IT Business Analyst

Shakespeare Martineau is a law firm with big ambitions for both our clients and our people. We are one firm of original thinkers, inspired to create an outstanding future for our clients, our people and our community. 

Working with organisations of all sizes our team delivers a broad range of specialist legal services, and has particular expertise across sectors including but not limited to; energy, education, banking & financial services, investment funds and advanced manufacturing.  

Our vision is to be the outstanding legal force in our specialist sectors and markets. Our people are renowned for their flair and individuality.

We firmly believe that people and spirit are at the heart of everything we do. Our commitment is to help all our people fulfil their careers and ambitions and we strive to create an environment where each individual can understand and then achieve their full potential. Great performance for us is a blend of excellent technical and business skills and the talent and drive to do things differently.

The role:

An opportunity has arisen for a highly flexible Business Analyst who will be required to proactively engage with business and functional departments, identifying current and emerging business requirements.

As part of a small team, within a very large enterprise, the role requires a broad set of skills and a high degree of flexibility and adaptability.

You will not be constrained by a rigid job specification and be sufficiently experienced to be able to pick up additional duties as necessary. You must be “hands on” in your approach whilst always maintaining a focus on the higher level priorities of the business.

Your key duties will include:

• translating and shaping IT demand into scoped IT projects
• understanding the IT strategy and influencing the business areas and their IT demands to ensure IT projects contribute to the strategy and don’t conflict with it
• supporting business areas in documenting business cases to demonstrate benefits, risks and financial appraisal for projects to support robust investment decision making
• eliciting requirements using interviews, document analysis, requirements workshops, surveys, site visits, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, task and workflow analysis
• critically evaluating information gathered from multiple sources, reconciling conflicts, decomposing high-level information into details, abstracting up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguishing user requests from the underlying true needs
• proactively communicating and collaborating with external and internal customers to analyse information needs and functional requirements and deliver artefacts as needed: [e.g. Functional requirements (Business Requirements Document), Use Cases, GUI, Screen and Interface designs)]
• utilising experience in using enterprise-wide requirements definition and management systems and methodologies required
• successfully engaging in multiple initiatives simultaneously
• working both independently, with users to define concepts, and under direction of IT Manager
• driving and challenging business units on their assumptions of how they will successfully execute their plans
• serving as the conduit between the customer community (internal and external customers) and the IT team through which requirements flow and liaise with key stakeholders to assess best fit solution options and recommendations
• developing requirements specifications according to standard templates, using natural language
• collaborating with IT stakeholders, 3rd parties and subject matter experts to establish the technical vision and analyse trade-offs between usability and performance needs
• liaising between the business units, technology teams and support teams

Your additional duties will include:

• reporting to the team on regulatory and legislative changes (identified through monitoring a variety of sources) which could impact the relevant legal groups / the wider profession
• internal auditing of files / work areas to ensure compliance with ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 standards
• assisting in risk and best practice improvement projects

Skills and experience you will have:

• a minimum of 10 years’ business analysis experience across a range of industries
• some previous experience in a legal background is preferable
• a demonstrable track record of delivery in a complex environment
• an analytical approach to problem solving, combined with a creative flair and commercial awareness
• the ability to negotiate desired outcomes from stakeholders at all levels, and customer relationship building
• strong oral, written and presentation skills – with the ability to explain complexity easily to a non-technical stakeholder group
• strong analytical and product management skills required, including a thorough understanding of how to interpret customer business needs and translate them into application and operational requirements
• excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group, executives, managers, and subject matter experts
• an aptitude for solving unstructured problems and decision making
• the ability to elicit requirements via multiple means and to determine their appropriateness to given situation, e.g. workshops, interviews etc. IT skills
• the ability to pull data from various sources and to design, construct and execute complex analyses to finally come up with data, reports and proposals that support solving business problems
• strong visual design skills used in creating information dense, easy to understand reports and dashboards
• experience working with stakeholders and end-users to define, test, elicit and deliver technical and functional BI requirements by making use of Business Intelligence reporting tools
• experience with Analysis Services and MS SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• strong knowledge of relational, SQL and dimensional databases
• MS Excel skills
• the ability to clearly communicate stakeholder reporting needs
• the ability to manage more than one complex project in parallel
• strong risk, issues and dependency management experience
• BCS Business Analysis International Diploma is desirable, not essential
• project management qualification is desirable, not essential

Key competencies you will have:

• an analytical mindset and the ability to see the big picture
• knowledge of organisational behaviour
• deductive reasoning
• leadership qualities and strong collaboration skills
• negotiation and persuasive skills

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.