Sr. Business System Analyst - ERP & Manufacturing

We have been retained by a well-established, vertically integrated food manufacturing organization to hire a Senior Business Systems Analyst who will help drive how the business uses its ERP platform, EDI capabilities, and integrated applications.

This organization has operated successfully for decades and supports a complex manufacturing, supply chain, distribution, finance, and customer environment where reliable business systems are critical to daily operations. The IT team is continuing to evolve from reactive application support toward a more disciplined, process-driven model focused on understanding business needs, improving workflows, increasing automation, and making better use of technology across the organization.

This is a visible, hands-on senior-level role for someone who combines strong business analysis skills with enough technical depth to work directly within ERP and reporting tools. The Senior Business Systems Analyst will partner closely with business stakeholders, provide technical guidance and mentoring to a junior analyst, coordinate outside vendors, and help prioritize multiple application and process initiatives across the organization.

This is a full-time, direct-hire position based onsite in Lakeland, Florida.

The Role You’ll Play

The Senior Business Systems Analyst serves as a key connection point between business operations, internal IT, and the external partners supporting the company's ERP, EDI, reporting, and application environment. Rather than simply reacting to requests, this person will lead discovery conversations, understand the underlying business process, evaluate downstream impacts, and help determine the right system or process solution.

This position will also serve as a senior technical resource within the Business Systems function, providing day-to-day guidance, mentoring, troubleshooting support, and prioritization assistance to a junior Business Systems Analyst. Formal people management responsibilities remain with the Director of IT.

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead business process discovery and translate operational needs into ERP (SageX3) configuration, enhancements, reporting, integrations, workflow improvements, or application solutions.

• Serve as a primary liaison between IT and stakeholders across Finance, Operations, Manufacturing, Procurement, Supply Chain, Quality, and other business functions.

• Provide day-to-day technical guidance, mentoring, troubleshooting support, and workload prioritization to a junior Business Systems Analyst while helping strengthen team processes and capabilities.

• Make minor ERP and application modifications as appropriate, including adding custom fields, updating reports and dashboards, and handling smaller system changes internally.

• Manage multiple concurrent ERP, application, integration, and process improvement initiatives while balancing competing priorities, timelines, and business impact.

• Provide oversight and direction to ERP, EDI, and application vendors, including prioritizing work, managing deliverables, resolving issues, and coordinating efforts between vendors and internal stakeholders.

• Help drive the future-state EDI operating model by reducing manual intervention, identifying automation opportunities, supporting critical escalations, ensuring documentation and backup coverage, and enabling routine administration to be handled efficiently by the appropriate internal resources.

Background Profile:

The ideal candidate brings a strong combination of business process analysis, ERP knowledge, technical curiosity, and the confidence to operate as a senior resource within a business-facing IT team. They are comfortable working directly with users, asking clarifying questions, challenging assumptions when necessary, and translating business needs into practical system solutions.

This is not a pure requirements-gathering Business Analyst role, nor is it intended to be a deep ERP development position. The successful candidate should be technically comfortable enough to make smaller system changes, troubleshoot issues, work with reporting and data tools, and recognize when more complex work should be escalated to an outside vendor or technical specialist.

• Business Systems Analyst, ERP Functional Analyst, or similar experience within a manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, or other operationally complex environment.

• Strong understanding of ERP-enabled business processes such as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, inventory, manufacturing, supply chain, and financial workflows.

• Experience leading process discovery, gathering requirements, evaluating downstream impacts, and translating business needs into system or application solutions.

• Ability to perform minor ERP configuration or application changes, including custom fields, reports, dashboards, or similar functional system modifications.

• Strong stakeholder communication skills with the ability to work across technical and non-technical audiences, facilitate cross-functional discussions, and push back diplomatically when requests do not align with business needs or best practices.

• Experience mentoring, training, or providing technical guidance to junior analysts while managing multiple priorities and initiatives.

Preferred experience with:

• Sage X3, SQL, Crystal Reports, SSIS, EDI or system integrations

• Food or beverage manufacturing, AP automation, demand planning tools

• Process automation or continuous improvement initiatives.