AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven BioPharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious disease. But we’re more than one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca we’re dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and unleash your entrepreneurial spirit. There’s no better place to make a difference to medicine, patients and society. An inclusive culture that champions diversity and collaboration. Always committed to lifelong learning, growth and development.

Global Insights, Analytics & Commercial Excellence (GIACE) is a strategic function, critical for enabling success in the growth of the BBU business.  Our ambition is to build an industry-leading organization, empowering our Commercial teams through the generation of compelling evidence and insights, while ensuring they have the tools and skills to deliver impactful launches that change the practice of medicine for the benefit of patients.  Within GIACE, the Insights & Analytics function is organized across three teams and supports both the US and Global organizations: Respiratory Insights, CVRM Insights (Cardiovascular, Metabolic, Renal), and the Insights & Analytics Center of Excellence (CoE). 

The aim of the Insights & Analytics Center of Excellence is to establish industry-leading capabilities across the core areas of analytics, forecasting, reporting, business planning, and insight capabilities. It will leverage, reapply, and advance best practices in capabilities and operations from Global and US more broadly across geographies.  In the area of advanced analytics, the ambition is to accelerate the development and application of advanced analytic methodologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to solve business problems.  The CoE also aims to scale and deploy these capabilities in a highly efficient manner so that continuous innovation can be pursued.

The Insight Teams and the CoE partner to drive portfolio and brand strategy and performance.  Together we strive to uncover deep customer insights in order to drive improved decision-making and business impact.  We are looking for leaders who have the passion to drive business results and bring innovation to what we do for greater impact.

The I&A Center of Excellence is responsible for Global and US across the BBU, and is organized around the following core capability areas:

• Brand Analytics
• Advanced Analytics, US and Global
• Advanced Analytics, Other Markets & Data Management
• Forecasting, RIA
• Forecasting, CVRM
• Reporting
• Business Planning & Capabilities

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The Forecasting Leader is a critical business partner with the brand team, producing forecasts and consulting with the team on how to manage risks and opportunities for the business.  As a Forecast Leader, you will have responsibility for a brand/brands and play an integral role in understanding performance, setting expectations for performance, and guiding brand strategy.  They will be responsible for implementing and ensuring consistent application of best practices across the organization drawing from inside and outside the industry, leading to objective forecasts supported by insight & analytics.  You will partner with the Forecast Lead, Senior Director to help develop and implement new capabilities and improvements.

The Forecasting Leader will develop product-specific short-term and long-term forecasts models and maintain up-to-date forecast models, reflecting current data, information, assumptions; lead the forecasting and business planning processes and all associated work streams (sales bridges, ad hoc supporting Finance, etc.); Identify key business issues that impact short-term and long-range product and market forecasts; clearly and pro-actively surface these issues, incorporate the results of primary research into the forecast model(s) to reflect anticipated risks and opportunities on sales outlook. As part of the role you will define forecasting processes and build capabilities in forecasting for launch,  inline and life cycle management aspects of the brand. You will have responsibility to develop forecasts for your focused therapeutic area using appropriate models such as: patient flow forecast models, patient based forecast models, and/or statistical trending.  As part of the forecasting process you ensure alignment on forecast assumptions and other critical analytical assessments with business partners including Marketing, Sales, Managed Markets, Market Research, Global Marketing and Insight, Finance, and relevant portfolio Brand teams.

This role is reserved for someone who has a deep forecasting and quantitative technical skills combined with superior communication skills. As such, those who will qualify for this position are both technically sound and have the ability to be a proactive internal consultant, adding value to AstraZeneca's commercial organization beyond their analytical prowess through their understanding of secondary data, industry knowledge, and track record of innovative and impactful decision support.

Typical Accountabilities:

• Manage forecast processes and forecast tools.
• Proactive identification of portfolio and brand risks and opportunities, and strategies for how to address them to deliver business success.
• Ensuring objectivity of brand/therapeutic area forecasts of internal and external opportunities through establishing objectives aligned around forecast accuracy.
• Monitors the external environment to stay up to date on latest therapeutic area research and clinical development, as well as competitor landscape
• Sensitivity analysis to assist in opportunity identification and risk management.
• Partnership with GMAP (Global Market Access and Pricing) and Finance to understand market access and price impact, and support development of P&L for the evaluation of the opportunity
• Develop a deep understanding of internal customers' data and analytical needs focusing on the customer-facing data
• Champion the use of local customer insight in strategic and resourcing decisions across the business.
• Access appropriate information via a variety of tools and sources
• Summarize and present findings through various communication channels
• Capability in applying deeper technical skills and knowledge that is shared across the functional area (e.g., deep knowledge of key data sets, modeling capabilities, etc.)
• Demonstrate a high level of understanding of the points of integration of our work and that of our colleagues.
• Ability to work with multiple countries to incorporate local insights.

Essential for the role:

• Bachelor’s Degree in relevant field
• 8+ years of analytical experience, 3 years in Health Care Industry including experience in product forecasting.  In-depth knowledge of forecasting techniques and use of different forecast models and approaches.
• Preferred 5 years’ experience in Global Pharma Industry, making decisions on major drivers of product success, advising on drug development candidate process and Health Care environment.
• Experience in building, deploying, and embedding capabilities into an organization.
• Experience utilising a range of analytics involving standard data in the Pharmaceutical Industry e.g. IQVIA (LAAD, MarketScan, Optum, Prognos, Symphony), other epidemiological data (Decision Resources, Kantar) etc
• Strong understanding of primary market research, advanced analytics, and competitive intelligence.
• Reportable accomplishments around converting derived insight into strategic guidance and developing this skill among direct reports
• Exceptional business acumen, strategic thinking and understanding of sales and marketing business practices
• Entrepreneurial mindset to impact leadership and high emotional intelligence
• Strong ability to influence laterally and vertically
• Excellent financial modelling and forecasting skills
• Strong market research and analytical expertise,
• Strong written and verbal communication

Desirable:

• Advanced degree (e.g., PhD / MBA / Masters in areas such as Statistics/Decision Sciences)

Why AstraZeneca?

At AstraZeneca when we see an opportunity for change, we seize it and make it happen, because any opportunity no matter how small, can be the start of something big. Delivering life-changing medicines is about being entrepreneurial - finding those moments and recognizing their potential. Join us on our journey of building a new kind of organization to reset expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening new ways to work, pioneering cutting edge methods and bringing unexpected teams together.

So, what’s next!

Are you already imagining yourself joining our team? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you.

Where can I find out more?

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AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.