Raj Brar
Manager Budgeting & Forecasting @Sobeys
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WORK HISTORY
Manager Budgeting & Forecasting @Sobeys
Promoted to Manager Budgeting and Forecasting, responsible for Canada wide budget for 600+ stores under the Full Service and Community banner stores• Manage a team of 6 direct reports, comprised of Senior and Junior Financial Analysts across the Budgeting, Forecasting and Reporting business segments• Implemented a renewed focused on data centric decision making, by reviewing source data and connecting with business partners to align on how to cleanse data that would be utilized as a base for Budgets, which would ultimately yield a more accurate P&L • Built strong alliances with stakeholders so that my team would be able to better understand key drivers of particular GLs, such as our Loyalty Program, that would allow for more accurate budgeting• Adopted new technologies that were making large data sets difficult to handle within Excel, by introducing KNIME to the greater team, analytics are produced efficiently, and overall work times are reduced materially• Led Budget update meetings with VPs and Directors to align on Budget status\' by producing relevant and precise decks
EDUCATION
York University
Bachelor of Science (BSc)
CPA Ontario
CPA
ABOUT RAJ BRAR
Consistency is great, but that doesn\'t mean one should continue operating in the same manner expecting greater results.It\'s important to understand and learn from current processes to identify potential inaccuracies, inefficiencies and why things are done the way they are. But, this doesn\'t mean that things need to remain static, in fact, I look at this an an opportunity to do better.I bring this mindset to any task I\'m given, and am proud at the changes that I have brought to the various companies I have worked for over the years. In my current role at Sobeys, where I manage the Budgeting, Forecasting and Reporting Team, I\'ve taken this exact approach to bring about positive change within my team. After analyzing current processes, and having discussions with various stakeholders, some of the impactful changes that have been implemented so far include:Enhanced Data Integrity- Using historical data to budget is essential, but using data that is inconsistent will simply result in carrying forward inaccuracies, thus engaging with stakeholders early and adopting a methodology with early buy-in has resulted in greater end user satisfaction and reduced greatly the turn around time to budgetPowering Excel with KNIME- Having a technical background, it\'s important to me to look at ways to do things faster and free up time for more value add tasks, and introducing KNIME Analytics Platform to the team has greatly decreased the processing time for Excel related functions, and allowed for the potential introduction of AI to further aid in completing tasks in the futureCan we achieve a better result? Let\'s find out!
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