Insight Manager

About the roleTo triangulate a range of internal and external data sources to provide insight (market, competitors and consumers) which senior stakeholders can use to drive better business decision making, to deliver the Partnership plan and a better customer and Partner experience.

At a glance

• Working pattern - This is a hybrid working role, therefore your time will primarily be split between working from home and the London Office. There will be occasional travel to our other offices, shops and agency partner locations.

• The Research & Insight management team aims to spend 2 days a week in their primary office to connect, with additional office attendance on a more ad-hoc basis to attend key meetings.

Key responsibilities

What you lead 

• Lead significant strategic insight projects to deliver clear, relevant and actionable insight to stakeholders, validated & triangulating via multiple sources 

• Lead the scoping of insight objectives for complex projects and agree with key stakeholders ensuring the right methodologies are used 

What you act as the evangelist for 

• Constantly seek out more powerful, richer insight sources / opportunities and demonstrate an ability to be innovative and proactive using external sources and customer trends

• Supporting the cross pollination of our insights across DI&A and the broader partnership

What are you responsible for 

• Ensuring insight objectives are clear and agreed with key stakeholders, and adopt the most appropriate methodology to drive out robust actionable insights. 

• Triangulating a range of data sources to answer specific business questions and or proactively identify new insights key to business planning  

• Providing quality assurance of all insight project outputs / materials 

• Constantly seeking out more powerful, richer insight sources / opportunities and demonstrate an ability to be innovative and proactive using external sources and customer trends

Agency and supplier partner management & engagement

• Ensure projects are delivered on time and within budgets by partner agencies 

• Manage and challenge 3rd party suppliers effectively, driving greater value for money and data accuracy while also ensuring they are consistently delivering for the business’ strategic needs 

• Ensure full post project wash ups are held with agency / supplier partners to ensure we are maximising value

Products and toolkits 

• Maintain a clear product toolkit of insight products and tools & a methodology bible ensuring consistency across JLP 

• Working collaboratively with other managers in the DI&A profession and utilising expertise in data analysis and social research methods to maximise insight opportunities 

 Essential skills you’ll need 

• A business-savvy thinker (preferably with retailer experience) who can respond to quick-fire requests for insight from a wide variety of sources to answer business questions and inform strategic decision making.  

• Ability to work quickly and accurately to tight timeframes and able to scope and define clear briefs and interpret and quickly understand insight requirements

• Has knowledge of which sources to interrogate, understanding the limitations of different data sources and how they can be triangulated together to paint the full picture. Familiarity with a good selection of key sources: Kantar WorldPanel; TGI; YouGov; Mintel; IRI; Foresight Factory and any other retail, brand and customer satisfaction trackers and insight/foresight sources is required.

• Ability to pick up new systems and interfaces and extract maximum value from data and insight subscriptions

• Ability to digest large volumes of data and translate complex analytics findings into actionable recommendations extract key insights to form a coherent story, illustrated with key facts in a succinct and punchy paper/deck to answer specific business questions.

• An ability to conduct a range of analysis including longitudinal,  correlation & cluster analysis is important

• Extensive experience (5 - 10 years) in a customer insight Manager role, either client or agency-side, gathering and leveraging a range of insight and data sources to drive action & measurable impact in grocery of retail 

• Strong technical insight generation & or market research / intel background focused in retail or FMCG businesses including market share tracking 

• Experience managing direct reports including, culture development, process matrix management and collaboration with consultancies and partner agencies 

• Active industry networks to bring best practice research & insight initiatives and innovations to JLP

• Demonstrable thought leadership through collation, interpretation and analysis of multiple sources of data.

• Building, managing and influencing diverse cross functional stakeholder relationships across all levels of a business.

• Powerful storytelling, specifically communication and visualisation that brings insight to life for a senior business audience.

• Outstanding commercial acumen and experience applying insight in a fast paced commercial environment.

• Experience as part of a Purpose-led business (including employee owned) 

• Experience of insight self-serve platforms and how to optimise engagement 

• Experience of research methodologies and data integration / Single customer view mining 

Desirable: 

• Experience in more Purpose led & or employee owned environments 

• Experience in developing thought leadership materials or publishing papers 

About The Partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note:

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting. If required, you’ll find out more about vetting throughout the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays.

We also recommend that you apply as soon as possible as vacancies can close early if we see a high number of applicants.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.