Business Analyst

This is a senior, hands on Business Analyst role sitting at the heart of the client's retail and apparel systems estate. You will work closely with merchandising, design, supply chain, warehouse and finance stakeholders to gather and translate business requirements into clear functional specifications, and will partner with internal IT, implementation partners and third party vendors to deliver system enhancements, integrations and process improvements across the product and order lifecycle. The role suits an experienced Business Analyst with a strong background in apparel, fashion or wider retail environments, who is comfortable owning requirements end to end and confident leading workshops with senior stakeholders. Day to day, you will act as the primary link between business stakeholders (merchandising, design, supply chain, warehouse, finance and retail operations) and the IT delivery team, eliciting, documenting and prioritising business requirements for new system functionality, enhancements and integrations across the apparel systems landscape. You will produce clear, well structured business requirements documents, functional specifications, process maps and user stories, and will lead and facilitate requirements workshops, process walkthroughs and stakeholder interviews across the business. You will analyse current state processes across the product lifecycle, covering design, sourcing, PLM, range planning, allocation, warehousing and order to cash, identifying opportunities for improvement, and will work closely with solution architects, developers and third party implementation partners to ensure delivered solutions meet business needs. The role also covers system testing, including writing test scripts, coordinating user acceptance testing and validating that delivered functionality meets requirements, as well as supporting data migration, integration mapping and master data governance activities where relevant to project work. You will own and maintain a backlog of change requests, working with stakeholders to prioritise against business value and delivery capacity, and will produce training materials and support user adoption and change management activities for new processes and system releases. As a senior member of the team, you will also act as a mentor and point of escalation for junior analysts. Systems & Technical Environment The role calls for exposure to, or strong working knowledge of, systems typical of an apparel and retail environment. This includes Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platforms such as Centric, Bamboo Rose, Flex PLM or similar, core ERP systems such as NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor or comparable retail and apparel ERP, and warehouse management and logistics systems, including EDI integrations with suppliers, carriers and retail partners. Familiarity with e-commerce and order management platforms and their integration with core back office systems, along with reporting and business intelligence tools used to support merchandising and trading decisions, is also valuable. Skills & Experience Candidates should bring significant experience, typically 7 or more years, working as a Business Analyst, with a substantial portion of this in apparel, fashion or wider retail environments, and demonstrable experience across the product lifecycle, from design and sourcing through to allocation, sale and returns. Strong stakeholder management skills are essential, with the confidence to engage and influence senior business and IT stakeholders, along with a proven ability to write clear, structured business requirements, functional specifications and process documentation. Experience working within a structured project delivery methodology, whether Agile, Waterfall or hybrid, is expected, as are strong analytical skills and excellent written and verbal communication, with experience presenting to and facilitating workshops with senior stakeholders. It would also be an advantage to bring direct experience with a named PLM platform used in apparel or fashion, experience with NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics or another comparable ERP platform in a retail context, familiarity with EDI standards and integration patterns used between retailers, suppliers and logistics partners, exposure to data migration or system implementation projects in an apparel or retail setting, and a recognised Business Analysis qualification such as the BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis or IIBA CBAP. Person Specification The ideal candidate is highly organised, with the ability to manage multiple work strands and competing stakeholder priorities, and brings a collaborative, consultative style that works well across both business and technical teams. They are commercially minded, with a genuine interest in the apparel and fashion retail sector, comfortable operating with a degree of autonomy and taking ownership of outcomes, and a natural communicator who can flex style and language for both business and technical audiences. What's on