Senior Information Technology Business Analyst

This contract-to-hire role with our Columbus, Ohio client is a combination of IT Analyst (lightly) and IT Business Analyst. NO THIRD PARTIES! CANDIDATES MUST BE LOCAL TO COLUMBUS, OHIO The key experience interests are: • IT Business Analyst - • Requirement gathering (Certifications in CBAP would be a plus) • Tracing requirements to test cases • Leading meetings in a very organized manner • Critical thinking / problem skills • Customer relationship experience and vendor relationship experience. • IT Analyst - • Customer relationship building • Managing service partners to application support SLAs • Reporting to customers status of portfolio • Number of apps • Incident status • Health of environment • Roadmap collaboration • Critical thinking / problem skills Required Qualifications for Position: • Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent work experience that provides knowledge and exposure to fundamental theories, principles, and concepts • 3 - 4 years’ experience in application, services or application analysis, deployment and support • Experience working closely with service providers and delegating operational activities to them, as directed by a director or manager • Knowledge of IT infrastructure & software component relationships, trends and best practices, on premise and SaaS solutions • Solid skills with computers, operating systems and software (MS Office Suite, MS Project and other IT applications) and ability to learn new technical concepts quickly • Excellent analytical abilities, including process analysis and development, problem solving and root cause analysis • Strong teaming skills, collaboration, negotiation, communication, organizational, people management and conflict resolution skills • Willing to travel as needed • Client business operations knowledge • 2+ year’s experience working with support vendors and a software support environment • Knowledge of ITIL processes and metrics The Role: The IT Analyst is responsible for identifying, defining and documenting business requirements and functional specifications for various IT projects and initiatives by collaborating with service providers, business partners, and stakeholders to ensure alignment of expectations, deliverables, and timelines. Working with Service Partners the IT Analyst will become a knowledgeable of the assigned applications, collaborating with Service Partners to ensure resolution of operational service-based issues, reviewing analyzing and reporting progress on service incidents and requests. Preparing materials and facilitate regular performance review meetings. Preparing performance and status information for IT and business leaders as requested. Individuals at this level are considered competent to independently perform work assignments. Principal Duties and Responsibilities: • Communicates effectively with technical and non-technical audiences, using various methods such as presentations, reports, diagrams, and user stories. • Applies problem-solving skills and analytical thinking to troubleshoot issues, resolves conflicts, and proposes solutions. • Measures and monitors the performance, quality, and value of the IT services and solutions, using metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). • Assesses the business impact of IT risks and issues and escalates them as needed to ensure timely resolution and minimal disruption. • Demonstrates strong business & budgeting skills, and financial acumen with the ability to analyze and communicate trends. • Understands and complies with the contractual obligations and service level agreements (SLAs) of the service providers • Maintains a deep understanding of the application domain, including the business processes, data flows, systems architecture, and integration points. • Implements continuous improvement practices to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction. • Demand Assessment - assists Business Relationship Managers to review and provide input into the business strategy and formulate business cases inputting analysis and views on high level business goals and outcomes • Business Planning - begins eliciting business requirements and modeling processes (as-is/to-be, using Business Processing and/or Value Stream Mapping), recording in standard documentation, and socializing the project with other IT teams i.e. Architecture, Applications, Infrastructure, and Services • Definition and Design - facilitates workshops to evolve scope, gathers detailed requirements, develops use cases and begin visualizing the end result, using standard tools and techniques: • Requirements Elicitation: Leads, designs and facilitates business engagements to establish scope, business needs, project objectives, outcomes and expectations on business processes • Requirements Development: Works to ensure that quality business requirements are produced, accepted and approved by the key stakeholder and business solution designs can deliver effectively • Requirements Management: Oversees end to end traceability against quality business requirements using appropriate tools and templates • Solution Assessment & Validation: Engages with key stakeholders to influence the solution design to meet business goals, scope and strategy requirements. Provides input into the identification and delivery of project benefits, traceability of requirements and impact of solutions. • Delivery and Deployment - consulting role, providing clarification services regarding the project Vision, Scope and Requirements, plus assessing and managing Change Requests through the standard process. Assists testing teams craft suitable test scripts. • Use templates, tools and (internal) processes consistently, helping evolve all as required. • Participates in vendor reviews, discussion of products, contribute in the writing of RFI’s and RFP’s. Reviews proposed designs and solutions for usability and to assure requirements are satisfied • Observes various business processes and identifies and recommends opportunities for improvement. • Other duties as assigned by management