Manager - Business Analyst

We create stunning visual effects for film and episodic projects. The way we work shapes the work we make.

What’s different about Outpost?

We believe in making people matter at Outpost. We want to build a creative environment where everyone feels valued, treated with respect and able to make a positive difference every day. We’re ambitious and growing quickly but our focus remains on nurturing personal connections, supporting one another as well as making time to celebrate our collective successes. We’re always on the lookout for how we can do things better to enhance the experience of our team, our clients and the world around us.

What's in it for you?

At Outpost you have the chance to make a valuable contribution within a highly creative and supportive environment. Using your skills to be part of our journey, developing the positive culture that we want to spread throughout the VFX community as we continue to grow.

You’ll also be working alongside the incredibly talented, friendly, and genuine individuals that make up Outpost!

We're hiring a Manager, Business Analyst to drive data-driven insights, process improvements, and strategic decision-making. This hybrid role offers exposure across multiple business functions. This role will require 5+ years of experience and will be working from our Goregaon, Mumbai office.

Key responsibilities

Show performance reporting

• Build and maintain show-level performance reporting covering revenue, cost, margin, utilisation, recoverability, realised rate and shots-in-progress against budget
• Produce weekly performance packs explaining not just what moved, but why margin moved, where bench sits, and which shows need attention
• Maintain the master KPI framework across the group - definitions, sources and calculations - covering realised rate, utilisation, efficiency, labour cost per hour, workforce mix and show margin

Rate card and economic model

• Maintain the rate-card / EBITDA model and its underlying assumptions - pricing, utilisation, efficiency, workforce mix, labour cost and Cloud cost allocation
• Translate rate-card and pricing assumptions into actionable business reporting
• Provide modelling support for bid and quoting decisions using prior show performance, resource costs and benchmarks

Group-wide finance analysis

• Produce payroll, labour-cost and people-cost analysis - by department, by location, by show
• Produce departmental cost analysis, utilisation reporting and bench analysis
• Prepare and Post monthly payroll journal ensuring payroll costs, taxes and benefits, bonuses and accruals are accurately recorded
• Support headcount reporting and analysis across UK, Montreal and Mumbai
• Surface areas of concern, variance against budget and commercial opportunity for the Commercial FD and leadership team to act on

Data and systems

• Extract, clean and integrate data from production systems (Shotgun, Ftrack or equivalent), HR and payroll systems, and Xero
• Build and maintain reporting tools in Power BI or equivalent BI platform
• Develop and improve data pipelines so that operational data flows into finance reporting with minimum manual intervention
• Document data sources, definitions and refresh cadences so the reporting is reproducible and not dependent on a single person

Commercial finance support

• Provide the Commercial FD with reforecast inputs, margin analysis and pipeline reporting
• Contribute to budgeting and planning cycles with show-level, departmental and historical labour-economics analysis
• Prepare clear, well-structured analysis to enable senior decisions - the role facilitates the challenge to producers and operations leads rather than leading it directly

Cross-team working

• Work closely with show producers and operations leads across UK, Canada and India to source the right data
• Partner with HR and payroll on people-cost reporting and headcount analysis
• Coordinate with the broader Mumbai finance team under pastoral leadership of the Senior Finance Manager

Key skills

Essential

• Strong SQL and proven experience building reporting in Power BI, Tableau or equivalent
• Advanced Excel - modelling, complex formulas, Power Query
• Demonstrable experience working with operational and financial data in a project-based, people-intensive business (VFX, post-production, animation, agency, architecture, consulting or similar)
• Understands the economic model of a service business - rate card, utilisation, realised rate, bench, labour cost - and how operational decisions translate to margin
• Finance literacy - P&L, margins, contribution, working capital - and able to connect operational data to financial outcomes
• Strong written communication; produces clear, well-structured analysis that supports senior decision-making
• Curious and self-directed - willing to dig into data to find the story rather than waiting to be told what to look for
• 5+ years' relevant experience

Desirable

• Light scripting (Python or similar) to extract and transform data from production system APIs
• Experience of Xero or similar cloud accounting platforms
• Experience of Shotgun, Ftrack or other VFX production tracking systems
• Accountancy qualification (part-qualified, qualified or qualified-by-experience)
• Exposure to creative industries, VFX, post-production, animation or media
• Experience working with payroll and HR data

Personal attributes

• Intellectually curious - wants to understand why the numbers are what they are, not just report them
• Pragmatic - comfortable building something good enough fast, then iterating
• Strong documenter - builds reproducible processes, not personal knowledge silos
• Discreet - handles sensitive payroll and people data with appropriate care
• Confident working across time zones with UK and Mumbai-based colleagues

What happens next?

If you think Outpost sounds like a good fit for you, or you simply want to chat with someone about the role and our culture, get in touch today!

Equal opportunities

At Outpost we believe that our strength lies in our differences. These help us to take different perspectives, challenge norms and create a special environment based on mutual respect. Outpost is an equal opportunities employer. Employment with us is based on a person’s extraordinary talent and potential. No candidate will receive any less favourable treatment based on their age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual preference, or any other factor that has no bearing on an individual’s ability to perform their job.