Analyst - Strategy and Analytics

Loblaw Companies Limited•Brampton, ON

About The Position

Loblaw Companies Limited is seeking an Analyst for their Strategy and Analytics team, part of the broader Sourcing Strategy Centre of Excellence. This role is crucial for shaping the future of Canadian retail by exploring and implementing artificial intelligence, new automation tools, and alternative Source-to-Contract systems. The team is also responsible for creating dashboards, KPIs, reports, automation solutions, and powerful PowerPoint decks for leadership, as well as supporting the sourcing team in managing supplier performance at an enterprise level. The position serves functional sourcing professionals on both indirect and direct sides of the business. It combines aspects of a data analyst and business analyst, requiring the individual to collect requirements, gather and cleanse data, produce reports and dashboards, and integrate machine learning models and intelligent automation into sourcing processes. The ideal candidate will be inquisitive, a strong communicator, capable of working with timelines, producing high-quality work, and actively contributing to the team. The role involves mentoring others, leading projects with minimal supervision, tracking metrics, conducting complex analyses, developing practical recommendations, and preparing communications for internal partners.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree in Engineering, Business, Computer Science, Data Science, or related fields
Excellent proficiency with Microsoft Office (specifically Excel, PowerPoint, Word) and Microsoft Power Platform (specifically Power Automate, Power App, Power BI) tools
Knowledge and hands-on experience with Python (Pandas, Numpy)
Knowledge and hands-on experience with Teradata, BigQuery, or other cloud-based data warehouse platforms
Knowledge and hands-on experience with VBA for Excel automation
Knowledge and hands-on experience with developing and applying machine learning models to solve business problems
Knowledge and hands-on experience with exploring AI and intelligent automation tools (e.g., GPT APIs, AutoML, anomaly detection algorithms)
Knowledge and hands-on experience with data engineering workflows, including ETL development, pipeline automation, and cloud integration

Responsibilities

Access data warehouses to produce complex reports, KPIs and visualizations for the business
Recommend platforms and automation solutions within the team and to broader stakeholders across the business, and implement those solutions to optimize day-to-day operations
Build and maintain scalable and reusable automation tools and data pipelines, leveraging Python, Power Platform, and cloud-based data solutions
Communicate effectively with all audiences, including senior leaders, in a structured manner
Establish trust-based relationships with teams to better serve them by blending critical thinking with hands-on experiences, advising on developing and defining strategies to help teams address their most critical problems
Provide a unique set of tools and techniques to find opportunities for improvement and implement recommendations in support of the business objectives
Work directly and effectively with various functional teams while sharing expertise in analytics, AI, and automation with colleagues, thereby growing knowledge, and refining approaches, to come up with the best solution and move people and teams to act
Make important, hands-on contributions across a dynamic set of situations in a way that uses deep knowledge of functional transformations
Use automation and digital processes to realize significant performance improvements quickly as well as push both colleagues and teams into thinking about challenging situations in new and creative ways
Collect requirements from stakeholders
Gather and cleanse data sets
Produce reports and dashboards
Explore opportunities to embed machine learning models and intelligent automation into sourcing processes
Lead projects and progress with minimal supervision, including tracking metrics, handling complex analyses, developing practical recommendations, and preparing communications to report back to internal partners