Sr. Business Analyst - Supply Chain Planning & Product LifeCycle Management

Ruiz Foods has been family owned since 1964, is one of the largest Hispanic-owned companies in the country and is the proud maker of two #1 brands: El Monterey frozen Mexican food and Tornados roller grill taquitos in grocery stores and convenience stores across the US and Canada.

Are you looking for career development opportunities in an exciting company that cares about its team members and consumers alike? Come join our team and help us continue our industry-leading track record of growth, quality, and delicious food!

COMPENSATION: $120k - $140k/year (DOE)

SCHEDULE: Onsite Mon-Thurs, Remote Friday

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Maintain a broad, enterprise-wide view of the business with an appreciation for strategy, processes, capabilities, enabling technologies, and governance processes to recommend business process re-engineering to senior management and end-to-end process owners and other key stakeholders in the end-to-end process
  
  
  
  • Understand Ruiz Foods enterprise business strategies by studying business processes and current system capabilities
    
    
    
    • Assimilate and correlate disconnected information and articulate their collective relevance to the organization in a way that can be succinctly communicated to others
    
    
    • Recognize structural issues within the organization, functional interdependencies and cross functional redundancies
    
    
    • Perform periodic reviews and analyses of current processes using operational metrics and reports
    
    
    • Prepare technical reports by collecting, analyzing and summarizing information and trends
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Construct current, future, and visionary state process flow charts
  
  
  • Recommend systems improvements to further business process efficiency or increase internal controls by designing the needed system modifications and creating or modifying related policies/procedures and training
    
    
    
    • Create informative, actionable and repeatable reporting that highlights relevant business trends and opportunities for further improvement
    
    
    • Conduct insightful, ad hoc analyses to investigate ongoing or one-time operational issues
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Understand and communicate the financial and operational impact of any recommended changes through formal cost/benefit analyses and documentation of the business case
  
  
  
  


• Manage new systems implementations or existing systems modification projects through experience and judgment
  
  
  
  • Define project requirements by identifying project milestones and phases
  
  
  • Define and form the project team
  
  
  • Establish the project budget
  
  
  • Monitor project progress by tracking activities, timely resolving problems, publishing periodic progress reports, and recommending corrective actions when the project is off schedule or budget
  
  
  • Contribute to the team effort by accomplishing related results as needed
  
  
  
  


• Devise, define and manage business requirements for new systems implementations or modifications to existing systems by conducting formal needs assessments and tracking
  
  
  
  • Extract requirements for business processes from discussions and walkthroughs with current users and from related policies/procedures
  
  
  • Based on the technical vision for the end-to-end process, anticipate requirements that may be needed in the future or that may not have been considered by the business
  
  
  • Make recommendations to the business process owner(s) to constrain requirements which are essential to the systems success and core business needs; disposition requirements which are based only on personal preferences, support outdated processes, or other non-essential needs; when necessary analyze and make recommendations regarding tradeoffs between usability and performance needs
  
  
  • Organize requirements from disparate sources into related categories so they may be effectively managed and communicated
  
  
  • Translate business requirements into technical requirements which match strategic business objectives with practical technical solutions
  
  
  • Assist in conducting research on software products to justify recommendations and to support purchasing efforts.
  
  
  • Protect the needs of the business by verifying functionality, accuracy, and completeness of the requirements against the original initiating documents at regular intervals in the systems development life cycle (SDLC)
  
  
  • Verify the business requirements through analysis, testing, demonstrations, and inspections; implementations that do not advance business objectives should be modified or rejected
  
  
  • Evaluate alternate proposed solutions and recommend a course of action based on this evaluation
  
  
  
  


• For all new systems implementations or modifications to existing systems, design master data requirements to ensure that the data works as intended with the configuration to meet business requirements
  
  
  
  • Ensure master data design is aligned with the technology vision for the business process
  
  
  • Ensure any changes to existing master data do not have unintended negative consequences on other business processes or reporting tools
  
  
  • Ensure the use of new master data performs with the configuration as intended and does not have unintended negative consequences
  
  
  • Ensure all affected master data is accurate at the time of deployment
  
  
  • Ensure that the deployment plan includes a process to ensure the ongoing accuracy of the master data after the formal deployment period is completed
  
  
  
  


• Manage the system configuration for all new system implementations or modifications to existing systems
  
  
  
  • Work independently and with the IT Applications group to identify the configuration changes required for the proposed solution
  
  
  • Track and document all configuration changes, including their intended purpose
  
  
  • Implement the configuration changes into the user testing environment
  
  
  • Ensure the ‘gold’ configuration environment is kept up to date with all approved configuration changes
  
  
  • Monitor the deployment of the configuration changes into the production environment to ensure accuracy
  
  
  
  


• Ensure that all new systems implementations or existing system modifications are robustly tested
  
  
  
  • Ensure an appropriate level of testing by the IT Applications group
  
  
  • Coordinate an appropriate testing environment
  
  
  • Conduct functional/unit testing to ensure that any proposed systems or solutions meet the agreed upon requirements
  
  
  • Conduct initial end-to-end testing to ensure the proposed solution does not create unintended negative consequences to other parts of the end-to-end process or other end-to-end processes
  
  
  • Ensure the user acceptance testing plans are appropriately designed, fully executed, and appropriately documented before the solution is recommended for implementation
  
  
  
  


• Manage the deployment process for new systems implementations or modifications to existing systems
  
  
  
  • Ensure that the appropriate policies, procedures, or training materials are timely updated
  
  
  • Recommend the appropriate timing for the deployment to production by taking into consideration other projects both within and outside of the IT department
  
  
  • Troubleshoot fundamental technical issues and participate as appropriate to correct any deficiencies identified
  
  
  
  


• For implemented systems,
  
  
  
  • Work with the business and the IT Applications group to maintain the systems and prevent or correct defects in functionality
  
  
  • Maintain system configuration and user set-up/security
  
  
  • Recommend enhancements or changes to increase the value provided by the system
  
  
  • Assist with system validation procedures as needed
  
  
  • Develop, design, or assist with reports as needed
  
  
  • Analyze the system to recommend deactivation or replacement when the system no longer serves the business needs or has become a roadblock for further improvement of the end-to-end business process
  
  
  
  

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:

•  Provide ongoing support for each of the following areas in their requests to enhance existing software solutions (or implement new solutions/software) to optimize processes and resource utilization. Key Applications: Infor M3 MT, Infor IBP, Infor Demand+, Infor Optiva 
  
  
  
  •  Forecasting: Collaborate with the Sales and Forecasting teams to refine tools and methodologies that boost predictive analysis and data accuracy, ensuring precise forecasting of future product demands
  
  
  •  Demand Planning: Work closely with the Demand Planning team to tailor tools and processes, enabling the effective estimation of future product needs and aligning production schedules with market demand for optimal resource allocation 
  
  
  •  Scheduling: Partner with the Scheduling team to optimize tools and methodologies, ensuring the effective scheduling of Manufacturing and Distribution orders in response to product demand and resource constraints 
  
  
  • Product Life Cycle Management/R&D: Engage with the Forecasting, Planning, Scheduling, R&D, Manufacturing and Marketing teams to streamline the tracking, analysis, and optimization of a product’s lifecycle. Oversee its journey from initial concept to eventual discontinuation, ensuring consistent master data management practices are applied to maintain standardized product information throughout its lifecycle 
  
  
  
  

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience in the processes described in the areas of responsibility for this role


• Excellent communication skills


• Negotiation and persuasion skills to balance between individual wants and business needs with the ability to influence others to move towards consensus


• Team player with the ability to interact with a variety of personality types; facilitate group decision making even through controversial topics


• Process improvement oriented with strong problem solving skills; proven ability to quickly resolve problems and move toward a project’s successful completion


• Detail oriented, analytical and inquisitive; proven ability to determine which course of action will correct the business problem


• Strong situational analysis and decision making skills with proven capability to assess a situation, receive input from stakeholders, and select a course of action


• Ability to work independently and with others at all levels of the organization


• Extremely organized with strong time-management skills


• Proficient in the use of the following: Microsoft Excel, Word, Power Point, Visio, Outlook; strong Excel skills required

JOB DESCRIPTION:

• 
  

  The Senior Business Analyst acts as a liaison between the business users and the technical solution providers to ensure that requirements are addressed before a technical solution is designed and implemented.  The analyst focuses equally on business strategy and IT strategy, business processes and workflow automation, and benefit realization and service delivery.   The analyst’s role is to advise on the design of business requirements for all IT related business, financial, and operations system critical to the success of Ruiz Foods.  This includes researching and analyzing best practices, processes and data necessary for new systems implementations or modifications to existing systems.  The analyst will apply proven communication, analytical, and creative problem solving skills to help maximize the benefit of existing IT systems investments, assisting in the implementation of new computer systems, and recommending improvements to business processes and operational procedures.  The analyst must ensure that new or modified systems parallel Ruiz Foods overall business strategies and that proposed implementations or modifications are supported by cost/benefit analysis to align Ruiz Foods’ technology systems with business strategies.

  
  The analyst must understand the end-to-end business process and help to establish a technical vision to optimize the end-to-end process.  The analyst will accomplish this by gaining an understanding of the needs of multiple stakeholders through formal needs assessments, facilitating the negotiation of requirements amongst multiple stakeholders, and making recommendations to senior executives and business leaders based on their knowledge of the end-to-end process and technical vision for that process.  The analyst will identify the current and future state business processes and will guide the stakeholders to envision the future state and understand how their work and the work of others in the end-to-end process will need to change to support future processes.  The analyst will then apply this business process knowledge to guide the business in creating business requirements for new or modified systems, analyze the technical feasibility of the requirements and create detailed functional specifications.  The analyst will facilitate design sessions with the business team to define the solution and work with the IT Applications group to deliver on the agreed upon design, including data migration rules.  The analyst’s role in the implementation process will include system configuration, functional/unit testing, management of the user acceptance testing process to ensure completeness, managing change requests, and overall management of the scoping, user acceptance, and deployment processes.  The analyst will also be responsible for basic system maintenance functions such as maintenance configuration and user set-up/security.