The posting
About Selecta
Selecta is the largest provider of unattended self-serve coffee and convenience food in Europe, leading the way in vending solutions and specialist coffee services.
Selecta operates across 16 countries within Europe, serving 12 million people every day. Within the UK, we deliver a national service trusted by circa 3,500 businesses to provide digital-first vending solutions across workplaces, schools, universities, hospitals, transport hubs, and other high-traffic environments.
As a 24/7 food and drinks distribution and technology-led powerhouse, Selecta provides millions of moments of joy to end consumers across Europe. Our solutions include digital vending machines, coffee machines, smart fridges, snack markets, and other unattended retail formats.
Purpose of the Role
The Business Performance Analyst provides dedicated analytical support to the Commercial & Operational Excellence Lead, using machine-level, product-level, transactional and operational data to identify where performance can be improved across the machine estate, and to translate those opportunities into practical, implementable actions.
Areas of focus include machine productivity, product and range performance, planogram optimisation, consumer pricing and price/volume optimisation, gross margin, product availability, wastage, service productivity and visit efficiency, and the design and measurement of performance trials.
This is not a reporting-only role. The successful candidate will be curious and commercially minded, comfortable investigating why performance differs between machines, products, locations, customers and operational models, and confident using SQL to access and shape their own data rather than depending on BI for every question.
Requirements
Machine & Estate Performance
- Analyse machine-level performance, sales per machine, vends, average selling price and availability, to identify opportunities to improve sales, gross margin and profitability.
- Proactively interrogate machine, product and operational data to surface improvement opportunities, rather than relying solely on predefined requests.
- Identify high- and low-performing machines, locations and customer segments, and investigate the drivers behind the differences.
- Benchmark apparently similar machines and sites to understand why performance differs, and identify ways to improve the economics of underperforming locations.
Product, Range & Planogram Optimisation
- Analyse product-level sales, rate of sale, selling price, cost and gross margin by SKU, machine, site and category.
- Combine sales history with machine capacity, facings, expected demand, service frequency and target fill to determine the optimal range, facings and fill for individual sites or groups of similar sites.
- Identify products occupying capacity that could generate more revenue or gross profit if reallocated, and slow-moving lines that should be reduced, replaced or removed.
- Support increasingly data-led planograms, analyse the impact of changes after implementation, and refine recommendations based on actual results.
Price, Volume & Margin Optimisation
- Analyse selling price, sales volume, product cost and gross margin at SKU, machine and site level.
- Identify products where pricing may be restricting volume and total gross profit, and products where a price increase is possible with limited volume impact.
- Develop hypotheses on consumer price elasticity, and design and analyse controlled pricing trials against appropriate control groups.
- Evaluate the interaction between price, volume, mix and margin, and recommend actions based on total financial opportunity rather than margin percentage alone.
Gross Margin & Wastage
- Identify opportunities to improve gross margin through product mix, range, pricing and sourcing, and analyse wastage, stock loss and shrinkage to find root causes.
- Work with Procurement, Category and Supply Chain to quantify and deliver margin-accretive product substitutions, accounting for consumer and volume impact.
- Operational Performance & Service Productivity
- Analyse the relationship between sales, machine capacity, stock levels, product availability and service frequency.
- Analyse revenue and vends per visit and identify potentially unnecessary or inefficient visits.
- Assess whether visit frequency can be reduced without compromising sales, availability or customer experience.
- Work with Operations and Planning to identify, quantify and help implement productivity opportunities, including differences across branches, routes and teams.
Performance Improvement, Trials & Benefits Measurement
- Support the design of controlled trials and pilots across pricing, planogram, range, visit frequency and operational changes, establishing clear baselines, success measures and appropriate control groups or benchmarks.
- Account for seasonality, trends and site differences, distinguishing genuine improvement from normal volatility or unrelated factors.
- Determine whether results are strong enough to support wider rollout, translate findings into clear recommendations, and quantify annualised revenue, gross margin, EBITDA and cash benefits.
- Support successful initiatives through wider implementation and track realised benefits against agreed targets.
Data Extraction & Analytical Capability
- Independently access, extract and manipulate data using SQL or equivalent tools, working with large transactional, machine, product and operational datasets.
- Combine data from multiple sources to investigate business questions, and build repeatable analytical datasets where appropriate.
- Apply healthy scepticism to data quality, sense-check results and reconcile figures before drawing conclusions, and work with BI and business owners to resolve underlying issues. (Routine dashboard production is not the primary purpose of this role.)
Analysis, Business Cases & Stakeholder Management
- Develop rigorous analytical models and business cases for improvement initiatives, including sensitivity and scenario analysis, and quantify the financial value of opportunities.
- Translate complex analysis into simple, actionable recommendations, testing assumptions and challenging conclusions where the evidence does not support them.
- Build strong relationships across Operations, Commercial, Procurement, Supply Chain, Category, Finance and BI, working directly with colleagues to understand issues rather than relying on desktop analysis alone.
- Present findings clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, and constructively challenge assumptions where the data suggests a different conclusion.
Person Specification
Essential
- Experience in commercial analytics, operational analytics, revenue management, FP&A or another strongly analytical commercial role, at a level where analysis has been owned end to end, from question to recommendation.
- Practical experience using SQL (or equivalent) to independently extract and manipulate data, and analysing large, complex datasets, transactional, SKU/product, customer, site or asset-level.
- A track record of translating analysis into actionable recommendations and quantified business cases, with strong understanding of revenue, price, cost, gross margin and profitability drivers.
- A working understanding of how to measure change credibly, baselines, control groups or benchmarks, and separating genuine effects from seasonality, trend and noise. (This role designs and evaluates trials; the ability to do so rigorously is core, not optional.)
- Advanced Excel, and the ability to work pragmatically with imperfect or incomplete data, spotting when a number looks wrong before it reaches a recommendation.
- Previous vending experience is not required.
Desirable
- Experience in retail, FMCG, foodservice, vending, logistics or another multi-site / operational business.
- Formal grounding in experimental design and statistical significance, or a track record of evaluating pilots and trials to a robust standard.
- Experience in pricing, revenue management or price elasticity analysis.
- Power BI or similar visualisation tools.
Attributes
- Curious, naturally inquisitive and commercially minded; proactive, self-motivated and comfortable challenging existing assumptions.
- Pragmatic, action-oriented and able to work independently.
- Comfortable moving between detailed analysis and the bigger commercial picture, and genuinely interested in how the business operates rather than analysing it solely from behind a desk
Benefits
What’s in it for you?
- 25 days of annual leave plus bank holidays
- Life assurance
- Five weeks of occupational paid sick leave for added security
- Free parking at our Head Office and other depot locations
- Unlimited coffee and tea to keep you refreshed
- Clear career progression paths with development opportunities
- Strong leadership support to help you thrive
- Employee recognition scheme to celebrate your contributions
- Mental health and wellbeing support, including access to mental health first aiders
- Health Cash Plan
- Very attractive bonus scheme for those who exceed targets
At Selecta, we are committed to equal opportunities, diversity, and inclusion, embracing our differences to achieve our common goal. We are united in our principle of making people feel great, and we are grounded by our purpose to create more moments of joy for everyone through our ways of working. We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. If you require any adjustments or accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know
