#GradStories Judy Dick, Business Analyst Associate, Glanbia

What is your name, job title and employer?

My name is Judy Dick, I'm a business analyst associate and I work with Glanbia in Kilkenny

What are the main tasks you do in your job in a normal week?

As a business analyst associate my role is around process improvements and operational excellence. I would look at what our HR processes are, look at what our system capabilities are and really try and marry them and improve them. On a day-to-day level that kind of looks like working with and supporting our HR community across all of our different business units or it could be troubleshooting various issues or queries that might arise from our HR systems. Our tagline in Glanbia business services is, “making tomorrow happen”, and that for us is really around automation and digitization and using it to continuously improve. The more we digitize the more upskill and reskill is required in the workforce so sometimes that involves providing different trainings to end-users.

What skills do you need to be successful in your role?

The most important skill of my role is communication. Whether it be talking to HR or programmers, end-users or even different teams throughout the business unit, it's really important to communicate well with them and to really get your point across in a clear manner. Due to the global nature of Glanbia I could be talking to anyone from across the globe really so it's important to be able to communicate across Skype calls and be able to build up relationships through that as well. Being calm is also really important in my role. I could get thrown a lot of things from a lot of different angles and everything is urgent so it's important to be able to be calm and prioritise them. Building relationships is really important in my role as well across all levels of the organisation and not just with my peers but with key senior stakeholders as well.

What do you love about your job?

I love the expectation that graduates have to perform in Glanbia. So, from day one my manager would have put a lot of responsibility with me and that really makes you feel like an important part of the organisation. Glanbia as a whole is really a great place to work. The people are ambitious for themselves as well as the organisation. Glanbia’s purpose is to deliver better nutrition for every step of life's journey and being big into sports particularly golf, t's really important to me so it resonates with me and that's really what would have attracted me to Glanbia.

How did you get into your job?

I studied computer science and a business in Trinity and in the summer of my third year I did an internship with Glanbia and I really enjoyed it and I got asked to apply for the grad role from there. So, I started on the graduate program in September 2018 and I've been there ever since.

What is the number one skill students should develop if interested in this career?

I would say to my younger college self definitely look at problem-solving. Problem-solving is such a key skill in a business analyst role. I would also say read loads. It's important to keep up with the new trends in your industry and as a student you should have access to free newspaper subscriptions so use them use them and just read as much as you can.