Description:
The Business Planning Specialist in the Planning and Business Management department plays a pivotal role in supporting the Director by providing essential assistance in financial management, stakeholder engagement, and reporting. This role encompasses responsibilities such as budget planning, strategic planning while also taking a leadership role in ensuring accurate and comprehensive reporting in various formats. Collaborating closely with stakeholders, fostering relationships, and maintaining a focus on efficient processes are key aspects of this role. Ultimately, the Business Planning Specialist contributes significantly to the success of the department, ensuring timely and informed decision-making within a dynamic business environment.
What you will deliver:
- Provide crucial support in budget planning, forecasting, tracking, reporting, and compliance across a complex financial structure, including revenue, operating costs, and capital costs across multiple corporate entities/ownership structures.
- Collaborate on the annual strategic planning process, including target setting, strategic focus areas, and priority development, leveraging Marketing Intelligence for data-driven insights.
- Facilitate planning of comprehensive annual budgets for the marketing department, considering revenue targets, operating costs, and capital expenditures.
- Implement robust tracking mechanisms to monitor budget expenditures throughout the fiscal year.
- Identify and analyze budget variances, promptly addressing any deviations from the established financial plan.
- Regularly liaise with Finance to obtain financial reports that will help provide insights into budget performance, revenue generation, and expense management.
- Utilize data-driven insights to identify opportunities for optimizing financial resources.
- Conduct proper analysis and develop recommendation(s) for contingency plans to address unforeseen financial challenges.
- Collaborate with relevant departments to plan and manage capital expenditures, ensuring alignment with the overall financial strategy.
- Work closely with Finance, Accounting, and other relevant departments to streamline financial processes and reporting.
- Seek opportunities to enhance financial management processes, identifying and implementing best practices for efficiency and effectiveness.
- Present financial updates and recommendations to senior leadership, providing a clear overview of the department's financial health and strategies for improvement
- Support the Director, Business Management & Planning by collecting the information for the monthly, quarterly, and annual business review process, analyzing the results, distilling insights, and applying them to future initiatives.
- Support stakeholder engagement across the organization on major marketing initiatives, ensuring clarity on accountabilities and deliverables within Marketing and the broader organization.
- Schedule and coordinate regular business review meetings with marketing leadership and relevant stakeholders.
- Analyze marketing performance metrics, KPIs, and data to identify trends and opportunities for improvement.
- Prepare comprehensive reports summarizing the outcomes and insights from business reviews.
- Identify key stakeholders both within and outside the organization who need to be engaged in marketing initiatives.
- Establish a feedback loop to gather input and insights from stakeholders on marketing initiatives.
- Monitor department performance against agreed-upon objectives, addressing any issues or deviations.
- Cultivate strong relationships with key stakeholders across the organization, with a specific focus on Finance, Data & Technology and Operations, fostering partnerships critical for success.
- Manage the annual and quarterly business calendar to evolve and ensure it’s up to date.
- Assume responsibility for all forms of reporting in diverse formats, ensuring an unwavering commitment to accuracy, timeliness, and relevance to support agile and effective decision-making processes