Senior Specialist: Strategic Insights

Empowering Africa’S Tomorrow, Together…One Story At A Time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

To lead and manage the research and strategic insights capability within the Personal & Private Banking business unit, providing actionable intelligence that supports strategic planning, enhances competitive advantage, and drives business growth for Personal & Private Banking.
Drive business intelligence gathering across customer, market, and industry trends to provide insights that inform strategy, product development and market positioning. Enable data-driven decision-making through structured analysis, benchmarking, and reporting.

Job Description

Key Focus Areas

• Lead competitor and market research to inform Personal & Private Banking strategy and positioning.
• Develop frameworks for tracking industry trends, customer behavior, and market shifts.
• Deliver structured insights to support product, pricing, and channel decisions.
• Benchmark Personal & Private Banking’s performance against competitors and market standards.
• Collaborate with marketing, product, and strategy teams to align insights with execution.
• Build and manage research dashboards and reporting tools.
• Translate complex data into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Support executive decision-making through strategic intelligence.
• Monitor emerging risks and opportunities in the competitive landscape.
• Foster a culture of insight-led innovation and continuous improvement.

Accountabilities

Strategy Formulation and Execution

• Contribute to strategic planning, product development, and go-to-market strategies.
• Develop and implement a competitor intelligence strategy aligned to Personal Private Banking’s priorities.
• Translate market insights into strategic recommendations for business growth
• Analyse competitor strategies, product offerings, pricing models, and customer engagement tactics and provide insights to position the bank competitively
• Market Intelligence Gathering: identify trends in Banking (e.g., lending, digital banking, fintech disruption).
• Monitor macroeconomic indicators and regulatory changes affecting business clients.
• Benchmark performance and innovation across key competitors
• Customer & Segment Insights: Research business customer needs across segments Identify underserved niches or emerging demands.
• Strategic Recommendations: Provide actionable insights to inform product development, pricing, and go-to-market strategies.
• Advise leadership on strategic positioning and differentiation opportunities.
• Scenario Planning & Forecasting: Model potential market shifts and competitor moves. Support strategic planning with predictive insights and risk assessments.
• Respond to emerging policy and regulatory trends by adapting operational strategy and ensuring compliance alignment.
• Track execution progress against key strategic initiatives and intervene to correct course where needed.
• Provide expert advice and support in operating model, strategy, and value chain formulation and delivery alignment.
• Identify practices and technologies that provide competitive advantage and enable knowledge sharing and integration of practice areas.
• Undertake analysis of management and specialist information and guide reporting tool implementation to improve decision making quality.
• Market Intelligence Gathering: identify trends in Banking (e.g., lending, digital banking, fintech disruption).
• Monitor macroeconomic indicators and regulatory changes affecting business clients.
• Benchmark performance and innovation across key competitors

Customer Primacy

• Identify unmet customer needs: through market and competitor research, uncovering gaps in current offerings, helping to shape products and services that better serve business clients.
• Customer-centric benchmarking: evaluate how competitors are serving customers —pricing, digital tools, service models.
• Recommend improvements to ensure the bank delivers superior value and experience.
• Voice of the Customer in strategy: Integrate customer feedback and sentiment analysis into strategic planning.
• Ensure that customer pain points and expectations are reflected in business decisions.
• Analyze customer behaviour and preferences to inform segmentation and targeting.
• Use research insights to enhance customer value propositions and experience design.
• Interpret market and customer insights to inform operational plans and prioritise capability investments.
• Utilise customer data to improve processes and propositions, ensuring measurable customer value delivery.
• Represent the voice of the customer within leadership forums to influence service delivery priorities.
• Provide expertise in designing integrated frameworks to embed service excellence.
• Customer-centric benchmarking: evaluate how competitors are serving customers —pricing, digital tools, service models.
• Recommend improvements to ensure the bank delivers superior value and experience.
• Voice of the Customer in strategy: Integrate customer feedback and sentiment analysis into strategic planning.
• Ensure that customer pain points and expectations are reflected in business decisions.
• Analyze customer behaviour and preferences to inform segmentation and targeting.
• Use research insights to enhance customer value propositions and experience design.
• Interpret market and customer insights to inform operational plans and prioritise capability investments.
• Utilise customer data to improve processes and propositions, ensuring measurable customer value delivery.

Sustainable Growth

• Identify growth opportunities through market gap analysis and competitor benchmarking.
• Support strategic planning with data-driven forecasts and performance comparisons.
• Long-Term Market trend analysis: identify emerging sectors, technologies, and business models that will shape future banking needs. Advise on strategic investments and partnerships that support long-term relevance.
• Sustainable Competitive Positioning: benchmark competitors not just on performance, but on sustainability practices (e.g., green financing, ESG integration). Recommend differentiation strategies that align with responsible banking
• Customer Lifecycle Insights: analyzes customer retention, churn, and lifetime value to inform sustainable growth strategies.
• Support development of solutions that evolve with customer needs over time.
• Risk & Resilience Forecasting: identify systemic risks (economic, environmental, regulatory) that could impact growth.
• Support scenario planning to build resilience into strategic plans.
• Data-Driven Decision Support: Provide insights that help prioritize high-potential, low-risk growth opportunities. Ensure decisions are backed by robust market and competitor intelligence.
• Sustainability Metrics Tracking: Monitor industry benchmarks for ESG performance and sustainable finance. Track internal progress against sustainability goals and market expectations.
• Innovation Enablement: Identify gaps in current offerings where innovation can drive sustainable differentiation. Support product teams with insights into future-ready solutions (e.g., digital lending, carbon accounting tools).
• Stakeholder Engagement: Equip leadership with insights to engage regulators, investors, and customers on sustainability.
• Help align internal teams around shared growth and sustainability goals.
• Formulate and develop multi-function operating frameworks that contribute to sustainable growth.
• Client-Driven Innovation and Change
• Customer Lifecycle Insights: analyzes customer retention, churn, and lifetime value to inform sustainable growth strategies.
• Support development of solutions that evolve with customer needs over time.
• Risk & Resilience Forecasting: identify systemic risks (economic, environmental, regulatory) that could impact growth.
• Support scenario planning to build resilience into strategic plans.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Equip leadership with insights to engage regulators, investors, and customers on sustainability.
• Help align internal teams around shared growth and sustainability goals.
• Formulate and develop multi-function operating frameworks that contribute to sustainable growth.
• Client-Driven Innovation and Change
• Competitor Innovation Benchmarking: analyze how competitors are innovating—new products, digital platforms, customer engagement tools. Provide insights to inspire internal innovation and avoid falling behind.
• Customer-Centric Innovation: Surface unmet needs and evolving expectations of business clients. Support development of new solutions (e.g., ESG-linked loans, real-time cash flow tools) that create value.
• Idea Incubation Support: Contribute research and validation to innovation labs or product development teams. Help prioritize ideas based on market demand and competitive advantage.
• Scan the external environment to investigate alternative delivery models and offer innovative advice for competitive advantage.

Leading Talent

• Build research and analytics capability within the team – provide thought leadership in field of specialization.
• Foster a culture of creativity, accountability, customer obsession, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Create inclusive team environments that support performance, wellbeing, and growth.
• Develop future capability in the field through providing mentorship to interested colleagues.
• Develop and maintain research processes, tools, and reporting standards.
• Informed Decision-Making: provide accurate, timely market and competitor insights to enhance data-led decision-making.
• Foster a culture of creativity, accountability, customer obsession, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Create inclusive team environments that support performance, wellbeing, and growth.
• Develop future capability in the field through providing mentorship to interested colleagues.
• Develop and maintain research processes, tools, and reporting standards.
• Informed Decision-Making: provide accurate, timely market and competitor insights to enhance data-led decision-making.

Operational Effectiveness

• Process Optimization Support: identify inefficiencies in how the bank responds to market or competitor changes. Recommend streamlined processes for intelligence gathering, reporting, and action.
• Resource Allocation Efficiency: Help leadership focus resources (people, budget, time) on high-impact areas.
• Avoid duplication of efforts by centralizing and sharing intelligence across teams.
• Performance Benchmarking: Track operational KPIs against competitors (e.g., turnaround times, digital adoption rates),highlighting areas where internal processes lag behind industry standards.
• Cross-Functional Enablement: Equip teams (e.g., product, sales, risk) with insights that improve their day-to-day operations.
• Enhance collaboration by aligning teams around shared market intelligence.
• Early Warning Systems: monitor market shifts and competitor moves that could disrupt operations. Enable proactive adjustments to strategy, staffing, or service delivery.
• Represent the business area in operational forums and with delivery partners.
• Continuously improve processes for agility, quality, and alignment with customer needs and digital tools.
• Identify problems and formulate alternate solutions to resolve value chain conflicts.
• Provide expert advice on operating model, strategy, value chain formulation, and business controls/governance frameworks.

Digital Adoption

• Leverage digital platforms and tools for data collection, analysis, and visualization.
• Promote automation and digitization of research workflows.
• Execute digital initiatives and promote adoption of technologies that improve efficiency and user experience.
• Deliberately identify opportunities to digitise, automate, and implement solutions for customer primacy, innovation, and operational effectiveness.

Good Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Ensure ethical and compliant data sourcing and usage.
• Monitor reputational and strategic risks through competitor intelligence.
• Promote risk awareness, guide the response to regulatory changes and emerging issues and support audit readiness activities.
• Define and consolidate the risk profile for the business unit, manage critical risks, and ensure resolution feedback to stakeholders.
• Enable the development and implementation of integrated corporate governance frameworks in areas of specialisation.
• Apply data insights to support business planning and decision-making in the business area.
• Develop mechanisms to ensure data is collected, validated, and used to drive performance improvement.

Stakeholder Management

• Engage with internal stakeholders to align research outputs with business needs.
• Present insights to senior leadership and influence strategic direction.
• Manage relationships with key stakeholders to support aligned delivery and issue resolution.
• Ensure stakeholder expectations are managed and engagement is consistent withtransformation priorities.

Education

Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Business, Commerce and Management Studies

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised