About the Role:

For 150 years, the Dobbies name has stood for quality horticulture. During this time Dobbies have been proud to provide the very best products and expert advice to gardeners throughout the UK.

Today Dobbies is the UK's largest Garden Centre retailer with stores across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland with its largest store recently opening in Antrim on 5th October. Naturally, Dobbies have one of the biggest and best ranges of quality plants and gardening equipment around. Dobbies currently have 77 stores across the UK, the majority of which are the well-known garden centre format encompassing their plants and gardening, home and food ranges, restaurants, and in some locations, soft play areas. Dobbies also have a number of concessions partner stores in most locations that complement the brand. Dobbies’ other six stores are little dobbies, which is a concept launched in 2019 with the opening of a smaller format store in Stockbridge, Edinburgh with others following in Bristol and London. This format store offers a miniature garden centre and gifting range in city centre locations.

Gardening remains one of the most resilient and fastest-growing segments within the broader UK Retail sector​. As a private equity-backed business, Dobbies have doubled their garden centre estate in the last three years and have plans to sustain this going forward through both organic growth and further acquisitions. With over 3,600 employees, this is an exciting and vibrant place to work.

Duties:

Dobbies Garden Centres are seeking to recruit a Finance Business Partner where this individual will play a key part in the high-performing Business Partnering team. The role will require strong commercial, analytical and problem-solving skills combined with experience in developing strong business partnering relationships that will aid decision-making across the business.

• Interpret and understand key weekly and daily commercial reports to present financial results and KPIs to senior stakeholders, regional managers and business divisions
• Support the FP&A team with the presentation of month-end financial results and store performance using tools such as Adaptive Insights
• Support the Regional Managers / CSO Managers with the preparation of reports and attendance at monthly regional management meetings and quarterly store meetings with General Managers
• Monitor, challenge and control costs across the business; proactively identifying saving opportunities and ensuring performance in line with budget
• Support FP&A team in the preparation of budgets and weekly rolling forecasts to manage the cost base, understand risks and monitor the impact on full-year projections
• Review and provide commentary on month-end cost performance to support the Regional Managers and wider finance team with understanding and controlling cost variances vs budget
• Provide cost input into Investment Cases to build financial projections of opportunities and monitor post-investment performance
• Continuous review of processes and reporting to improve the efficiency of tasks, including the development of new PowerBI reports
• Assist with ad hoc reporting and analysis of management information as may be required
• Takes the lead in creating a great place to work for everyone; creates a positive and engaged team through recognition, fun and inspiring others to achieve
• Support the professional development of the Finance Analysts through mentoring
• An effective coach with the ability to provide direct, honest and constructive feedback

Requirements:

• Qualified accountant (ICAS, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) or qualified by experience
• Experience working within retail or similar environment
• Excellent prioritisation skills
• Understands commercial processes and a strong Business Partner for teams
• Excellent organisation skills with strong attention to detail
• Highly numerate
• Proactive
• Focussed on getting things right
• Strong planning, prioritisation, presentation and problem-solving skills
• Comfortable managing multiple tasks with tight deadlines
• Strong interpersonal skills, building strong relationships across the business
• Comfortable dealing with non-financial people to drive understanding and management
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

If you would like to work for one of the biggest retail names in the UK, have a passion for improvement and work well within a team, please apply with an up-to-date CV or email [email protected].