Article Pipeline Senior Data Analyst (m/f/d)

Purpose of the Role

Publication speed is an important decision factor within the article submission process – it is one of a few primary factors authors look at when deciding to submit. To improve upon our publication speeds, in other words to achieve a significant reduction in our turnaround times (TATs), we are looking for an Article Pipeline Senior Data Analyst (m/f/d). The AP Analyst plays a hands-on role in realising an optimal flow of our articles along our pipeline. Better TATs offer an enhanced experience to our authors and contributes to Springer Nature’s overall business goals.

As an AP Analyst you will play a pivotal role in optimizing publication speeds and reducing turnaround times (TATs). Your data analysis skills and strong communication abilities, coupled with strategic project management expertise in implementing and monitoring change will be essential.   You will look at the entire spectrum of the article’s publication cycle. From pre-submission requirements until final acceptance for publication across all of Springer Nature’s 2,000+ journals. Opportunities will come in the form of removing significant bottlenecks for a single journal to widescale process or system optimization for all of them. The AP Analyst will identify the major wins in a data-driven way, make the case for change, align improvement opportunities with stakeholders and steer implementation in the right way. This role is part of the Business Intelligence and Change Management department which forms part of the wider Publishing Performance and Intelligence (PP&I) business area.

Responsibilities

• Conduct strategic project management activities to identify, monitor and communicate areas for improvement along the publication cycle
• Take a data-driven approach identifying key areas with long turn-around times, and apply rigorous root-cause analysis to expose underlying issues
• Monitor and track performance of selected journal portfolios against established TAT KPIs
• Proactively identify potential build-ups of manuscripts and communicate them to relevant stakeholders for resolution
• Monitor pipeline to anticipate for predicted shortfalls in article targets
• Work with various stakeholders across Springer Nature like publishing, production, editorial engagement etc. to optimize Article Pipeline Management and reduce turnaround times
• Create established and trusted relationships within the team and between key stakeholders to ensure buy-in for focus areas
• Suggest system and process improvements and together with relevant stakeholders implement these via a Plan, Do, Check, Act methodology, reporting on realized benefits and adjusting as needed
• Monitor secondary items like editor, author and reviewer satisfaction, submission & acceptance rates to make sure improvements in TAT do not come at the expense of other objectives
• Enhance our reporting infrastructure with thoughtful recommendations
• Where needed create your own insights from the data available, where possible partner with our Reporting & Insights team to improve upon our reporting infrastructure
• Recommend metrics, KPI, data definitions and graphical depictions that will help the team and the wider stakeholder community to understand the status of our pipeline better

Key Relationships

• Publishers, as primary owners of the SN journals
• Production, to optimize various parts of the publication process
• Editors and the editorial engagement team, as decision maker on articles
• Reviewers and the reviewer engagement team, who play a crucial part in the end-to-end process
• Our Centre of Excellence, for project management and process optimization
• Technology, to implement necessary system changes

Experience

Experience, Skills & Qualifications

• Proven track record in strategic project management, emphasizing change implementation within pipeline/supply chain/product improvements or similar context 
• Analyst experience
• Value chain management understanding
• Work activities across multiple teams and geographic locations
• Worked in logistics or value chain management is a plus
• Understanding of the publication process is a plus

Skills

• Effective communication skills to communicate with stakeholders at any level, preferably with strong interpersonal and negotiation skills
• Analytical skills & data-oriented to generate insights to make informed decisions, identify trends and measure the success of process improvements 
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work independently
• Ability to identify improvement opportunities
• Ability to formulate concrete actions supported by numerical insights

Welcome But Not Required

• Understanding of the scientific process as it pertains to STM publishing
• Understanding of the needs of authors, referees and external editors
• Background or experience in process improvement methodologies 

Qualifications

• Graduate degree in the sciences or equivalent experience in logistics and/or publishing

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