Sr Analyst, Technology Business Management

About Lowe’s

Lowe's Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) is a FORTUNE® 50 home improvement company serving approximately 17 million customer transactions a week in the U.S. With total fiscal year 2022 sales of over $97 billion, approximately $92 billion of sales were generated in the U.S., where Lowe's operates over 1,700 home improvement stores and employs approximately 300,000 associates. Based in Mooresville, N.C., Lowe's supports the communities it serves through programs focused on creating safe, affordable housing and helping to develop the next generation of skilled trade experts.

For more information, visit Lowes.com.

About Lowe’s India: At Lowe's India, we are the enablers who help create an engaging customer experience for our $97 billion home improvement business at Lowe's. Our 4000+ associates work across technology, analytics, business operations, finance & accounting, product management, and shared services. We leverage new technologies and find innovative methods to ensure that Lowe's has a competitive edge in the market.

To know more about Lowe's India, visit Lowes.co.in

Job Summary

The primary purpose of this role is to guide and drive execution of assigned Technology Business Management Processes. This includes taking steps to reduce risk and inefficiencies while increasing the quality of process support provided. This role maintains positive relationships with technology stakeholders and vendors, and partners closely with others to define and maintain SLAs, OKRs and other performance metrics.

The individual in this role has a strong understanding of most process areas supported by the team, including many of the key upstream and downstream process integration points. He/she works mostly independently and occasionally provides guidance and direction to more junior level analysts on the team.

With a focus specifically on Technology Vendor Management, this role establishes, drives, and supports vendor management processes and procedures utilized to govern Technology vendors, focusing primarily on ""strategic"" vendors and actively managing key activities including onboarding, offboarding, performance, and contract compliance. Focusing on invoice management, vendor management, or software asset management, this role is expected to drive measurable savings and efficiencies across the vendors within his/her scope of responsibility.

With a focus specifically on Technology Resource Management & Business Operations, this role focuses on monitoring user performance and compliance to enable successful Technology project and program delivery across the following processes: Time Entry, Resource Management, Project Forecasting, and general technology workforce and business task management processes. The individual in this role may provide less technical process and end-user support or may instead focus primarily on reporting and tool functionality which requires technical skills/aptitude and an advanced level understanding of key tools and technology used to support TBM processes.

With a focus specifically on Technology Compliance, this role oversees activities that drive adherence to Lowe's Technology Compliance policies and procedures. This role also monitors changes in the Lowe's Technology environment that may impact Tech Compliance policy and procedure. In addition, this individual coordinates with internal and external auditors to support SOX audit activities. This role will mentor other Tech Compliance Analysts in the execution of and adherence to Tech Compliance procedure.

With a focus specifically on Technology Investment Management, this role manages multiple processes related to the project funding (PAR) opening, planning, reallocation of funds, communications, manual file uploads, and reporting. This role is responsible for Director and Manager user support, troubleshooting, analyzing large volumes of data, and programming complex model changes.

With a focus specifically on Technology Operational Excellence, this role will deliver process improvement solutions across complex, technical, and cross-functional processes within Technology. It provides support and consultation on improvements and advancements in processes and automation, while coordinating closely with other teams to ensure the delivered process supports the needs of the associate/customer.

Job Description

Analyzes data to detect trends, make recommendations, and provide reporting

Leads activities to assess adherence to the business management processes supported

Answers questions from associates about the business management processes supported; handles more complex questions/issues elevated from other analysts on the team

Gathers feedback from technology associates about the business management processes supported

Identifies and documents process measures, issues and opportunities, and waste in the processes supported

Identifies opportunities for process improvements and makes recommendations for best practices

Serves as an escalation point and mentor for junior staff

Contributes to and helps maintain process documentation repositories

Develops standard operating procedures; identifies and suggests possible improvements on procedures

Assists with the training and development of more junior level analysts as needed

Provides mentoring and guidance to more junior level analysts; may provide feedback and direction on specific tasks

Develops relationships with cross-functional teams including finance and legal to ensure processes remain compliant with company regulations

Technology Vendor Management Responsibilities

General Vendor Management

Manages "strategic" vendors regarding onboarding, offboarding, performance, and contract compliance

Develops Vendor requirements and performance scorecards in partnership with technology areas

Develops and presents vendor management assets that are clear and effective to communicate engagement objectives and expectations to vendors and cross-functional stakeholders

Interprets and analyzes performance reviews from Vendors and Stakeholders

Executes and supports all "strategic," "emerging," and "tactical" vendor renewals

Partners with Enterprise Strategic Sourcing as needed (Plan, Execute and Support) to ensure requirements and quality standards are met for sourcing efforts in assigned areas

Partners with key internal resources to ensure an effective negotiating strategy is set and aligned to business requirements to obtain the best overall value based on performance

Supports the Vendor Management Leadership Team in the development of category strategies and approaches that are aligned to their business customer and responsible for the execution of those strategies and delivery of savings

Maintains and updates the vendor database and key information

Supports the overall software asset process for assigned area, as applicable to ensure compliance with terms and conditions of the current agreement

Manages key Vendor and customer relationships within a category of spend to ensure on-going alignment to business requirements, for assigned area

Stakeholder Management

Identifies, escalates, and manages risks, issues and other action items of vendors

Interprets and monitors contractual SLAs and obligations

Leads the tracking and presentation of key vendor performance metrics (delivery, financial, innovation, etc.)

Provides regular updates and status reports

Facilitates and maintains relationships between vendors and internal resources, including Technology stakeholders and executive leadership

Supports content for vendor business reviews

Invoice Management

Executes and troubleshoots the full lifecycle for purchase operations from order entry, receipts (as needed), invoicing and ongoing business/vendor support accurately, timely, and in accordance with Lowe's policies and procedures and proper audit trail

Manages the payments and approvals for the outsourced payment services providers to ensure payments are accurate, timely and have proper supporting details

Works collaboratively with sourcing and e-procurement team to support the ongoing optimization of Lowe's buying channels to drive work away from manual entry more into pre-defined buying channels

Advises on potential new or modified purchasing systems, policies and procedures to understand impact to the team's processes and/or customers and/or vendors

Software Asset Management

Interacts with the Flexera Software Asset Management system to ensure data quality of new or changed Asset, License and Contract records

Creates ad-hoc Asset Management reports when required

Develops Effective Licensing Positions (ELP) accurately in the Software Asset Management tool, and generates software reconciliation reports (Purchased vs. Deployed counts)

Completes work related to the recovery and possible redeploy of assets driving cost saving efforts

Ensures the New Technology Onboarding review process is done consistently

Executes Software Recycling Campaigns and redundancy elimination efforts

Maintains ongoing documentation of data definitions, and process workflows for more complex processes

Ensures data integrity both from the ownership and discovery standpoints

Drives the installation of discovery agents on assets within the Lowe's environment and mitigates current discovery gaps exist

Ensures SAM policies and procedures are being followed in accordance to corporate standards and vendor SLAs

Technology Resource Management & Business Operations Responsibilities

Technical Activities

Focuses primarily on reporting which requires a strong understanding of database structure, data modeling, and data visualizations

Uses SQL to extract, combine and normalize data in order to deliver clear and actionable information to end-users

Takes steps to connect database tools to both function-level (native) and enterprise-level tools

Works closely with solutions teams so understand and translate end-user business requirements into system functionality

Non-Technical Activities

Evaluates Technology Resource Mgmt & Business Operations processes and defines opportunities to improve efficiencies and drive Technology resource health

Drives TBM process implementation for designated TBM initiatives by identifying and defining test scenarios and test plans based on user requirements

Collaborates directly with cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., service and process managers and business partners) to support alignment and synergy of processes and procedures

Contributes to definition and execution of specific initiatives within the Technology Resource Mgmt & Business Operations Roadmap while aligning to Technology Strategy

Defines, develops and deliver role relevant training content, based on a deep understanding of the Resource Mgmt, Time Entry, Project Forecasting, and other technology business operations processes, the Lowes SDLC/project delivery methodologies, the Lowes Financial Planning cycle, and SME level knowledge of tools that support the processes

Reviews and analyzes ad hoc analytics requests to ensure published metrics are appropriate, flexible and meet the needs of IT leadership; identifies, defines and implements end-user follow up actions to ensure a high level of data governance

Supports the Technology leadership community by defining and developing standard analytics that enable decision making around resource spend and work prioritization/balancing

Provides second level coaching and roll-out support to users throughout the implementation process; participates in the definition, development and improvement of standard operating procedures (SOPs)

Reviews queries and process performance reports to support Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Works closely with key stakeholders in reviewing resource forecasting, role/skill analysis and cost planning, program scheduling and scenario planning to ensure clear understanding and that processes are executed according to the defined cadence

Technology Compliance Responsibilities

Performs tasks to identify and remediate process gaps within existing Tech Compliance compensating controls

Reviews preliminary reports and follows up on deliverables needing clarification or additional detail owned by other Lowe's Technology teams

Leads in the development and communication of compensating controls in adherence to Lowe’s Technology Compliance

Leads and advises Technology teams in remediating vulnerabilities, exposures and Technology control gaps and deficiencies

Identifies and escalates non-compliance according to Lowe’s Technology policy compliance management

Assists Internal and External Audit by conducting testing and validation of SOX policy controls using industry standard assessment techniques (NIST, ISO, COBIT)

Documents vulnerabilities, audits finding analysis and assists in the development of compliance remediation plans

Collaborates with technical teams to identify, resolve and mitigate Technology compliance issues and audit findings

Technology Investment Management Responsibilities

Analyzes large volumes of data to identify areas of opportunity in technology spend

Configures of the Apptio tool, using intermediate programming skills to make reporting updates, data calculations, and dashboard updates; optimizes both the model and the views

Identifies opportunities to adjust and optimize the technology investment roadmap

Supports the relationship with Apptio on configuration requirements for system upgrades and release schedules as well as monitors Apptio non-functional performance (speed, stability, security)

Navigates complex technical incident and support ticket management with Apptio

Understands and creates end user training programs and supporting collateral; facilitates training and access administration of new users

Actively reaches out to stakeholders to capture requirements and keep records of model enhancements

Serves as production technical support owner (operates service request process) and supports technical integrations to other systems, SSO, and Data Link

Researches ways to optimize Apptio model and reports

Advises on report updates and utilizes intermediate programming skills to create new reports

Monitors environment for system, data, and model changes and amends/adds data sources as required

Drives Month End Process, including data upload, validation, and issue remediation

Directs user support for Directors and Managers

Technology Operational Excellence Responsibilities

Conducts proactive and consistent research to identify process automation/improvement opportunities including areas of focus, scoping of the project, prioritization, key deliverables, and successful outcomes

Analyzes and develops solutions that facilitate process standardization, continuous productivity and quality improvement

Assess and decides which methodology to apply and the tools and techniques to utilize to effectively lead each process improvement project

Leads charter development, stakeholder analysis, process design, improvement solutions, testing, and implementation plans through successful application of methodologies for each project

Designs and collaborates (with Finance) to track metrics and key performance indicators for each process automation/improvement project

Manages relationships with mid-level leaders and business partners and sponsors to help them understand business cases and to foster a culture of continuous improvement across the enterprise

Assists with preparing communication material for CIO leadership team

Lowe's is an equal opportunity employer and administers all personnel practices without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability