Performance Data Scientist | Al Futtaim Automotive | Operations Performance & Planning

Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail and healthcare; employing more than 35,000 employees across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Al-Futtaim Group partners with over 200 of the world’s most admired and innovative brands. Al-Futtaim Group’s entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enables the organization to continue to grow and expand; responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate.

By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration and integrity; Al-Futtaim Group continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers each and every day

Overview of the role:

This role reports to the GM Operational Performance within the Operational Performance team. This team sits within the wider Business Operations function of Al Futtaim Automotive.

The role holder will play a vital role in translating the vast quantities of data held within our automotive businesses and translating this into visualisations and usable formats that drive decision making, action and over time predictability and automation in what we do. The role will pioneer our data future and work with a cutting edge team of likeminded individuals to set the direction of our business intelligence for years to come.

What you will do:

Data Visualisation

• Establish set framework for data visualization across operations, ensuring all data visualization requests and activity is validated, backlogged and monitored for duplication and inconsistencies
• Work with business stakeholders to clearly define business requirements before building any dashboards/visualization, ensuring clear, documented requirements are captured, prioritized into a delivery backlog and assessed against the value potential and duplication risk with existing/planned wider dashboards
• Create a central PowerBI dataset and visualized dashboards to control, monitor and act upon critical KPIs across automotive operations, working hand in hand with the Managing Directors and GM Operational Performance & Planning to ensure the right metrics for scorecards across the business
• Establish calculation mechanisms for league tabling and dealer to dealer performance comparisons across key operational metrics
• Rationalise the existing landscape of XLS reports, dashboards and ad hoc analysis to transform the business into a culture (and capability) of data quality, consistency and automation
• Put in place control measures for data manipulation, ensuring the right level of customization potential and usability from data visualization without negatively impacting data quality standards and consistency.
• Build dashboards and data visualization packages/reports in line with business requirements
• Create, test and deploy PowerBI scripts
• Execute deep analysis and modelling of datasets to uncover new intelligence, utilizing AI and ML where suitable to improve the effectiveness of our operations
• Build a data visualization portfolio that allows the business to run truly bottom up, predictive forecasting, taking historic data, market trends and 3rd party feeds to inform future planning and ordering
• Lead the implementation of best practices in relation to data visualization
• Maintain the security posture for systems and applications in accordance with IT standards, Data Architect directives and industry standards
• Own, design and communicate across business owner, developer, architect and database teams (including vendor mgmt. as required)
• Deliver rapid prototypes to bring data visualization to life early and enable the refinement of requirements quickly and efficiently with the business
• QA all APIs, connection feeds and underlying data pipeline feeds by routinely analysing and questioning our data (always on data cleansing).

Linking Data with Action

• Develop and deploy API connections (in conjunction with our IT function and Data Architects) to integrate data visualization tools with action tracking tools in order to enable our business to move away from a reliance on XLS and PPT and move towards a culture and capability of running our meetings, activities and decision making directly off live (or near live depending on the data pipeline) intelligence visualization
• Establish alert systems (by role and dashboard) to trigger action under the guidance of the Performance Growth Manager’s business requirements for branch/dealer level performance zones.

Required Skills to be successful:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience in Power BI
• Power BI dashboard experience
• Tableau experience (to support the management of a migration to Power BI)
• Knowledge of SQL queries, Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and Server Integration Services (SSIS) desired
• Knowledge in data visualization packages and libraries (Python, R, Javascript etc)

About the Team:

You will be working in a fast-paced and diverse environment, reporting directly to the GM – Operational Performance & Planning. This newly established function is responsible for creating and maintaining the highest operational standards across our business to create greater profitability for our business. Our remit is wide. Across the team, we work with central executive leadership and every Managing Director of our portfolio of automotive brands to deliver programmes and initiatives that have a direct impact on the experiences of our customers and our staff.

The culture within the team is dynamic and entrepreneurial. Across all of our team members we actively foster inquisitiveness, ideas and challenges to the status quo. We know that the operations of ‘traditional automotive’ is shifting and we want new joiners to make their mark and play a big role in how we achieve success in the coming years as part of a multi-billion AED global business. With this in mind, you do not need to have worked in automotive all of your career. We are much more focused on your talents, capabilities and motivation to roll up your sleeves and get things done.

If you think you are up for the challenge, can make a mark and see your ideas through to fruition, then you would be a perfect fit for the team and for our organization.

What equips you for the role:

Education:

• A business or technical university degree is preferred ideally in the subjects of Maths, Computer Science or statistics.

Minimum Experience and Knowledge:

• Minimum 5 years PowerBI experience in developing sophisticated data visualization
• Experienced in Tableau dashboard creation and migration
• Familiarity with other BI technologies (Qlik Sense etc) desirable
• Knowledge of SQL queries, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• Experienced in Power Query/M/DAX
• Working knowledge of data visualization packages and libraries (Python, R, Javascript etc)
• Impeccable data documentation skills (parameters, models, algorithms)
• Knowledge to build multi-dimensional data models (in line with set data standards)
• Experienced in working within Azure Cloud

About Al-Futtaim Retail

Al-Futtaim Retail has established itself as one of the leaders in Retail across the Middle East, Africa & Asia over the past 30 years. We have developed partnerships with some of the biggest and most respected Brands in the world including IKEA, ACE and Toys R Us in the Middle East and the Inditex Group of Brands (Zara, Mango, Bershka and P&B) across Asia. We are also one of the largest Global partners of Marks and Spencer’s in both regions with over 75 stores offering both fashion & food options.

Most recently we have been responsible for bringing brands to the Middle East for the first time with the exciting launches of Watsons and B&Q and we aim to continue to be agile and adaptive to our markets with new launches and further development. For this to be possible we aim to recruit the best talent from all backgrounds who will continue to challenge and develop our diverse workforce which includes over 100 nationalities across 12 countries. Join us today and make a difference…