Lead Analyst

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.

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.

Lead Analyst (Category Insights) – Merchandising Finance

Job Summary :

The Financial Decision Support & Analytics (FDS&A) team is responsible for providing analyses, insights and reporting that help identify drivers of performance and guide appropriate tactical actions to improve financial outcomes.

We are seeking a dynamic and passionate Lead Analyst to support the Merchandising Finance team. This role will be responsible for partnering directly with Merchandising Finance GFOs and other Finance Partners to deliver insightful and proactive analysis that drive fact based, data driven decision making. The Merchandising Finance partner has a seat at the table and will work with the business to challenge the status quo and dive deep to solve complex business problems.

Your primary responsibility is to leverage our data warehouses to work in large data environments and curate to provide insights to our customer marketing organization. You will leverage data-driven insights to enhance Product/Brand Performance, customer targeting strategies, Promotional Insights and customer trends in our loyalty. This role requires a blend of analytical expertise as well as strong data mining and organization skills.

The successful candidate will be a creative thinker with a strong bias to action that can collaborate across Finance. This role requires a self-starter with strong analytics acumen and problem-solving skills. The candidate should have a proven track record of influencing and supporting decisions in a fast-paced, high-energy environment.

Key Responsibilities:

The primary purpose of this role is to leverage Financial Metrics and customer buying patterns to drive rapid and real time insights to our GFO team.

• Leverage large data environments and data warehouses to extract, curate, and analyze Product performance.
• Analyze and interpret product and category performance to identify growth opportunities across key merchandising areas.
• Track and report on product/brand trends, providing actionable insights that influence merchandising and pricing strategies.
• Build strategic partnerships with merchandizing leaders enabling proactive decision making focused to generate greater basket size, more trips & builds customer relationships.
• Work closely with Merchandising, Marketing, and GFO teams to align on strategies, share insights, and drive collaborative decision-making.
• Act as a key liaison between finance and merchandising teams, ensuring that financial insights are fully integrated into business strategies.
• Build and utilize predictive models to forecast product demand, assess potential category growth areas, and predict customer behavior patterns.
• Develop scenario analysis models to evaluate the impact of potential business actions on category performance.
• Develop intuitive and insightful dashboards and reports that track key performance indicators (KPIs) for category performance, product sales, and customer behavior.
• Use data visualization tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) to communicate complex data in an easily digestible format for non-technical stakeholders.
• Actively engage with business leaders and stakeholders to influence category strategy and decisions through data-driven insights.
• Present findings to senior leadership, making a compelling case for changes in merchandising or financial strategies based on solid data analysis.
• Partner with category management to analyze assortment efficiency and optimize product mix based on performance metrics and customer behavior.
• Drive improvements in product lifecycle management, including introductions, end-of-life decisions, and markdown strategies.
• Support the long-term strategy of marketing programs by providing advanced data capture and analytics capabilities.
• Identify risks and opportunities in category performance through detailed analysis of financial and market trends.
• Proactively flag potential risks to revenue or profitability and propose actionable solutions to mitigate these risks.
• Mentor junior analysts, helping them grow in their analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Play a key role in shaping and executing the long-term merchandising and financial
• Utilize strong data mining and organization skills to work efficiently within large data environments.
• Ensure data integrity and accuracy in all analyses and reports.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Economics, Engineering, Statistics, Data or Information Sciences, or related field (or equivalent work experience in a related field)

• 7-8 years of analytic experience spanning areas such as Merchandising, Category/Assortment, Brands, Marketing and customer functions

• Demonstrate ability to think beyond raw data and to understand the underlying business context and identify business opportunities.

• Strong experience with analytical tools like SQL, Advanced Excel, Python, Power BI, Hadoop
• Experience performing advanced data modeling, data mining and exploratory data analysis
• Experience translating business requirements into analytics models
• Experience working cross-functionally

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, Engineering or related field
• Programming experience and data science using tools
• Experience supporting retail loyalty programs
• Experience in home improvement retail

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 or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law.