The Business Analyst is responsible for understanding the business needs, processes, and challenges of the organization to identify solutions that align with strategic goals. This role involves gathering requirements, analyzing and documenting business processes, and working closely with stakeholders, project managers, and the IT development team to ensure successful delivery of IT solutions and/or achieve project objectives

Key Responsibilities:

Requirements Gathering :

• Engage with stakeholders to understand and document their business needs and requirements.
• Facilitate workshops, interviews, and meetings to gather comprehensive requirements.
• Translate business requirements into functional and non-functional specifications for IT projects.

Process Analysis and Improvement:

• Analyze existing business processes and workflows to identify areas for improvement.
• Recommend changes to enhance business performance and efficiency.
• Create process models, diagrams, and flowcharts to depict current and future states.

Stakeholder Management:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across the business.
• Act as the primary point of contact between business stakeholders and the IT development team.
• Communicate project progress, risks, and issues effectively to stakeholders.

Solution Design and Validation:

• Collaborate with IT architects and developers to design solutions that meet business needs.
• Participate in solution validation and testing activities to ensure the solution meets the defined requirements.
• Assist in the preparation of test cases and perform user acceptance testing (UAT).

Documentation and Reporting:

• Prepare detailed documentation, including business requirements (BRSs), functional specifications, and user manuals.
• Produce regular project status reports for stakeholders and senior management.
• Maintain a clear and organized documentation repository.

Project Management Support:

• Assist project managers in developing project plans, timelines, and resource allocation.
• Monitor project progress, ensuring alignment with business objectives and timely delivery.
• Support change management activities by helping to plan and execute the transition to new systems or processes.

Continuous Improvement:

• Stay up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in business analysis
• Suggest improvements to the BA practice within the organization, including tools, methodologies, and processes.

Qualifications:

• Education : Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field. A Post graduate degree or relevant certification (e.g., BA Certification, PM) is a plus.

• Experience:
  • 3-5 years of experience as a Business Analyst in IT/transformation projects.
  • Proven experience in requirements gathering, process analysis, and solution design.
  • Experience with Agile project methodologies.
  • Proven track record of working on transformational cross functional projects

• Skills:
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation abilities.
  • Proficiency in business analysis tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Visio, or similar.
  • Understanding of IT systems, databases, and software development processes.

• Other:
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities.
  • Strong attention to detail and a commitment to quality.
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Full job description

Lesaka is a leading South African financial technology company delivering financial services across Southern Africa. We operate across both consumer (B2C) and merchant (B2B) markets, offering banking, lending, insurance, payments, and merchant enablement solutions through our proprietary platforms.

Role Overview

We are looking for a FP&A Analyst CA(SA) to join the Group Finance team at a critical point in our finance transformation journey.

The Group FP&A function currently supports 50+ entities across Southern Africa, managing budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and reporting processes. A significant portion of this work is currently Excel-based and manually intensive, creating capacity pressure and increasing operational risk.

Over the next 12 months, Lesaka will be transitioning to a new financial planning and reporting system. During this period, the FP&A function will carry a dual burden: maintaining existing manual processes while supporting the design and implementation of a more automated, scalable reporting environment.

This role is therefore essential to ensure continuity, accuracy, and efficiency during this transition, while also helping shape the future FP&A operating model.

Why this role exists

This position has been created to:

• Support budgeting and forecasting across multiple Group entities
• Reduce reliance on manual Excel-based processes
• Strengthen data accuracy, validation, and reporting turnaround times
• Support the implementation of a new FP&A and reporting system
• Reduce key-person dependency and operational risk within FP&A
• Enable a more automated, scalable Group reporting environment

Key Responsibilities

Budgeting & Forecasting

• Support annual budgeting and quarterly forecasting cycles across Group entities
• Distribute templates, instructions, and timelines to business units
• Review, challenge, and validate submissions from multiple entities
• Consolidate inputs into Group-level budgets and forecasts
• Perform variance analysis (Actual vs Budget vs Forecast vs Prior Year)

Management Reporting

• Assist in preparing monthly management reporting packs across segments
• Maintain and update reporting dashboards and financial packs
• Analyse financial performance and provide meaningful commentary
• Track key financial metrics and drivers across the Group

Data Management & Process Improvement

• Maintain and enhance budgeting and reporting models and templates
• Automate manual processes using Excel (Power Query, Macros, advanced formulas)
• Improve data collation, consolidation, and validation processes
• Support integrity and consistency of financial models across entities

System Implementation Support

• Support the rollout of the new FP&A / reporting system
• Assist with data mapping, testing, and validation activities
• Contribute to defining budgeting and forecasting templates within the new system
• Provide support to business units during transition and adoption

Ad-Hoc Analysis & Decision Support

• Build financial models and scenario analyses
• Support business case development and investment analysis
• Conduct cost and profitability analysis across divisions
• Perform detailed variance investigations and insights generation

Minimum Requirements

• Qualified CA(SA)
• 1–3 years post-articles experience in:
  • Management accounting, FP&A, financial analysis, or business analytics
• Advanced Excel skills (formulas, pivot tables, modelling, data handling)
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
• Ability to work with large datasets across multiple entities
• High attention to detail and accuracy under pressure

Advantageous Experience

• Exposure to FP&A, budgeting, forecasting, or group reporting environments
• Experience in multi-entity or group structures
• Exposure to financial systems implementation or transformation projects
• Power BI or similar reporting tools
• SQL or data querying experience (advantageous)
• Experience with Excel automation (VBA / Macros / Power Query)

Key Competencies

• Strong analytical thinking and numerical capability
• Process improvement and automation mindset
• Comfortable working in structured, deadline-driven environments
• Strong communication skills across multiple stakeholders and business units
• Ability to work independently while managing multiple deliverables
• High levels of accuracy, accountability, and organisation
• Commercial awareness of business performance drivers

What success looks like in this role

• Accurate and timely budgeting and forecasting across all entities
• Improved efficiency through automation of manual FP&A processes
• Reduced reporting turnaround times and improved data integrity
• Strong support for system implementation and transition success
• Clear, insightful financial reporting that supports decision-making
• A more scalable and controlled FP&A operating environment

To elicit, analyse, interpret and document business requirements and end to end business processes in order to either verify new business and systems opportunities, to provide specialist systems accounting related advice, or to design systems controls, processes and solutions which will meet business objectives whilst minimising the Banks exposure to financial risk

• Identify process improvements in order to save costs. Identify, control and escalate potential risks which may lead to increased costs
• Manage costs or expenses within approved budget to achieve cost efficiencies
• Deliver against operational and cost targets
• Ensure team adherence to specified policies, standards and procedures to prevent and reduce wastage and escalate associated risks
• Implement, manage and report on cost improvement objectives and communicate or escalate any shortfalls
• Prioritise resource allocation in order to minimise and reduce wastage in order to minimise fruitless expenditure
• Maintenance of expert knowledge on relevant legislative amendments, industry best practices and provision of proactive advice and solutions to relevant stakeholders. Develop a deep understanding of the operational processes

What is the purpose of this job?

The Junior Business Analyst supports the business by assisting with the analysis of sales, margin, stock, customer, and market data to generate clear and actionable insights. The role focuses on helping teams better understand performance trends and supporting data-driven decision-making across the business.

Working closely with teams such as Operations, Marketing, Finance, Inventory and Ecommerce, the Junior Business Analyst will help prepare reports, maintain dashboards, and contribute to identifying opportunities to improve product performance, promotions, and overall commercial outcomes.

As a developing role, this position offers hands-on exposure to commercial reporting, data analysis, and stakeholder collaboration, while supporting the establishment of consistent reporting standards and building strong analytical skills within a fast-paced retail environment.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

What are you responsible for doing?

• Producing monthly, quarterly, and cyclical reports with actionable insights
• Support the creation and maintenance of dashboards that help teams understand commercial performance.
• Contribute to ad hoc analysis requests by preparing data, spotting patterns, and summarising findings.
• Assist with updating and maintaining BI tools and reports to ensure information remains accurate and reliable
• Help identify trends, risks, and opportunities in sales, stock, and performance data, presenting insights to business stakeholders.
• Support the preparation of portfolio and performance packs, including progress updates, spend tracking, and key risks or actions.
• Work with stakeholders to understand reporting needs and translate them into clear, structured outputs.
• Help turn data into simple, easy-to-understand insights for different audiences through models, charts, summaries, and presentations.
• Participate in data improvement initiatives, including exposure to automation, AI tools, and data integration projects.
• Manage multiple tasks and deadlines in a fast-paced environment with guidance from senior analysts.

Requirements:

• Grade 12 or equivalent qualification required
• A degree or equivalent in a relevant field of study (e.g. Business, Economics, Finance, Information Systems, or related discipline)

What experience (e.g. previous exposure) does the job require?

• Working knowledge of business intelligence tools such as Power BI or similar platforms, with the ability to create, refresh, and interpret basic dashboards and reports.
• Exposure to AI-assisted tools (e.g. ChatGPT or similar) to support analysis, reporting, or productivity, with a willingness to learn and adopt new technologies.
• Basic to intermediate SQL skills for extracting and analysing data, with support from senior team members where required.
• Strong Microsoft Excel skills, including formulas, PivotTables, and data cleansing techniques; experience with Power Query or data models is advantageous.
• 2-3 years’ experience in a data, analytics, reporting, or insights-related role, internship, or graduate programme.
• Experience or coursework involving large datasets, with the ability to summarise findings and translate data into clear, actionable insights.
• A foundational understanding of key concepts such as price, promotion, margin, and sales performance, or strong interest in developing this knowledge.

Full job description

Key Responsibilities

• Social Media Management: Create, curate, and schedule engaging content for Instagram and TikTok using provided brand elements; actively manage and respond to direct messages across these platforms.
• Marketing & Artwork: Design promotional artwork for digital and print formats (including retailer leaflets and promotional materials) using Canva.
• Operational Support: Execute practical tasks, including sourcing packaging and assembling PR boxes for marketing campaigns.
• Administrative Coordination: Maintain office documentation, manage correspondence, and create professional documents and spreadsheets from scratch using MS Office Suite.
• General Assistance: Contribute to various ad-hoc business projects as required, ensuring high standards of accuracy and efficiency.

Requirements

• Minimum of 2 years’ formal office-based work experience.
• Proven ability to work in a small-team environment; must be a self-starter who does not require constant supervision or rigid structural guidance.
• Intermediate proficiency in the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook).
• Competence in creating original spreadsheets using custom formulas.
• Practical, “hands-on” mindset—comfortable with manual tasks such as packing PR boxes.
• Experience in creating digital and print-ready artwork using Canva.
• Demonstrated experience in managing and scheduling content for Instagram and TikTok.
• High levels of energy, dynamism, and an appetite for a challenging, pressurised work environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Tertiary qualification in Marketing, Communications, or Business Administration.
• Experience in a similar small-business or boutique agency setting.

Required Software Skills

• Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook).
• Canva (Design for print and digital).
• Social Media Management platforms (Instagram and TikTok interfaces).
• Private transport is recommended