Sr. Business Analyst (Trade Finance)- Sales Strategy & Intelligence

Job Description

India is among the top ten priority markets for General Mills, and hosts our Global Shared Services Centre. This is the Global Shared Services arm of General Mills Inc., which supports its operations worldwide. With over 1,300 employees in Mumbai, the center has capabilities in the areas of Supply Chain, Finance, HR, Digital and Technology, Sales Capabilities, Consumer Insights, ITQ (R&D & Quality), and Enterprise Business Services. Learning and capacity-building is a key ingredient of our success.Job OverviewThe role will be responsible to partner with the Trade Marketing & Trade Finance Teams in US.The team member will independently build a seamless rapport with the point of contact overseas, address and initiate business requests, establish solutions through sophisticated reporting/tool building and superior presentations/visuals. The work will be sent with actionable insights that showcases depth & breadth of business acumen to address the business question.The role includes supporting adhoc trade projects for optimizing trade spending, bringing merch efficiency, evaluating promotional plans & make pricing recommendations via various data modelling & analytical techniques either independently or through collaboration of cross-team peers.Job Responsibilities 70% of TimeBusiness Insights & Analytics- Work on business questions received from stakeholders on building long term trade strategic capabilities leveraging enterprise data.- Be responsible to provide clear & crisp insights & recommendations addressing the question through a strategic report/ dashboard in excel or Tableau.- Trade Spend Management: Collaborate with the Trade Marketing and Sales teams to develop, track, and control trade marketing budgets, ensuring efficient allocation of resources and maximizing return on investment.- Financial Analysis: Conduct detailed financial analysis of trade marketing activities, promotions, and campaigns to identify cost drivers, sales impact, and profitability. Use this analysis to support decision-making processes and propose improvement strategies.- Budget Forecasting: Develop accurate and data-driven trade marketing budgets and forecasts, aligning them with the overall companys financial plans and goals.- Provide support on Trade Key Initiatives, Annual planning & Sales Release, ongoing plans.- ROI Evaluation: Analyze the return on investment (ROI) for trade marketing promotions and campaigns, making data-backed recommendations for future initiatives to optimize promotional effectiveness.- Distill actionable insights from the data to offer client ready business recommendations by identifying meaningful customer indicators & trends.- Work alongside of peers and inculcate best practices and elevate the teams ability to tackle business questions with value adds.- Own development of best-in-class reports, tools and customized solutions while finding synergies in existing processes and avoid redundancy 20% of TimeBuilding Stakeholder Relationships- Understand stakeholder needs and see the larger picture to enable holistic solutions- Ability to recommend and influence changes to process/ procedures- Explore business development opportunities and transform into tangible results- Ability to communicate challenges in an assertive manner- Confidently present trade dynamics to stakeholders and rationalize techniques and model fit- Showcase thought leadership look for ways to integrate better business solutions10% of TimeContinuous Improvement mindset to deliver Executional Excellence, and Project Management- Ensure TAT is upheld via awareness on process requirements, meeting benchmark time estimates and through articulate expectation settings with the stakeholder- Guarantee data quality and accuracy through thorough comprehension of request, accurate application of tools/platforms with an eye for detail and a robust data & logic check- Eliminate Waste, Contribute to the Functional Productivity Goals- CI Mindset: develop and drive a lens of continuous improvement for the projects, process & larger team- Project Management: Juggle multiple projects incld. long range projects and own project scoping, to trouble shooting, collaborating, to timely communication/iterations with peers and stakeholders to high impact completion and presentation- Be technically agile with data manipulation and visualization tools to drive efficiency in the deliverablesEducation & ExperienceEducationMinimum Degree Requirements: BachelorsPreferred Degree Requirements: MastersPreferred Major Area of Study: Business Management, Statistics, Marketing, Retail, Finance & AnalyticsExperienceMinimum years of related experience required: 3-4 years of relevant Business Reporting, Analytics & Proficiency in financial modeling, data analysis, and forecasting techniques.Preferred years of related experience: 5-6 years of Business Reporting, Analytics & Visualization experience. Functional knowledge on Trade preferred.Specific Job Experience or Skills NeededShould have an excellent level of financial & business acumen as well as advanced competency in Excel. Needs to be a strong partner to both market finance and cross functional teams. Understands the business needs, anticipates, and responds to evolving business requirements. Is an excellent communicator and is comfortable becoming an SME in complex areas.Partnering with Stakeholders. Comfortable communicating across functional teams and with senior stakeholders,. Able to critically evaluate financial performance and present the same,. Has a learning mindset,. Has a customer service mindset,. Anticipates future stakeholder needs and accelerates what is possible.Financial Forecasting & Reporting. Use SAP (Sap Analytics for Cloud) forecast system to ensure all financial inputs are inputted and accurate,. Critically review forecast output for missing or outlier datapoints,. Closely liaise with the business finance team with regards forecast submission and output each month,. Build standardized decks for each monthly meeting (MBR monthly business review). Work with stakeholder to put together financial scorecard.Reporting & Analysis. Analysis of change (Actuals vs Budget). Variance Analysis. Trade Spend Reporting & Accruals. Financia Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting, ROI, RNSCompetencies/Behaviors required for job. MS Excel and MS PowerPoint proficiency required in preparing dynamic dashboards and working through large volumes of data effectively. Good to have VBA & Tableau proficiency.. Presents complex data in a manner appropriate to audience.. Comfortable working as a team or autonomously. Shifts priorities quickly when necessary. Seeks coaching about the business drivers and how to apply creative ideas. Offers new ways of doing things and understands associated risks. Experiments with new approaches. Analyzes successes and failures to learn and continuously improve. Problem Solving & Analytical. Leads Innovation: Tech & Data Savvy. Proactive and the ability to handle ambiguous situations in a calm, composed manner