Senior Functional Analyst (Pricing & Promotions)
Value Proposition
Africa’s largest fast-moving consumer goods retailer with over 35 million customers and 2,500 outlets. Our customers are at the heart of what we do, and our sole purpose is to provide all communities with high quality products at the most affordable prices. Within such a dynamic environment, innovation and the effective application of technology are becoming essential to maintain a competitive position. We continue to invest in being a technologically innovative and enabled business. You will be part of delivering multi-channel technical solutions to some of the most recognised retail brands in South Africa. You will be surrounded by teams and individuals who challenge you and inspire you to be extraordinary. Are you ready to make an impact?
If you’re currently actively contributing to SAP systems solutions, configuration and/or testing but seek to accelerate your career, broaden and deepen your knowledge, then we’d like to chat with you about this opportunity.
Role Purpose
In the role of a Senior Functional Specialist you will live and breathe customer system solutions and configuration. The main purpose of this role is to evaluate business requirement specifications, transform the essential components into an abstract and algorithmic business models, and as such, identify the use cases to transform into logical and technical views through configuration of the SAP system. This role works closely with a cross-functional team and supports the system designers with co-creating sustainable new solutions. Specialised knowledge of systems analysis, and the creation and testing of low to medium complex applications, will be a key success factor in providing relevant technical solutions and practical configuration execution.
Role Description:
- Analyse and understand the functional business requirements as defined by the Business Analysts, owners and other stakeholders.
- Understand the retail domain and applicable context of various business requirements specifications in relation to the specific SAP systems and operational processes.
- Review SAP technical solutions and business processes against the scope of business requirements.
- Undertake systems analysis and participate in system design and documentation for all low to medium complexity solutions including participation in the solution assessment and validation.
- Provide input into the scope of a solution and ensure an understanding of the scope by relevant stakeholders.
- Provide input on alternatives presented by the system designers and answer detailed questions regarding the business design and applicable configuration options.
- Produce fit-for-purpose specification documents for business requirements and processes using appropriate tools.
- Deliver in accordance with systems and unit test standards against IT group standards and best practice.
- Provide support to the systems designer with the solutions for highly complex systems integration.
- Provide support in the identification of data conversion and reporting requirements.
- Prepare test scripts and execute testing of the configured scenarios.
- Facilitate and coordinate User Acceptance Testing.
- Troubleshoot system related issues and channel transactional data.
- Assist with and provide timeous feedback on ad-hoc queries from business stakeholders.
- Build and maintain a trust relationship with business and IT stakeholders by delivering what was promised and providing solid knowledge and support.
- Work closely with Architects, Designers and Business stakeholders, in order to design and implement solutions.
- Take ownership to gain knowledge of the retail environment and share that knowledge across the team. To continuously support the business environment, you are required to maintain an understanding of initiatives and objectives, its various line portfolios, and the current trends and developments in the technology field.
Qualifications and Experience
- Relevant Degree (Information Systems, B.Sc Computer Science) – essential. If you do not have a degree, then your demonstrable knowledge and practical ability will be considered.
- 1-3 years – FA I, 3-5 years FA II, 5-8 years FA III
- 3-5 years experience as an Analyst / Programmer or equivalent – including exposure to system integration, testing (unit, system, performance, integration and volume), design, architecture – essential.
- Relevant and demonstrable experience in systems analysis, configuration and user testing – essential.
- Exposure to and an understanding of corporate, retail, financial environment in a similar role – essential.
Exposure that will be highly advantageous in this role:
- Pricing & Promotions: configuration ability of SAP SD, Pricing (MMSD Retail), billing and order management functionality with Retail Pricing, SAP Promotions and Bonus Buy functionality.
- Pricing & Promotion processes and practices.
- IS Retail Master data – Article master, Site master, Organisation and Enterprise Structures.
- IS Retail Merchandising – Assortment Management and Layout Workbench.
- IS Retail POS Integration – Assortment list, POS Interface, Enterprise services.
- Allocation Processing and Import processes.
- Understanding of DRF integration and Data-services.
- Procurement: SAP Planning and Procurement, Merchandise Distribution with hands on experience in the configurations and business processes in:
- Purchase orders
- Purchase Requisitions
- Collective Purchase orders
- Planning and delivery cycles
- Allocations
- SAP Replenishment
- Retail Master Data including:
- Article and Article listing, layout modules
- Vendor, Customer
- Organizational structures
- Article and Merchandise hierarchy
- Sites, Site groups, assortments
- Implementation of SAP IDOC technology
- SAP integration for SAP MM, SD, FI and Retail Master Data to External systems
- Functional Experience in SAP PI or any other middleware system
- ABAP debugging skills (does not need to develop or maintain ABAP code). Exposure to the integration to legacy systems like demand, warehouse management and replenishment.
- Full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) experience (Unpacking requirements, functional design, writing functional specifications, interacting with ABAP developers, unit testing, involved with Testing Centre of Excellence (TCOE) in defining test scenarios to be tested and reviewing test evidence before deploying to Production, User Acceptance testing (UAT) and responsible for ensuring cutover tasks completed with deployment to Production environment).
- SAP Retail procurement processes and practices.
- Retail demand management and order fulfilment.
- Store: SAP Retail working knowledge inside SD and Inventory Management; configuration and code analysis. Inventory management including food services, waste management, etc.
- Configurations and business processes of:
? Store Ordering
? Agency Business
- Sales Order Processing
- POS In&Out bound processing
- Retail store processes and practices
Key Competencies and Work Ethic
- Technologically advanced – demonstrates a sound understanding of the overall function and technologies of the SAP system and additional integrated systems. Understands the design principles and internal application of the SAP system and is able to interpret the functional requirements to the technical designers. Demonstrates a sound understanding of the SAP system performance tools, as well as storage, back-up and recovery requirements. Able to use technological knowledge to solve escalated SAP system issues.
- Analytical thinking – readily comprehends new concepts and information, investigates various courses of action to identify the most appropriate solution, and integrates verbal, numerical and other types of data in the aim of arriving at an optimal solution.
- Customer centric solution orientation – puts internal and external customers first, seeking to understand their needs and satisfaction. Recommends a workable solution that meets the immediate demands of the situation, and recognises that the solution to one issue may have an impact later on in a process.
- Decisive – makes straightforward decisions to generate activity in their own work, accepting responsibility for their own work and mistakes, and handling problems (within their immediate area of responsibility) with minimal guidance.
- Communication – speaks clearly and audibly and at an appropriate pace, and authoritatively provides credible points of an argument in their own expertise. Writes clearly and succinctly, using correct spelling and grammar; and provides simple points in a straightforward and factual manner. The written work that is produced has a clear structure and is comprehensible, where the length and degree of detail is adjusted for different readers.
- Quick learner – rapidly learns new tasks relevant to their own job and quickly commits information to memory. Also, shows a rapid understanding of newly presented information and applies it to their own role.
- Organised – manages their own time effectively while keeping track of their own progress against deadlines, and ensuring that tasks or projects are completed on time. Sets clearly defined tasks in line with the objectives set by the line manager, organises and uses resources effectively, and plans own work activities while raising possible changing circumstances with the line manager.
- Results driven – takes a methodical and systematic approach to their own work, checking for errors and rejecting substandard work, and consistently meeting agreed productivity levels and achieving own work targets. manages their own time effectively while keeping track of their own progress against deadlines, and ensuring that tasks or projects are completed on time.
- High standards – sets high levels of quality and output for self, and is not prepared to compromise on quality even when under pressure to cut corners.
Desired Skills:
- Functional
- Analyst
- SAP