Business Analyst

Business Analyst

Backed by a tireless commitment to high quality, innovative culinary offerings and unparalleled client and guest services, Continental consistently ranks among the top contract dining and refreshment providers in the nation according to Food Management Magazine, the industry's source for food service news and trends. Our mission is to delight our guest. Every meal. Every day. Our core values are exceptional, hospitality, collaboration, responsibility, and innovation.

The Business Analyst is a role at Continental, purpose-built to establish requirements gathering as a disciplined, scalable practice within our growing IT function. This person will serve as the connective tissue between business stakeholders and our data and technology teams—translating operational needs, finance processes, and cross-departmental workflows into clear, structured requirements that engineers and product managers can act on. Beyond managing day-to-day project needs, this role is expected to build the foundation: designing and implementing the frameworks, templates, and processes that will guide how Continental captures, refines, and delivers on business requirements as our BA team grows. We're looking for someone who is genuinely curious, someone who digs in, asks the next question, navigates ambiguity with confidence, and has the interpersonal range to work effectively across every department in the company.

• Own requirements gathering end-to-end—partnering with operational, finance, HR, culinary, and other business leaders to elicit, document, and prioritize business needs, then translating them into structured functional specifications that data engineers, product managers, and IT teams can execute against with confidence.
• Support Continental's enterprise data platform by producing source-to-target mappings, documenting transformation logic, and defining business rules that the data engineering team needs to build accurate, reliable data pipelines across our ERP, POS, HRIS, and finance systems.
• Establish and own Continental's business analysis framework—designing the standards, templates, intake workflows, and documentation practices that define how requirements are gathered and managed across IT projects. Build this practice with future scale in mind, so that as additional Business Analysts are onboarded, a repeatable, well-documented process is already in place.
• Lead user acceptance testing (UAT) for new systems, integrations, and data solutions—developing test plans, coordinating business users, and ensuring solutions meet requirements before go-live.
• Document and standardize business processes, data definitions, and KPIs to support Continental's data governance goals and enable consistent reporting across business units.
• Proactively identify process inefficiencies and data quality issues across systems, championing improvements that reduce manual work, increase accuracy, and unlock new analytical capabilities for the business.
• Support new business onboarding and M&A integration efforts by documenting existing processes, mapping data sources, and helping accelerate time-to-value for acquired entities.
• Serve as a subject matter expert on Continental's data landscape and business systems, mentoring colleagues and helping build data literacy across the organization.
• Manage multiple active workstreams simultaneously maintaining visibility into requirements status, open questions, and decision logs across projects, and proactively communicating progress, blockers, and risks to IT leadership and business stakeholders.

Ingredients for thriving include a bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Analytics, or a related field. We are looking for 5–7+ years of experience as a Business Analyst in roles where requirements gathering was a core, ongoing responsibility. Prior experience establishing or formalizing BA processes, frameworks, or standards within an organization is strongly preferred—this role is expected to build the practice, not just participate in it. Experience using AI tools (such as Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, or similar) to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate documentation, or improve efficiency is a strong plus; we want someone already operating this way, not someone who plans to.

A naturally curious mindset—someone who digs past surface-level requests to understand the underlying business need, asks the question behind the question, and doesn't stop until the requirement is actually understood. The ability to build rapport and work effectively across departments is just as important as analytical skill. Familiarity with modern data concepts—data pipelines, data warehouses, data governance, and analytics platforms—sufficient to collaborate effectively with data engineers and IT architects. A track record of taking ownership, following through, and continuously looking for ways to do things better—someone who sees friction as an opportunity. Experience working with data from enterprise systems such as ERP, POS, HRIS, or CRM platforms, with the ability to map data across systems and identify quality issues or gaps. Strong proficiency in Power BI or similar BI tools, with hands-on experience building dashboards and reports that are trusted by business users and used to drive decisions. Solid SQL skills with the ability to write queries for data exploration, validation, and reporting; experience with Azure or cloud data environments is a plus. Exceptional communication and documentation skills—able to write clear, structured requirements, facilitate productive working sessions, and present findings to technical and non-technical audiences alike. Hands-on proficiency with Jira, Confluence, and Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, Excel) for managing work and collaborating across teams. Comfortable operating in environments with ambiguity, incomplete data, and evolving priorities—able to structure problems, ask the right questions, and move work forward. Experience in a multi-location service, food service, hospitality, or distribution environment preferred.

Location(s) & logistics: Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer. The role will be hybrid with locations in Sterling Heights and Troy. Occasional travel is required for this role to visit customer sites and warehouses.

Savor the benefits: We offer a range of benefits for eligible team members, including health coverage – medical, dental, and vision; voluntary life/AD&D, short-term and long-term disability, critical illness; 401(k); paid time off; paid parental leave; wellness programs; additional perks. To see a summary of current benefits, please visit