Head of Insights

4 weeks ago


London, United Kingdom Sainsbury's Full time

Division / Dept

General Merchandise Commercial / Marketing

Location

Holborn (London) or Ansty (Coventry) and Home. Travel to Holborn c 2 days per week and other sites as needed.

Reporting to

Director of Insight

In a nutshell

Commercially connected, helping the General Merchandise trading teams and other parts of the business to understand their performance, how their market and categories are evolving, and the experience they give our customers is vital to the success of the business. In the Insights team, we do this through our team of business partners who work directly with the category and innovation teams and other business units to create, collate and compile complex and varied sources of data and research in order to bring customer first insight and consultancy to drive key business decisions.

This role manages and leads a team of insight business partners for the General Merchandise business (across brands – Habitat, Argos, AFS, TU) and owns critical relationships with key senior stakeholders (DD level and above) including the Exec Director of GM and BU directors on Clothing, Home and Furniture and Seasonal, Toys and Electricals. The Head of Insight is accountable for ensuring that the customer is at the heart of our decision making and the business has access to the insights it needs. 

What you need to do

This role will lead a team of business partners, who combine our existing tools and sources of data with additional quantitative and qualitative primary research to bring a customer perspective and consultation to key business decisions. This role will lead and coach our Insight colleagues to help shape impactful outputs, influence stakeholders and drive capability development

Specifically, the Head of Insight – GM Trading is a critical business partner with a focus on:

Understanding the key strategic priorities for the relevant business teams across the GM business (Clothing, GM, Furniture, Electricals etc).  Strong business partnering, built on relationship building and functional credibility across the relevant teams and levels within the business. Identifying opportunities on the commercial agendas that matter and ensuring that our stakeholders get the Insight support they need – on both large and small questions – and ensuring that their challenges and decisions are understood across the wider Insight team as needed.  Understanding the overall market for the GM business, identifying opportunities and amplifying our insights- building a view of our markets and customers by bringing together various data sources. Leveraging the power of our broader insight team (data and perspectives) to unlock competitive advantage Combining customer & financial analytics, quantitative & qualitative research to bring a customer perspective to these priorities Building the use of customer insight across the teams within the department / division by training and embedding self-service tools (. Sainsburys/Argos Insight Platform) into the relevant teams Unpicking category performance in the context of the market and competitive environment working closely with the category teams to lead discussion with senior stakeholders and to input into their strategy and prioritisation. Ensuring that we are commercially connected so that we can be anticipatory and proactive in our outlook Embedding the voice of our customers and engaging the GM business to connect, understand our customer’s deeply and contextualise insights back into our planning processes Owning the relationships with key external data partners and agencies in order to unlock ROI and strategic partnerships

What you need to know

This role is key in shaping the understanding of our customers & performance within the General Merchandise Business, so you need to:-

Influence at a senior level across the business with proven experience in building and nurturing strong relationships Think strategically, working in a hypothesis-led way to break down complex problems and land the answer with the business. Be able to balance working in the day to day with looking ahead and anticipating the next big question to drive performance Understand, challenge and analyse, whilst stepping back to bring clarity to decision making  Be source agnostic and show a solid understanding of how to bring together varied sources of first and third party data, working closely with a variety of agencies and contextualise back within a commercial context Have high level of commercial acumen Demonstrate strong storytelling skills and be able to engage and inspire around the customer in order to drive impact and influence with insight  Lead and coach your team to do this and to raise the bar on the quality and impact or our insight

Specifically, for this role, you need to build a strong network across the General Merchandise Business and the wider insight team. Lead the team to prioritise ruthlessly and focus on outcomes and value to the business especially when presented with more “asks” than you can support. An understanding of a varied source of analytics and research techniques and sources is also preferred but not a necessity.

There are many ways to have acquired these skills and this knowledge, so there are no specific qualifications or similar proof points required. However, relevant and demonstrable experience is of course essential, so it is likely that successful candidates will have already done roles involving data or research, as well as have experience of leading diverse teams and building relationships with senior stakeholders. 

What you need to show

Collaborative team leadership of a diverse internal and agency team Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills Clarity of thought, strategic thinking & a methodical approach to problem solving An analytical mindset, challenging us to look at the business & market in new ways Agency management: performance, risk, relationship Team leadership, coaching and ability to deliver through others Passionate, proactive and curious about customers and look for inspiration externally  Ability to contribute broad perspectives that drive challenge and debate An open approach to change, ambiguity and experimentation– creating it and helping others to adapt 

What decisions I can make

You own the suite of tools and agencies that help us gain an in depth understanding of our performance, our customers and the markets we operate in. You help set and frame the customer narrative that helps guide strategic and tactical decisions across the business. You also own how we provide the right level of bespoke vs. self-service support to the GM Commercial departments / divisions.

Resources available to me

Team of C5 insight managers, and C4 Insight Execs Support from embedded colleagues from Nielsen, Kantar & the business’s analytical teams Connection with the broader insight team and outputs – business performance, customer closeness, CSAT and brand tracking  Budget to cover regular agency deliverables, data sources, and ad hoc research

#LI-SA1



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