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Director Strategic Intelligence & Insights
Target Corporation
Minneapolis, MN, United States
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Description:
Director Strategic Intelligence and Insights
PRIMARY FUNCTION
The Strategic Intelligence and Insights team is responsible for leading the overall market insights and intelligence which informs the enterprise strategy, planning, and portfolio decisions. Informing these decisions, the team must develop and maintain an innate understanding of macro market, consumer, industry, etc. forces, what strategic and tactical choices competitors are making and planning. The team does this through the compilation of internal and external data sources, then interpreting these and their potential impact on Target, its strategy, and planned tactics. The Director Strategic Intelligence and Insights will be responsible for delivering on the team’s objective.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The candidate will be responsible for the team that delivers all of the below key objectives:
• Be the experts in strategic intelligence and insights by maintaining constant, deep understanding and synthesized intelligence on market trends and competitive strategies.
• Deliver proactive and reactive synthesis of macro, industry, demographic, consumer, competitive, company trends to Target’s Leadership Team and key business partners.
• Interact with S&I and business partners, including through competitive scenario planning and war gaming, to drive deep understanding and impact of market trends and competitive moves.
• Leverage internal and external relationships and data for insights development and as shared resource to S&I pyramid and enterprise.
• Coordinate across the S&I pyramid to ensure strategic choices are made in the context of competitive and market intelligence.
PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The candidate will be responsible for the team that delivers all of the below principal duties and responsibilities:
• Leverage consumer, market, competitive, and financial data and analysis to develop and maintain intelligence about key and emerging competitors and trends.
• Develop specific retail market scenarios and assess Target’s strategy against probable outcomes.
• Proactively develop market and competitive intelligence relevant to Target’s strategic direction.
• Lead conversations about market and competitive environment with Target’s Executive Leadership Team and other key leaders across the organization.
• Integrate market and competitive intelligence into strategic portfolio development with Leadership Team and key business partners.
• Run scenario planning and war gaming to pressure-test Target’s strategies against market and competitive actions.
• Maintain deep understanding of strengths and limitation of internal teams and external insights providers to provide focused and synthesized view of relevant providers for S&I pyramid and beyond.
• Build and actively maintain a network of external sources of intelligence and insight.
• Maintain and manage relationships with internal and external data providers and key industry experts/ sources of intelligence.
• Integrate with enterprise planning process to ensure proper focus on external factors, trends, and intelligence across key leaders (especially Leadership Team).
• Be an active thought partner for broader S&I pyramid, providing guidance on where to look and assisting in the development of a structured research plan.
• Provide on-boarding and training of the portfolio to team members within Enterprise Strategy.
• Ensure constant and widespread understanding of trends and external factors across all S&I pyramid.
• Maintain pulse on opportunities being considered within Target.
• Provide the structure and framework for team, managing all quality and output for self and direct reports.
• Be responsible for long-term development of direct reports.
• Develop and coach team members across the Enterprise Strategic Intelligence and Planning team.
• Act as core member of the Enterprise Strategic Intelligence and Planning leadership team, prioritizing resources, setting overall team direction, and representing the team’s professional and fun culture.
KEY RELATIONSHIPS
The candidate will be responsible for maintaining all of the following relationships:
• Reports to Sr Dir Enterprise Strategic Intelligence and Planning.
• Ongoing working relationships with all S&I teams (Enterprise Strategy Development, New Ventures and Accelerators, Business Development), and insights functions across the organization (including, but not limited to, Guest Center of Excellence, PD&D Product Insights).
• Extensive external network of professionals with deep insight into retail, technology, and innovation.
• Other key relationships with Finance, Operational Excellence, Merchandising, Marketing, Stores, Digital.
• Other relationships as dictated by role, including but not limited to strategic portfolio/ initiative owners.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES
The candidate will be responsible for having and maintaining best-in-class capabilities in the following:
• Different approaches – from internal and external sources – to insights and intelligence gathering, including when to apply each.
• General understanding of all relevant insights and intelligence sources – both internal and external – within scope for Target’s enterprise business; deep understanding of the most relevant sources, including strengths and limitations of each.
• Intimate understanding of internal insights teams, their purposes, collected insights, processes, applications, clients, etc. – including strengths and limitations of each.
• Deep understanding of Target’s business model and capabilities, including strengths and weaknesses of both.
• Diverse and rigorous problem solving toolkit, inclusive of analytical, conceptual, and design thinking.
• Ability to quickly establish thought leadership-driven trust and credibility with leaders across all levels within Target.
• Capability to develop and maintain a network of meaningful relationships with external professionals.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including through storytelling, succinct presentations, and thoughtful questioning.
• Independent ability to drive structure out of ambiguity, connect dots across disparate insights, and structure synthesized output.
• Ability to find creative solutions and analogies to seemingly unsolvable problems.
• Understanding and application of diverse set of engagement tools, inclusive of presentation, immersion, and co-creation.
• Deep understanding of Target’s strategic planning process; general understanding of the strategy development process, innovation tools, and business development.
JOB REQUIREMENTS
The candidate must hold all of the following job requirements:
• 4-year college degree as well as post graduate degree (MBA preferred) with minimum 5 years of experience driving strategic business decisions after graduate school; equivalent of 10+ years of industry experience in lieu of post graduate degree.
• Prior experience in engagement/ project leadership with a top management consulting firm or in a Fortune 100-level corporate strategy group; otherwise must demonstrate through external accomplishments an exceptional track record in the retail or CPG industry.
• Proven ability to conduct research through various on-line / off-line tools to understand industry and competitive trends.
• Exceptional analytical and conceptual problem-solving skills and ability to synthesize and clearly communicate complex findings to focus on critical issues and actionable opportunities.
• Ability to assimilate information quickly and to learn/ follow a systematic approach to strategic problem solving: define/ reframe key questions, develop hypotheses, structure quantitative and qualitative analyses to develop insights, formulate well-founded recommendations, and communicate recommendations to leaders at all levels of the organization, including senior executives.
• Ability to synthesize and clearly communicate highly complex findings in simple manner to focus on the critical issues and actionable opportunities
• Demonstrated success leading multiple, disparate projects are the same time, simultaneously managing working team, partners, and senior executive relationships
• 3+ years of people management experience required, including leading leaders of people
• Directly lead and coach teams through a systematic approach to strategic problem solving such as disaggregation, design research, and/ or prototyping methodologies
• Demonstrated success working closely with senior executive leaders, including influencing without authority
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills with a strong ability to tell compelling business and result stories.
• Innate curiosity and desire to learn with a strong inclination to drive for results in ambiguous spaces.