We asked Karishma Jaitly, Credit card pricing and value analytics Director, to give her into into working in Analytics at Barclays.

How would you describe what the Strategic analytics team at Barclays do, and how the team fits into the wider business?

The Strategic Analytics team provides analytical and data support across the credit card customer lifecycle at Barclays – this ranges from defining the product proposition on our credit cards, to ongoing strategies across the customer lifecycle, to financial assessment of all strategies to maintaining and developing our data and reporting suite and much more. By partnering very closely with the business, we shape the way forward for Barclays, ensuring Barclays continues to support its customers.

What does your role involve?

My role is to help define the Barclaycard New Customer Acquisition product and channel strategy, to ensure our range of products continually provide the best value to the customer and are commercially viable – all based on robust analytics and detailed performance assessment.

How should we reach customers in the market? With what products? What has been the impact of changes in the market? How should we enhance our product propositions? These are some of the questions we answer.

How did you get into Analytics?

As I progressed in my career, I realised that I love solving business problems and I love the insights that data can provide to solve those problems. So I steered my career in the field of analytics.

After my business degree, I started my career as a Managing Consultant and then shortly moved to a global bank in a credit card analytics role – I’ve not looked back since…

What brought you to Barclays?

Over 10 years back, Barclaycard was establishing a dedicated credit card analytics team. With my past experience, I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to join the industry leader and help shape the way forward. 10 years since I still here, loving it as much as I did on day one – A very exciting and rewarding place to be!

What are the best things about working at Barclays?

The opportunity to shape strategy based on a robust, data driven thought process and impact over 10M UK customers. A wonderful environment where colleagues are truly supportive of one another. In addition, a flexible and very supportive work culture that has helped me balance my professional and personal priorities.

What does it take to succeed in Analytics?

You should truly enjoy analytics and have a keen desire to drive business strategy, while continuously learning. It’s important that you enjoy working with data to solve business problems, and able to leverage data for the insights it provides.

You need to partner with colleagues across functions (e.g. – marketing, finance, sales, credit risk, legal, technology etc), working towards a common goal. Above all, it’s about you! If you truly love the work, love coming into work and spending time with your colleagues – if that energises you, it will bring out the best in you. Success is bound to follow….