessments and business case development
* Lead the efforts to understand the business needs and analyse, validate and document the business and system requirements that address these needs.
* Leading and developing the capabilities (methods, processes, best practices etc.) in Business Information Management.
* Leading the provision of excellent services to the Operations business units. Manage all service management activities to ensure that services are delivered in accordance with Service Level Agreements and business requirements, and that new and improved services are developed and implemented without risk to business functions.
* Mentor less experienced Business Intelligence Analysts in the execution of their duties.
* Master Data & BI improvement is a significant change activity across Operations -- experience and confidence in AGILE development and delivery of data & BI governance required.
* Significant experience required in project and change management as role requires taking initial business problems, identifying and then delivering improvement plans.
* Personal drive and confidence to make change happen within team but also across customer groups; who will need to change their own ways of working to meet global standards.
* Ability to influence across peer groups as some project accountabilities will be transferred into business as usual functions within OPS IT.
* Ensure that data and information assets maintained by Operations IT are made available as data services and artefacts for consumption by the wider AZ enterprise.
* Support solution development efforts through active contribution to the BI software engineering effort (writing code).
* Test and quality assess new BI tools and products, to ensure they are fit for release.
* Maintain an on-going professional development in analytics and BI tools, and competitive / business intelligence techniques, master data management, information management and architecture, and vendors.



Candidate Knowledge, Skills and Experience
Successful candidates will be required to demonstrate the following capabilities & skills:
* Bachelors degree in Computer Science with strong experience in software solutions delivery
* Degree or experience in life sciences/pharmaceuticals industry is an asset
* 5 years+ BI Engineering experience, ideally in a Pharmaceutical, Financial, Commercial or Development domain
* Knowledge & Experience with a broad base of BI tools, for example: SAP Business Objects, Qliktech, , Informatica Powercentre, Informatica Data Quality, Informatica MDM, SAP MDM / MDG, Oracle Application Express, Oracle (Hyperion) DRM, Oracle SOA, SharePoint.
* Knowledge of SAP HANA/other appliances/MPP technologies, Big Data technologies e.g. Hadoop, Map Reduce, Hive (etc)
* Understands the big picture and identifies key deliverables along the way.
* Helps project teams to move through the various stages and decision points.
* Ability to apply this knowledge to solve problems and knows when to enlist help from others.
* Individual is up-to-date with relevant knowledge in Business Intelligence, has a good understanding of the literature and developments relevant to the BI.
* Takes responsibility for providing feedback to improve methodology, etc.
* Knowledge and understanding of SAP standard architecture and ways of working.
* Knowledge and understanding of Data Warehousing and proven experience of working in a high visibility Business intelligence environment
* Knowledge and understanding of one or more Operations Functions e.g. finance, supply chain, procurement..
* A passion for data processes and their importance in driving business performance.
* Experience in working with external supply partners and consultants.
* In addition, candidates will be expected to demonstrate:
* Significant project delivery and Business Analysis experience
* Influencing and Innovation skills
* Good communication skills and facilitation skills with the ability to work with others to achieve objectives.
* Good written and verbal skills, fluent English.
* Lead the acquisition of data and information from structured and text-based sources to support ad-hoc queries
* Support decision-making and business insight by applying a range of statistical techniques to data. Identify, analyse and interpret trends or patterns in complex data sets.
* Develop and automate data collection / aggregation workflows to support frequently asked questions or common business processes.
* Develop novel analytics algorithms, visualisations, reports and information dashboards for improved information and data interpretation.


Relevant expertise and experience of at least three of:
* Business Analysis
* ETL and warehousing
* Information Modeling
* Master Data Management
* Data Visualisation
* Service management
* SQL language Skills
* Schema Design
Plus basic experience of IT architecture or systems engineering or service delivery
* Task management of aligned project resources
* Relationship / customer management across teams
Other
* No direct line reports, but task management responsibilities within project or services may occur*

Equal Opportunity Employer Minorities/Women/Protected Veterans/Disabled/Sexual Orientation