Lead IT Business Analyst

Join the Spark Team

We were born of innovation, springing from the curiosity, imagination and dedication of remarkable scientists and healthcare visionaries. Our shared mission is to unlock the power of gene therapy to accelerate healthcare transformation.

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Primary Duties

The Lead IT Business Analyst is responsible for developing, leading and supporting cross-functional applications. Managing key stakeholder relationships, understanding business processes, and driving the development of quality end-to-end processes is critical to maximizing the benefits of IT investments. This role must be able to drive both application support as well as technical support, project management and the development of requirements and business cases for new capabilities. This includes managing system administration functions. Serves as project owner for business systems initiatives and a resource in evaluating policy and strategy for information technology.

The Lead IT Business Analyst will contribute to business technology strategy development, solution discovery, service management, risk management and relationship management ensuring strong alignment between the strategic technology requirements of the business and the effective planning and delivery of IT services/solutions. The role will collaborate closely with the aligned functional leaders to understand business strategy, demand, and priorities and help the business propose programs/projects which will drive those strategic goals.

Responsibilities

20% Strategy & Planning

• Contribute to and execute the business roadmap and related applications and technologies. Work with IT and Business stakeholders to ensure demand is prioritized, and projects and solutions are aligned with Spark architectural principles and strategic goals.
• Partner with business functions to identify process gaps and recommend solutions. Review and analyze existing applications effectiveness and efficiency, and then develop strategies for improving or leveraging these applications. Analyze business scenarios and identify opportunities for improvement through automation and/or business process redesign.
• Enable Spark’s growth strategy by driving efficiency and agility in application maintenance and platform management by leveraging best practices, minimizing customization and assessing IT trends within the organization. Serve as liaison for process, data, and application integration related decisions.
• Cultivate and disseminate knowledge of application-usage best practices.

20% Acquisition & Deployment

• Project business case development including budget estimation and project financial tracking for in-flight projects.
• Manage requirements definition and consolidation. Participate in strategy discussions and other business function discussions to understand and capture detailed business requirements.
• Manage larger initiatives to ensure quality delivery on time and budget
• Analyze business scenarios and identifies opportunities for improvement through automation and/or business process redesign. Create visual depictions of system, maintain configuration, application functionality and integration modifications needed to support business requirements
• Collaborate with Program/Project Managers, Business analysts, Business System Owners, Key End Users, Business Process/Data Owners, and Implementation Partners on the implementation of new applications.
• Ensure an orderly transition to operations by leveraging DevOps concepts for transitioning implementations to Operations/Support.

50% Operational Management

• Provide input into the development of the budgets for the function in line with Application Services budgeting processes
• Supports demand intake process assessing requests to determine criticality and scope.
• Provide effective applications support across the enterprise ensuring any software incidents are quickly identified and resolved to ensure the service provided is in line with the required SLAs and business need
• Maintain by ensuring:
  • Applications remain compliant with regulations, etc.
  • Applications are appropriately licensed.
  • All key maintenance patches/upgrades are appropriately scheduled and, on the applications roadmap, defined by the enterprise and data architect
  • Deployed applications are well documented with regards to process models, application configuration, and integration to facilitate road mapping and support.
• Develop and communicate training and documentation for end users, hold clinics as necessary, and other user-related activities.
• Collaborate on the development and continuous improvement of Master Data Governance policies and guidelines. Oversee the creation and quality of SDLC project deliverables including process and data models, requirements specifications, design, configuration, and testing (including validation deliverables).
• Develop, implement, and maintain policies, procedures, and associated plans for software administration and appropriate use.
• Ensure process conformance and compliance

10% Stakeholder relationship and engagement

• Build rapport with IT and business stakeholders.
• Proactively engage with Key Stakeholders and users to understand business issues and concerns.

Education and Experience Requirements

• Four-year college diploma or university degree in Life Sciences, Business Administration, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of experience in system operation including quality oversight, process development/review and/or adherence to quality processes supporting the Life Sciences industry.
• Experience and proficiency in supporting Veeva Applications (ie. QMS, QDocs, Clinical, Regulatory)
• Knowledge and experience working with quality systems in environments regulated by the FDA.
• Must have experience in R&D or manufacturing environment with an understanding of the drug development and commercialization process.
• Prior experience working in the Life Science industry including pharmaceutical, laboratory, biotechnology, or medical device.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with proficiency in framing and delivering messages. Superior presentation creation/tools skills. (Message creation/PowerPoint tool).
• Ability to effectively facilitate interactive discussions and elicit complex business requirements in both small and large settings across audiences including business and IT professionals.
• Demonstrated ability to influence the scope and direction of initiatives across multiple levels of management and organizational boundaries.
• Excellent teamwork and interpersonal skills, with ability to communicate and collaborate with employees and management at all levels.

Ideal Candidates Would Also Have

• Experience in managing cross functional solutions such as Veeva, SAP ERP, ComplianceWire, Collaboration solutions, etc.
• Knowledge and experience of business process modeling, process optimization and system requirements definition development/documentation.
• Demonstrated experience defining and measuring business outcomes.
• Proven experience working with structured Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and Agile project methodologies.

Key Skills, Abilities, and Competencies

Technical and Functional Skills

• Proven experience in stakeholder relationship management
• Strong business acumen
• Ability to simplify & standardize complex concepts / processes
• Experience in defining and managing technical and business requirements
• Experience in business cases development
• Experience in business process mapping & modeling
• Proven experience in SDLC / Iterative / Agile / Scrum development
• Strong understanding of future / emerging technologies
• Knowledge of application domain
• Proficient in MS Excel, MS PowerPoint

Behavioral Skills

• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills
• Proven leadership skills - effectively leads teams & people
• Ability to present ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language
• Superior analytical, evaluative, and problem-solving abilities
• Exceptional service orientation
• Ability to motivate in a team-oriented, collaborative environment

Complexity and Problem Solving

• Need to effectively describe strategic initiatives and governance requirements to stakeholders.
• Need to have a deep understanding of the business processes, information issues, and current marketplace understanding.
• Incumbent receives high level and general guidance in terms of establishing goals and overall objectives and is accountable for establishing the methods to attain them.

Internal and External Contacts

• Incumbent will consult, partner and regularly communicate with employees and leaders within the business and within the IT function.
• Incumbent will identify and manage external vendors as required to achieve objectives.
• Incumbent is expected to maintain and grow external networks/contacts to enhance knowledge/experience and problem-solving.

Spark takes into consideration a combination of candidate’s education, training, and experience as well as the position’s scope and complexity, the discretion and latitude required in the role, and external market and internal value when determining a salary for potential new employees. The base salary range for this position is currently from $120,100.00 to $180,100.00.

Spark Therapeutics does not accept unsolicited resumes/candidate profiles from any source other than directly from candidates. Any unsolicited resume/candidate profile submitted through our website or to personal email accounts of employees of Spark Therapeutics are considered property of Spark Therapeutics and are not subject to payment of agency fees.